That’s a wrap, Stage 2 of the Overwatch League has finally come to a close, and we’re already halfway through the inaugural season. The playoffs have ended, we have a new victor, and the rest of the teams are looking to shake things up as well. Let’s go through some of the highlights.
New York Wins the Stage 2 Title Match
Let’s start with the big one. The Stage 2 playoff matches took place this week, and Philadelphia made it into the third place seat. They managed to beat out the London Spitfire with a 3-2 victory, and then went on to face the New York Excelsior. The Fusion managed to take the first two maps off New York, and they only needed one more win to lock it up. But just like in the Stage 1 title match, New York pulled off the reverse sweep and snatched the win away from the Fusion instead.
New York came extremely close to winning the Stage 1 title match previously but were reverse swept by London. It’s only fitting that they should pull off a reverse sweep of their own to take this match as well. Shout out to the incredible DPS and support players for coming in clutch for the team.
Sinatraa Makes His Debut
The playoffs weren’t the only exciting thing that happened this week, however. We also saw the debut of Sinatraa in the Overwatch League as he finally turned 18 and was able to play with the San Francisco Shock. Although the team did lose both of their matches that week to the Florida Mayhem and the Boston Uprising (very close 3-2 matches, however), Sinatraa still performed pretty well as Tracer.
With the addition of Sinatraa, he and Danteh are now able to run both Tracer and Genji and get a good dive attack and defense going for the Shock. Babybay is still a great DPS player (especially when they need a Soldier on the field), but for now, we see Sinatraa and Danteh being the main DPS players on this team. With Moth replacing Dhak on the Lucio role, as well as more additions coming in soon, the Shock could become a pretty scary team to watch out for going into Stage 3.
More Valiant Drama
One of the more awkward moments in the Overwatch League also took place this week as we got a glimpse at an Inside Valiant clip, a video series detailing what’s going on with the Los Angeles team. In the clip, we saw Agilities speaking with his team manager in a car parked outside an In-N-Out on a rainy night as he was told that he had one shot at proving himself in the coming matches to secure his spot as part of the starting lineup.
It all looked pretty dramatic and scripted, but it’s just further proof that things aren’t going very well with the Valiant team, and it seems that there’s some dissent about who should be playing DPS. There are talks of trades between the Valiant and Fuel as well, so hopefully, things work out soon and the Valiant can find its footing again.
Dallas Cleans Up its Act
On the other end of the spectrum, the Dallas Fuel actually impressed us this week with strong performances against the London Spitfire and New York Excelsior. Mickie has moved over to the main tank role, while Seagull is playing off-tank. Rascal has also been subbed in as Effect’s DPS partner and, well, the results speak for themselves. While the Fuel was unable to secure a win against New York or London, they did play them very closely, and they even took New York to a game five.
The Fuel still has a lot of issues to work through, particularly since their new main tank player OGE has been suspended for four matches. Even so, it’s good to see that they’re starting to become more cohesive and able to work together as a team.
Reinforcements are in For Shanghai
Perhaps the most exciting news of the week, the new players signed on to the Shanghai Dragons roster have finally arrived, and they’ll be ready to go in Stage 3. Ado and Fearless made their debuts this week and lost both matches in spectacular fashion. Still, it’s clear that these two players are pretty mechanically skilled, and perhaps they just need more time to gel with the team before they can really start to make an impact. Off-tank player Geguri has also joined the lineup, and we’re definitely looking forward to seeing how these additions can help the Dragons in Stage 3.
However, the Dragons aren’t out of the woods yet. Undead and Diya are still away on personal engagements, with the former looking less and less likely to even return to the Overwatch League. Not to mention that their new support player, Sky, as well as their new coach, Rui, have yet to arrive on-scene yet. Don’t expect the Dragons to come roaring back into Stage 3 with 4-0 victories. It’s still going to take some time before they finally have all their pieces in place.
Our Favorite Play of the Week
This week, we’re going with Fleta in the Seoul Dynasty match-up against Florida Mayhem on Nepal. The Dynasty was already was already down one point on Control, and they were just about to lose the map entirely when Fleta came in with an insane Dragonblade with Genji at the last second. That ult turned the whole thing around and paved the way for Seoul to take that point, along with the whole map after that.
We think this qualifies as said "Hero-Blade" @ow_fleta. #OWL2018
Live: https://t.co/U6dIipgQGs pic.twitter.com/pxMXuhTbYi
— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) March 24, 2018
Seriously, what would Seoul do without Fleta?
