Overwatch League: Opening Week
Just when I thought I couldn't be any more obsessed with Overwatch, Blizzard went and made a whole eSports league just for themselves.
I've only had a fleeting interest in eSports before this, only having a general idea of what was going on in Call of Duty's tournaments. Then Blizzard had the Overwatch World Cup. At first I only had the same fleeting interest after watching recaps from some of the games. Then I saw what South Korea did in a match. I was in awe. The frenetic and precise play was nothing I had ever seen. The team fight was over so quickly. This was probably my first hook. So as the inaugural season came closer I said I would give this a chance, throwing my support behind the Florida Mayhem solely on the fact that I live in Florida. So there's my story, on to the recap. I don't know if I will cover every week, but I'll give my initial thoughts on the opening week's biggest games.
Opening Day
Los Angeles Valiant vs San Francisco Shock
First match of the season saw the Valiant decisively defeating the Shock 4-0. Don't the scoreline fool you with how the games went, they were all close and intense games where the Shock picked up points in every round but the Valiant were just a little bit better that their opponents with Soon, Agilities, and Envy being the big playmakers.
Los Angeles Gladiator vs Shanghai Dragons
The Gladiators showed how the league has its tiers of competition, decisively taking care of the Dragons in 4-0 and blanking them on multiple maps. With certain teams only gathering players from similar countries, it shows that play style of China lags a little behind of other teams composed of South Korean or a composition of players of different backgrounds. Shaz's crazy play on Zenyatta and Surefour's Tracer carried the way with harassing the opposition and ending team fights.
Seoul Dynasty vs Dallas Fuel
In the main event of the night and one of the best matches of the opening week, the Dynasty reformed their rivalry with the Fuel and won the first match day 2-1-1. If you were to talk to anyone else about Overwatch League, it's a good chance they will reference their match at Temple of Anubis that ended 6-5 after a flurry of great point captures and offense. Normally, 2 CP (Control Point) matches at Anubis end in either 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, or 2-2. The Overwatch teams formerly know as Lunatic Hai (Seoul) and Team NV (Dallas) brought us a show most notably seen at APEX Tournaments in South Korea and that intensity came stateside and didn't disappoint. Dallas was able to get the first match then dropped the following two and settling for the draw in the final of the mandatory 4 match games.
Other Matches
London Spitfire vs Florida Mayhem
In the opening match of the Florida Mayhem's season, they lost to the London Spitfire 3-1. The Mayhem picked up the opening round win but lost the momentum when they lost a hotly contested Temple of Anubis 2-1 and was unable to get any more important points in the remaining rounds.
Philadelphia Fusion vs Houston Outlaws
The first match that needed the decisive 5th match saw the Fusion beat league favorites Outlaws in their first match of the year 3-2 with ShadowBurn and Carpe carrying the Fusion early on.
Boston Uprising vs New York Excelsior
In what turned into a 3-1 victory for NYXL, a crowd favorite was born. XL DPS player Pine rose up as a crowd favorite with his bright colored hair, magnetic personality and sick McCree plays. He filled up the kill feed constantly, either finishing off weak Uprising players or doing it all himself (with a little damage boosting from Mercy). The thing with Pine was that he was only substituted in to play Ilios, wrecked house, then was subbed out, but was named Player of the Game and set himself in the hearts of fans (including me) in that amount of time.
Los Angeles Valiant vs Dallas Fuel
With the home crowd in their favor, the Valiant took down the Dallas Fuel 3-0-1, handing them an early 2nd loss in the OWL season. With Dallas now at the bottom of the standing only ahead by way of total match points, and more tough matches in Week 2, it sets up an interesting storyline in the season that not many expected.
Notables for the Future
Overwatch League's Week 1 Viewer Count on Twitch reached a high of 416,000 on the first day. It will be interesting to see how the numbers maintain over the length of the season. My prediction would be that the viewership will have peaks and valleys with lower viewership in the middle part of each season stage and higher at the beginning and end of the 4 season stages and consistency high in the playoffs. The overall production on Twitch has been great with only a few audio hiccups that I assume should easily be flushed out as the season goes on. The casters and analyst have been especially good, albeit sometimes cringe inducing but what sports league doesn't have that one?
It will be interesting to see how the league will shape out when it comes to how each team's player rosters are set up. The Korean based teams have shown to be the most dominant, surprising no one that knows of the eSports situation in South Korea. With Seoul, New York, and London, being comprised of whole starters from Korea, it will be interesting to see if there will be either a worthy challenger from the rest of the field as they get more familiar with their teammates to the level that the All-Korean teams currently have.
Specifically to the Florida Mayhem, they looked outclassed in their matches in Week 1 and the shallow roster (minimum of 6 when 6 is needed to play, allowing for no substitutions) doesn't allow for much variety. Though management may be confident in the flexibility of their roster, it will be interesting to see if they choose to sign other players as the season progresses.
With league favorites Dallas Fuel and Houston Outlaws starting their seasons 0-2, it creates an interesting power composition in the league that may be interesting to see play out in the first league stage. Given that the Fuel had one of the hardest early season matchups playing the Dynasty and the LA Valiant, its only a little surprising that they are 0-2. They play each other in Week 2 so one of the hyped power teams could end up going 0-3 early. The Fuel plays the currently undefeated London Spitfire and the Valiant plays the Shanghai Dragons to end Week 2.