Around the OWL: Week Two Recap

With another week of Overwatch League action under wraps, the cream of the crop is rising as other teams have fallen into losing slumps. This week, Dallas Fuel made a major gamble raising the stakes of their game against Philadelphia Fusion. Vancouver Titans proved their worth over the course of the weekend and New York Excelsior overcame adversity to secure two wins.

Shanghai make history

After a tough first week outing, Shanghai Dragons finally made history being the last team of the four Chinese Overwatch rosters currently in the league to secure a win. Historically, Shanghai suffered a successive 42 losses in a row before securing their first win over the Boston Uprising this past weekend. Starring in their win this week was flex DPS player Yang “DDing” Jin-hyeok as his clutch Sombra play made the difference in their series.

© Shanghai Dragons

Former Boston Uprising player Noh “Gamsu” Young-jin also played a vital role in Shanghai’s first win. After replacing Geguri in the second game, he really started to show his experience against his previous team and the result was all but confirmed from then on. Going forward, Shanghai have a serious blueprint for success behind their ample tank line.

Dallas double down

Dallas Fuel added more fuel to the fire this past week as one of their coaches publicly came out and claimed that their GOATS playstyle was far superior than that of their Week Two opponents, Philadelphia Fusion. After Fusion’s star DPS player retorted to those comments and claimed ‘we shall see’ over Dallas’ trash talk, the Dallas Fuel showed their dominance in a 3-1 trouncing of last season’s finalists.

The win did not follow Dallas’ regular MO of one player doing far more than the rest. In fact, EFFECT’s impact on the game was muted almost to a stand still as his impact on Brigitte is not up to par with the rest of the league. Instead, the strength from Dallas in this win came from their team as a whole as they were put in a position to succeed behind some stellar tank play from Son “OGE” Min-seok.

London Spitfire return to form?

London Spitfire did not have the cleanest second week by any means, but after going winless in their first week, a 2-0 to balance out the scales is not a bad anchor at all. While London were able to get back to .500 it wasn’t necessarily their decisiveness in victory that got them ahead rather than their opponent’s failures.

Washington Justice just barely lost their series to London and there were a few 50-50 plays that could’ve decided the game in their favor if not for some crucial miscommunication. Hangzhou Spark also suffered some confidence issues in Week Two that were not there in their first dominant week of play. Yes, London did bounce back in a big way but there is much to be desired from their own strategy and teamplay if they want to crack into the top 5 OWL teams on a consistent basis.

© London Spitfire

New York and Vancouver keep momentum

While many fans began to doubt Vancouver Titans on their first Stage success this year, their perfect record thus far has silenced the doubters. Vancouver have shown their proficiency on GOATS meta more so than the other full Korean teams. It seems like their final split in Contenders: Korea was a solid boot camp in preparation for the Overwatch League, and the results are speaking for themselves.

New York Excelsior have once again shown their prowess this week. Their strength in numbers has been the difference maker this year as they have relied heavily on tank staples such as Mano, Neko and Nenne instead of their household names in DPS. At this point, there is an argument to be made for their GOATS being one of the more solid ones, and even still once the meta changes New York have the versatility to succeed. At the end of Stage One playoffs, NYXL may be upset once again with their lack of competition en route to the first round, but the regular season giants are still showing their strength.