Written by: Bryce Jackson

Notable Matches

Los Angeles Valiant vs Los Angeles Gladiators

In the rematch for the Battle of Los Angeles we got a result that misleads anyone to how the great the match really was. The Gladiators won 4-0 in tight matches. New acquisition Fissure combined with DPS player Hydration to harass the Valiant. The Valiant had spirited efforts throughout behind Tracer specialist Soon and Flex Tank player Envy but their efforts to gain map wins were stifled at every turn.

San Francisco Shock vs Dallas Fuel

The San Francisco Shock had their best match of Overwatch League by convincingly beating the struggling Dallas Fuel 4-0. It was a grand shellacking from start to finish. DPS player Danteh was the star of the match. The Fuel were disheveled from the jump and having Danteh and the Shock tank line push em around. There was no point where the Fuel looked in control of their fates. On Route 66, Danteh ended their attack round an unbelievable 27-0 and full held the  Fuel and ended 47-1 overall.

Florida Mayhem vs Houston Outlaws

In a personally frustrating matchup, The Florida Mayhem threw a massive upset way with an inability to close out after having the Outlaws down 0-2. After being stalled on map 3 King's Row just before 3rd point, the Outlaws were able to find some semblance of the team their record mirrors and pushed all the way to win the third map. DPS player Jake who has struggled during this stage after the Junkrat patch had a god-carry moment playing as Genji on Watchpoint Gibraltar and forced the game 5. The Outlaws were able to complete the comeback convincingly on Ilios and tilt me of the face of the earth.

I was so upset that the Mayhem gave away this game after seeing TViq and Logix have their best games all season to this point. To see them make tiny mistakes that caused their demise almost play out in predicable slow motion against one of the top teams in the league was a great missed opportunity.

(Then the Mayhem had a reverse sweep of their own against the Dallas Fuel for their first win of Stage 2, so now I’m un-tilted.)

Los Angeles Gladiators vs London Spitfire

The biggest upset of the Stage, The Los Angeles Gladiators beat the London Spitfire 3-1. With Tank player Fissure playing against the team that transferred him at the beginning of Stage 2, the storyline heading in was how much this would be revenge for him. From the beginning, the Gladiators played spirited with almost every player having a highlight moment throughout. Fissure, Hydration, Asher, and Bischu all had defining moments that led to the convincing win. The Gladiators now sit 3rd in the Stage 2 standings and 8th overall.

League Notes

Overwatch League had a tumultuous week with player and coach issues:

Shanghai Dragons and coach Chen “U4” Congshan have parted ways.

London Spitfire and coach Beom-Joon “Bishop” Lee part ways.

Florida Mayhem player Joonas “Zappis" Alakurtti has reported to the team in the United States.

Shanghai Dragons DPS player Weida “Diya" Lu was absent this week after needing to return to China for personal matters. Meanwhile, all 4 new signings have visa interviews next week and are expected to arrive in the United States at the end of the month.

London sign Tank player Jang-Hyun 'T1zi' Hwang to the roster.

Dallas Fuel sign Tank player Min-Seok “OGE” Son to the roster.

Houston Outlaws coach Tae-yeong “TaiRong” Kim issued a formal warning for posting offensive material on social media. 

Los Angeles Valiant DPS player Ted “Silkthread” Wang was fined $1,000 for account sharing. 

Dallas Tank player Timo “Taimou” Kettunen issued $1,000 fine for improper language on stream.

Dallas Tank player Felix “xQc” Lengyel was fined $4,000 and suspended for 4 games for inappropriate use of a Twitch emote and poor language directed at casters.

Let’s talk about that last incident: One part of xQc’s punishment stemmed from him lashing out at casters when they criticized him during a sketch on “Watchpoint.” He tweeted that the criticism “gave him cancer.” Reacting to criticism is normal. Saying something “gave me cancer“ or relating anything to cancer is in poor taste. I’m reminded of an incident years ago between NBA players Kevin Garnett and Charlie Villenueva in which Garnett allegedly called Villenueva a “cancer patient” while trash talking on-court. Garnett after the game said he was misunderstood and meant something different but the word cancer was used in some form. We know that cancer is no joke and using it in any form is in poor taste.

The second issue with xQc is due to him using a global emote used in Twitch chat. The “Trihard” emote is a popular Twitch meme born out of a harmless incident where speed runner Mychal “Trihex’s" Thompson’s (a black man) likeness is used in the chat. In its life however, some Twitch users have used it with racial slurs and whenever someone black shows up on a Twitch stream. When it comes to xQc, his and his fan’s defense is that he uses the emote to announce his presence on stream and uses the emote in his personal streams. 

During one instance when he used the emote, Overwatch Caster Malik Forte was on stream at that time. With the history of the emote and the context in which the wider Twitch community has a history of using it, combined with the timing and the offender, the Overwatch League determined cause to suspend him. xQc has expressed directly to Malik that offense was not intended and it seems that the two of them came to a resolution on the incident. Followers of xQc’s streams accused the League of overreacting and labeling his suspension a witch hunt and spent the remainder of the week spamming the emote in the Twitch chat.

So this incident has sparked multiple issues and has brought things to light on what the league has exposed by being on this platform. For instance, I was not aware of the emote until this incident surfaced. I will say this: The emote by itself is not inherently racist. But when context is applied like using it when a black person shows up on stream makes it racist because of the history where it first became racist with TerrenceM. To xQc’s credit, on a stream approximately a week ago as of writing, xQc specifically addressed the incident and expressed that his chat not use the emote, to which their response was to spam his stream. 

This incident along with the previous incident with the casters adds as a 2nd strike to xQc is what I believe lead to another suspension. xQc’s run ins with League disciplinary action brings up a few things. One, that as a person, he needs to go through a process to change his brand and behavior on stream. He is no longer this independent entity when he decides to use his personal streams. He represents the Dallas Fuel and the League as a whole. Plus under new Twitch Community Guidelines he is, at least in part, responsible for the content in his chat. But as much as xQc’s character is not something that I am drawn to, there is a budding issue of the league dropping the hammer on incidents and the players they employ have no say. Ironically, on the OWL Daily podcast this week (Not directly connected to Overwatch League but has casters, players and others on as guests), they had Minnesota Twins (MLB) player Trevor May on the show and among other things, he brought up that other sports leagues have player unions that would fight for fair treatment of its players whether it be conduct penalties, revenue and contract disputes, or as someone on my twitter brought up, international visa and travel issues. The League is still very young and going through its growing pains but this shows that the league does need to have a Player’s Union of sorts that will fight for the players in these situations rather than Commissioner Nate Nanzer and whomever else ares the determiner of penalties have the only say.

And Twitch should have removed that emote after the first time it was being substituted in place of letters in racial slurs.

Best Performers

Danteh (DPS, San Francisco Shock)

Hydration (DPS, Los Angeles Gladiators)

Gesture (Tank, London Spitfire)

Fissure (Tank, Los Angeles Gladiators)

Jjonak (Support, New York Excelsior)

BigGoose (Support, Los Angeles Gladiators)

Fury (Flex, London Spitfire)

Envy (Flex, Los Angeles Valiant)

Update: The Dallas Fuel have released Felix "xQc" Lengyel, with an added suspension. There have been rumblings that he wanted to quit the league so his departure is no suprise.