One Week of Glorious Overwatch League Chengdu Hunters Meta
The OWLs Nest is CheckpointXP’s official podcast for the Overwatch League. Every episode Robbie Landis is joined by Jake Lyon to discuss the latest league moves, matches, and more. This episode Robbie and Jake talk about the one glorious week of Overwatch League where the Chengdu Hunters off-meta playstyle became meta.
Never Meta
The Chengdu Hunters have never been a top tier team in the Overwatch League. But, they’re not sitting at the bottom like a Boston Uprising or Washington Justice either. With or without top tier performance, the Hunter’s have always been a fan favorite team to watch and cheer on. This is primarily because, in a world full of conformity and teams who play the meta, Chengdu stands defiant. With their main tank Ding “Ameng” Menghan specializing in Wrecking Ball play, they’ve always been fun to watch and breath of fresh air, win or lose.
But two weeks ago something unexpected happened when the Chengdu Hunters beat the New York Excelsior in a reverse sweep. There was one moment on Havana just before the reverse sweep started where the New York Excelsior swapped their composition so include a Wrecking Ball and mirror Chengdu. It was brief, but that was the beginning of what we would see the following week.
Chengdu Style
Chengdu played their own style and took the Seoul Dynasty to a game five where Ameng and his crew took another win. Then we saw the rookie roster of the London Spitfire run the Chengdu style composition against the Shanghai Dragons. They nearly beat them as well, but the Dragons secured the win in a game five. The next big surprise came during the game between the New York Excelsior and the previous tournament champs, the Guangzhou Charge. Both teams were running the Wrecking Ball composition! Everyone was playing the Chengdu Style!
The trend didn’t bleed over into the North American region too much and sadly, it probably won’t continue. The hero pool bans are now gone and heroes Orisa and Ana are back on the roster. That means we’re going to see a quick return to double shields and Genji blades. But, for one glorious week, the Chengdu Hunters were the meta.
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