Winners and Losers: OWL Week One

The first week of Overwatch League action is now in the history books and new narratives were created as others stayed the same. Shanghai Dragons and Houston Outlaws faced a difficult first week that saw their fans have to temper some expectations. While other teams like Paris Eternal and Chengdu Hunters exceeded expectations with the unfolding of the week.

For some teams, week one results may be a forecast of the difficulty of their season. For others, this week is just a jump start to the system en route to play off aspirations. To recap all the action of the week, its time to break down our week one winners and losers within the Overwatch League.

Winners circle

Philadelphia Fusion got off a great start this year as they dominated their old foes London Spitfire with their GOATS composition. While not all aspects of their game were perfect, Fusion have shown they aren’t taking the early season lying down and are pushing themselves for greatness. Moving forward, expect Fusion to get another easy two wins under their belt as they face Florida Mayhem and Dallas Fuel im Week Two.

Hangzhou Spark came into the 2019 season with the most hype of any other expansion team, barring Vancouver. Spark have the luxury of having not one, but two absolute rocks in the Main Tank role in Jeong “NoSmite” Da-un and Xu “guxue” Qiulin. As the season progresses expect more headlines featuring those two players. Their next week’s encounter versus London Spitfire should indicate exactly how strong they are as a roster.

Chengdu Hunters surprised everyone this week as they picked up a victory before Shanghai Dragons won their first. While the win may be a bright spot to this early season, Hunters have their work cut out for them as they face Seoul Dynasty this coming Thursday.

Falling from grace?

London Spitfire have to be public enemy number one after their dismal week one performance. Many aspects of their play seemed off from the get-go, with Birdring not playing properly around his team and Fury being caught out almost at will versus Philly Fusion. Next week’s matches will give a proper indicator of where London are at this season. Can they rally behind Profit or will they be doomed for disaster in their title defense year?

© Blizzard Entertainment

The Houston Outlaws suffered a large amount of scrutiny this weekend on reddit for some of their abysmal plays. Under the microscope this week was Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty as his plays on Zenyatta (or lack thereof) became the weekly punching bag for the competitive OW community. While some of those plays were extremely questionable, there is still time to turn around bad runs of form and the Outlaws will be hell bent to do so in week two.

Shanghai Dragons are now 0-42 in their all-time record within the Overwatch League. Although they lost both games, promising moments came from their team as Son “CoMa” Kyung-Woo showed there is still talent to be seen on this squad. Week two will be a blessing in disguise for Shanghai as they face a bye week and have a full week of practice to plan strategies in order to succeed.