Stage 4 Week 3 of the regular Overwatch League season was certainly an interesting one. We got to see the fourth battle for Los Angeles, some teams that we thought were on the up and up gave us some less than impressive performances, and the best team in the League got upset by another underrated roster. Let’s catch up on all the excitement that’s gone down this past week.
San Francisco Shocking the World
The casters and analysts have said this multiple times, but we all knew that the San Francisco Shock were a team that was meant to flourish only in the long run. They were a pretty weak team at the start of the season, always sitting at the bottom of the standings, but they’ve really come into their own now that their new players are all starting to get into the groove of things. Just this past week, they secured wins in both of their matches against Boston and even the Dallas Fuel.
The Boston Uprising played the Shock pretty closely, but ultimately, San Francisco still managed to secure a rather convincing victory. The team seems to panic a lot less now when they’re caught in tight situations, and the management of their ult economy also seems to be improving. Even the Dallas Fuel, who have been playing extremely well in the Stage 4 meta, were unable to win against the Shock – a feat that’s made even more remarkable, considering that the Shock was still pretty reliant on dive comps, which should be easily countered by Brigitte.
Shields Down, Wings Out
This week in the Overwatch League presented us with yet another epic battle between the two Los Angeles teams. The Valiant are currently in the number two spot in the overall standings, while the Gladiators were trying to climb their way up from number six. The map pool seemed to favor the Gladiators, and considering that the Valiant didn’t exactly have a star player or someone who could make clutch plays for them like Surefour or Fissure could, everyone thought the Gladiators had it in the bag.
However, SoOn and Agilities played out of their minds as the DPS members, Kariv and Custa were synergizing well as the supports, and the tank play from Space and Fate just brought the Valiant to a whole new level. The match was very close, but ultimately, the Valiant were able to walk away with a 3-0 victory.
Was New York Even Trying?
In another strange match-up, the New York Excelsior had a rather questionable performance against the Los Angeles Valiant. New York primarily relied on dive comps, even when the Valiant were running Brigitte, and there were countless plays from the east coast team that seemed a little reckless or sloppy. It’s worth bearing in mind that New York has already confirmed their spot in the season playoffs, and the team has stated that they’re going to take it a little easier for the rest of the season, but it was still disheartening for fans to see their team lose a match that they should have taken with ease. Especially when you consider how hard New York bodied the Valiant in the Stage 3 playoffs.
Either way, we have to give credit to Space and Agilities for making the clutch plays for this team. The series went all the way to a game five on Nepal, where Space’s Roadhog play pulled the team out of the fire a few times to secure the point for them. The Valiant are sitting very comfortably in their number two spot right now, and this victory should give the team some confidence going into the season playoffs.
Our Favorite Play of the Week
We have to give it to SoOn this week for his insane Widow skills on Gibraltar during the New York match. The Los Angeles Valiant had to win Gibraltar in order to go to a map five, and SoOn was able to beat Pine in the Widow duel at the final point.
Woah, THIS widow duel 🤯! @SoOn99 #OWL2018
Live: https://t.co/U6dIipgQGs pic.twitter.com/NqzlFyqy7M
— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) June 2, 2018
Mano was able to grab Custa in the backline, but that didn’t matter as the rest of the Valiant were focusing on the payload. Kariv and Space had already taken care of both supports by this point, and once SoOn took out Pine, the rest of the Excelsior just crumbled around them. SoOn nailed another headshot on Meko who was just de-meched, then grappled onto the point to take down the emergency Doomfist to push the payload over the finish line. Very nicely done.
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