A Pulse Bomb, An Infra-Sight, And A Dream – Elites Of The Week
It’s finally here. After months of constant adjustments due to COVID, the constant fluctuation due to hero pools, and a continuous stream of Overwatch matches, it’s finally time for the season to end, and for the last few teams to lay it all out on the line. This is it, only two teams will make it out of each region of the Overwatch League to the Final Four, and with the first round of playoffs concluded, it’s becoming apparent who the key movers and shakers are.
Some of the best Overwatch the community has seen all year is being played right now, and teams are laying it all out to win these crucial matches. The stories, the strategies - it’s all culminating now into these few final matches. The best players, the coolest moments - they’re all here in this week’s Elites of the Week.
Click to enlargeHee-Su "Heesu" Jeong - Philadelphia's Sombra is unphased through Gladiator's dishonesty
It says a lot as to the talent on the Fusion's roster that they don't have to run their MVP candidate Jae-hyeok "Carpe" Lee all the time, that any combination of players can just instantly click and work. That's the beautiful thing about these top teams, especially the Fusion, the way they play together and absolutely punish the mistakes from the other teams is brutal.
If the Glads thought their cheeky Pharah/Hog strategies could give them the edge, Heesu and the Fusion responded with a resounding "meh". Gladiators played well for the most part, but Philadelphia's ability to almost always execute on the game plan is virtually unheard of. They just barely make mistakes, they always keep their heads in the game, and look for opportunities to capitalise. It was Heesu's Sombra that made the Gladiator's lives miserable, the hack and EMP timings were too much for LAG to handle. Crazy in the neutral, clutch decision making - Heesu is living up to the hype.
Jae-hee "Gesture" Hong – Hooking for a new crown
There's always the rumbling that the former OWL champions, Gesture, Seung-tae "Bdosin" Choi, and Joon-yeong "Profit" Park could suddenly return to the peak playoff form that we saw back in 2018. Currently, that narrative is holding weight. Seoul found a resurgence against the Hangzhou Spark and Guangzhou Charge, to dominate them both 3-0. A good amount of that was due to Gesture's complete swagger on the Roadhog, absolutely destroying both teams with his flanks and survivability. The Hog meta lives on in both the Washington Justice and the Dynasty, and Gesture has been playing the pulled pork with absolute style. "Main tank players? Sure, we got them right here", Seoul says as they play the Roadhog/D.Va composition with Gesture and Min-seo "Marve1" Hwang.
Click to enlargeMatthew "super" DeLisi – Sometimes flaming your teammates is good
Out of nowhere, the San Francisco Shock found themselves on a map five against the Justice. After getting dominated in the first half, and then slowly running it back. On Map five, super gets subbed in and rallies his team to victory by manhandling the Washington Justice on Roadhog. The Shock has a legacy to protect, and super is a 2019 role star and champion, he was not about to let his team fall to the worst team in their region by running Myeong-hwan "smurf" Yoo on Zarya. Super came in to personally make sure that the Justice knew their place. They were not going to beat the defending champions today, and super hooked their upper bracket hopes right off the map, and into the lower bracket.
Hugo "SharP" Sahlberg – Revenge from the Gauntlet
The Atlanta Reign promoted a lot of Atlanta Academy players to the main roster this season, the same ones who fell to Element Mystic at the grand finals of The Gauntlet. Not only did these players finally beat those former champions to send them to the lower bracket to ultimately be destroyed by the Washington Justice, but they also did it with SharP. Once a rival from the dominant Team Envy and one of Europe's many DPS prodigies from the Contenders scene, SharP was subbed in to play with a burning fire and a purpose. People heavily criticise whenever Atlanta makes substitutions from their star players Tae-hoon "Edison" Kim and Joon "Erster" Jeong, but this time, SharP delivered strong performances to justify his place.
Many had forgotten he was one of the most anticipated European players coming into this season, and he had been overshadowed. But he pounded Paris in the maps he played, and he showed up big. Props to him for proving his worth as a player, and proving he can be a core member for the Atlanta Reign.
Click to enlargeJong-ryeol "Saebyeolbe" Park and Hae-seong "Libero" Kim - A Pulse Bomb, an Infra-Sight, and a Dream
The NYXL may have fallen to the Shanghai Dragons in the upper bracket, but they played their hearts out against them, and New York hasn't looked as good as this in forever. Saebyeolbe put on a monster performance, a career highlight performance since the 2018 era. A special treat for the fans of the captain, more so for NYXL fans who got to see Libero debut in the playoffs on Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Here he locked in the Widowmaker and provided the perfect bait performance to lull the Dragons away from the neutral fight. He also gave LIP a little run for his money too.
But the real big moment came in on XL's final push on their attack, where they had held the Dragons before the second point. At this time, they had less than 15 seconds to cap the point or lose the series. They were fighting into the Dragons' Pulse Bomb, Valkyrie, and the infamous Hangar high ground control, with only the Saebyeolbe Pulse Bomb and Libero's infra-sight. They pulled off absolute magic, nailing Shanghai's Ana with a bomb, New York builds a Primar Rage, and Libero wins the Widowmaker duel. Ana is resurrected, killed again, and from there on out, and it was all over. Excellent clutch from New York to turn that situation into their favour - and a great moment.
The Overwatch League playoffs continue on September 11.
All images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment