OWL Weekly – Roster Swaps & Paris Eternal shocks at Summer Showdown

Overwatch 2
July 22, 2020
Jordan Ashley

The Overwatch League is progressing onwards, despite a change in circumstances forced by the outbreak. The League has just put out details on how the Grand Finals of this season are going to happen. The Summer Showdown was also an eventful tournament worth talking about. Even if the stadiums are not filled with fans, OWL League is alive and active. Over the last few weeks, OWL roster changes have had a big impact on the outcome of matches however.

A shock upset at the Summer Showdown has shown how losing a lot of players in OWL roster swap might have hurt San Francisco Shock, even if they’ve bounced back in matches since. This is what you need to know about recent events in the Overwatch League.

Paris Eternal shocks at Summer Showdown

Artwork by @ahan1112

OWL Roster Swaps

Roster Swaps in Overwatch League happen quite a lot, so there’s not enough time to cover every single player that has moved around. That would be a little dull, but Liquidpedia’s version here can help if that’s what you’re after. One particularly notable transfer was San Francisco Shocks signed the first Japanese player on the Overwatch League. Sean Taiyo “ta1yo” Henderson, the former DPS player for Third Impact. Hopefully, this new addition from an OWL roster swap can help them step up their currently lacking Genji game and the massive void Sinatraa left.

Paris Eternal got great results at the recent Summer Showdown, particularly against San Francisco Shock who they transferred their Genji player over to Hangzhou Spark. Paris Eternal haven’t been free of roster changes either. They’ve lost HyP, Kruise, and Greyy over the course of the 2020 season. They have since signed Fielder and FDGoD to fill their team back up. The demanding schedule of OWL is continuing to have an effect on players though. A lot of players are increasingly citing health reasons as their reasons for retiring.

With big players causing constant roster swaps due to health, and others like Sinatra leaving for Valorant, it adds fuel to the constant fire of fans asking is Overwatch dying. The league is still healthy though, with some of the most entertaining matches in a long time taking place.

The Summer Showdown

San Francisco Shock have continued to put in a great performance in the Overwatch League in July. Their recent match against Boston Uprising was savage at times, with their main tank stepping into DPS. This isn’t much of a shocker given the standings of the two teams, but the game was pretty entertaining.

While that match might have gone their way, all attention at the moment is on San Francisco Shock’s let down in the Summer Showdown. The Paris Eternal came out of the event with a great performance and the title. Few people looking at Overwatch betting would have predicted that the team would take home the entire event, but their performance definitely warranted it.

Paris Eternal beat out both Philadelphia Fusion and San Francisco Shock, even after a fairly up and down season. The Summer Showdown was a feel-good event for anyone who likes to root for the underdog, and more upsets like this will help to keep OWL interesting even without filled stadiums watching matches.

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