The Day 1 Certified Elite – OWL Grand Finals Weekend
Certified freak, at least one day this week. While there are so many incredible performances coming out of the first day of the Overwatch League, it’s so difficult to determine who really was the most elite player of the tournament today. Honestly, almost any player from the four teams who played could be considered the top performer. The two San Francisco Shock supports who kept the team firmly in the series, Jae-hee "Gesture" Hong’s Roadhog swagger or Dong-eon "FITS" Kim’s Widowmaker level up for the Seoul Dynasty, Byung-sun "Fleta" Kim’s sheer monstrous oppression on Hanzo and Tracer, or even Shanghai Dragons special agent, Su-min "SADO" Kim.
But with so many candidates, the ultimate decision has to be for a player who is often overlooked, left out from the narrative, but who played a huge role in making complete mincemeat of the Philadelphia Fusion, and that is Min-chul "IZaYaKI" Kim.
IZaYaKI has had a relatively quiet season, even though he’s the flex support for arguably the best team in the world right now. While he may often trade playtime with Seong-hyeon "Luffy" Yang, the Dragons came out in full force with him on the starting lineup and looked almost disrespectful while doing it.
People have criticised the Dragons recently for looking weak or not as dominant as they’re expected to, but today they made the Fusion look like a side act at the circus because outside of the first control map, it wasn’t even close. IZaYaKI essentially served as the team’s third Damage player with his Zenyatta this round, completely oppressing the enemy snipers with his volleys and discords tank line.
On top of that, he was not afraid to truly pull off some wild decisions against the enemy team, even transcending straight into the enemy backline to personally kick Kyung-bo "Alarm" Kim in the mouth. Truly an incredible way to completely boom the enemy into an inescapable pit of despair.
That’s the most striking thing about IZaYaKI today. The Philadelphia Fusion had two role stars coming into the match, the 2020 Rookie of the Year, and yet they looked absolutely clueless and lost against the Shanghai Dragons. IZaYaKI, pulled off a complete mackerel-smacking to Alarm and the other members of the Philadelphia Fusion, all while being mostly overlooked the majority of the season. Every time the cameras went to the players of the Shanghai Dragons, it seemed like they were laughing the majority of the match, and IZaYaKI was right there with his teammates, clowning it up in one of the most important matches of the season.
A massacre of a game, but it was a stellar performance for a stellar player on a stellar team. His Zenyatta was the difference-maker, the X-Factor that helped the Shanghai Dragons pull ahead against Philadelphia’s more Ana-oriented composition. With him, the Dragons DPS and tanks, had an easier time taking space and taking duels while IZaYaKI was working with some dominating firepower. Here’s to looking forward and seeing how IZaYaKI and the rest of the Dragons fare as they face off against the San Francisco Shock.
All images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment