Esports
The Overwatch League Playoffs kick off July 11 – get caught up on all the action so far and take a look at the six teams competing for the inaugural season’s championship title.
Just as soon as it’s begun, the inaugural season of the Overwatch League is already drawing to a close. After four stages of play, the top six teams have made it to the playoffs, where they’ll be competing for the two spots in the Grand Finals at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on July 27-28. But before Reinhart goes charging into battle, the Pharah jump jets into the sky and Widowmaker get enemies in her sights, let’s take a look back at everything that’s happened so far.
For that, we need to look back prior to the last six months of play, because anticipation for the Overwatch League had been building way before the San Francisco Shock and Los Angeles Valiant took to the stage for the debut match (which you can watch below). When Blizzard first announced their grand esports plans for the enormously popular competitive shooter the blueprint for the season seemed mightily ambitious: covering all aspects from the schedule, to how teams would form and how it would remain sustainable. Then silence – a long, agonising period of deafening quiet that turned a fan base’s excitement into worry and doubt.
During this time, speculation about the Overwatch League was rife, with discussions focusing on all the minute details we’d been fed so far. What were the fees that needed to be paid to own a franchise? Which big names inside or outside of esports would be investing? How easy the game would be to follow as a viewer? The questions piled up and yet Blizzard were being coy with any concrete answers. From the outside, it seemed like the league was about to self-destruct before it had even started.
Yet, it only took the first day of games in Stage One to deflect away all those dissenting voices. The viewing figures backed it up too, as Activision announced that more than 10 million viewers tuned in during the season’s opening week with a peak concurrent viewership of 437,000 during the match between Dallas Fuel and Seoul Dynasty. Fans were hooked.
Flying high
Stage One would eventually go to the London Spitfire – one of the strongest looking teams heading into the tournament. They took the tough route, though, having to best the Houston Outlaws in the semi-finals before the title match against New York Excelsior. That clash went right down to the wire, with the number three ranked Spitfire only just sealing a 3-2 victory, thanks in large part to star players such as Ji-hyeok ‘birdring’ Kim, Joon-yeong ‘Profit’ Park and Seung-tae ‘Bdosin’ Choi.
However, the London Spitfire have been unable to maintain that level of performance throughout the other league stages. Sure, they made it to the title matches again in Stage Two, but exited in third place. Meanwhile, their league position slipped to sixth and then ninth in Stage Three and Stage Four. Nevertheless, their overall record has just allowed them to sneak into the Playoffs as the fifth seed.
The Spitfire’s situation is closely mirrored by the Philadelphia Fusion, who has claimed the sixth OWL Playoff spot. They had a strong showing in Stage Two of the league, beating London Spitfire in the semi-final title match, but fell to the might of NYXL in the final. Their performances in the other stages have been mostly middling, yet they just managed to sneak in with the same win-loss record as the Spitfire. Still, there’s a difficult path ahead of them in this month’s playoffs even with the best battle Mercy in the league and players like Jae-hyeok ‘Carpe’ Lee popping off on Widowmaker.
It all starts with their first opponents: Boston Uprising. The Stage Three runners-up are the only team to have a perfect 10-0 record during a single league stage. Yet, that impressive win streak wasn’t enough to best NYXL in the title match final. The team’s results in the other stages show consistency above all, so it’ll be interesting to see if key players such as Stanislav ‘Mistakes’ Danilov and Young-jin ‘Gamsu’ Noh can boost their play heading into the playoffs.
On the other side of the bracket, London Spitfire will face the fourth seed Los Angeles Gladiators in their opening playoff match. This is a team that’s improved immeasurably over the course of the inaugural season, having gone from finishing Stage One in eighth to finishing Stage Four in first. Unfortunately, they lost their first title match against the eventual winners Los Angeles Valiant, but that momentum should serve them well over the coming weeks.
Speaking of the Valiant, they qualify for the OWL Playoffs as the second seed and – minus a small dip during Stage Two – are looking very threatening. DPS players Brady ‘Agilities’ Girardi, Terence ‘SoOn’ Tarlier and key support Young-seo ‘KariV’ Park are going to be the ones to watch in their playoff push. With their recent Stage Four victory over the NYXL buoying them up, their confidence should be sky high.
Excelsior, indeed
And, as much faith as we have in both the Spitfire and the Gladiators to contest them, there’s a likely rematch awaiting the Valiant against New York Excelsior in the Grand Finals. When you look at the quality of players on the NYXL team, though, it’s easy to see why they’ve dominated throughout all four stages of the Overwatch League.
You could name any single one and you’d hit upon a playmaker. There’s Jong-ryeol ‘Saebyeolbe’ Park, the self-proclaimed ‘Best Tracer in the World’. There’s Do-hyeon ‘Pine’ Kim, who manages to dazzle with his pinpoint accuracy on heroes such as Widowmaker and McCree. There’s tank player Joon-hwa ‘Janus’ Song, or support Sung-hyeon ‘JJoNak’ Bang – New York Excelsior’s roster is exceptionally stacked. When it comes to the Overwatch League Playoffs, they will be the team to beat.
So, there it is, twelve teams whittled down to just six. Near misses for teams such as the Houston Outlaws and Seoul Dynasty show promise for the second season of the Overwatch League. Meanwhile, we’ve also seen Dallas Fuel perform phenomenally in Stage Four and stake an early claim for a top spot next season. That said, an influx of new teams could mix things up even further, and maybe even the Shanghai Dragons will find that elusive first win. For now, though, all eyes turn to the Overwatch League Playoffs from July 11.
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