The men who ruined your pick'ems
When they said that Hero Bans would shake up the meta and favour some teams in the June Joust, they probably meant that maybe the Paris Eternal could probably squeak a win against a middle of the pack team, or the Hangzhou Spark could find a lineup with a roster that really worked for them. If they meant the nuclear explosion that happened in Week 6 was the actual intention of Hero Bans, then maybe we’ve made a grave mistake.
An even graver mistake is having Hero Pools when you get points for successful match predictions in Pick'ems… Wow, the Week 6 matches were like Black Tuesday for anyone who had the audacity to even consider that a higher-ranked team would come out with a win against a lower-ranked team. Philadelphia beats New York? Wrong. Shanghai beats Hangzhou? Wrong. Washington takes a single map? Wrong. How anyone cracked 20 points for the first weekend is beyond comprehension.
But as the Overwatch League community progresses to the final stage of grief (acceptance), let’s take a moment to acknowledge the players who participated in the massacre of everyone’s Pick'ems this past weekend. There are four players, particularly, who sat alongside a match MVP in-game, but who put in just as much work in causing the upset and who really should’ve gotten that type of recognition post-match. They might not have been the flashiest player on the team, but they certainly were just as impactful.
Click to enlargeBERNAR – Hangzhou vs Shanghai
Se-won "BERNAR" Shin has had a weird career in the Overwatch League. He’s such an incredibly well-regarded player from his time on Fusion University and BKStars, that he was probably a top-five rookie pick up for anyone who could grab him in 2020. Unfortunately, his value was lost on the London Spitfire’s rookie workshop roster, and he had an incredibly quiet debut season. He couldn’t really stand out as much as people would’ve expected, and with the inability of that London roster to perform against the rest of the APAC region, it made it tough to really cheer for BERNAR’s success as a rookie.
Now, because the May Melee was such a disaster for the Spark, many people had written off their potential as a roster, but of course, their dominance this past weekend has brought them back to the forefront of the conversation. Xu "guxue" Qiulin may have gotten the MVP nod against the Dragons, but it was BERNAR’s D.Va and Sigma that really put the hurt into Shanghai’s ability to salvage that match. BERNAR really shone this past weekend, ultimately doing a beautiful job in shutting down the games of Shanghai’s Role-Star DPS lineup and giving his own damage dealers a much easier time to make impact plays. He was there for the damage follow up, the in-your-face space denies; it was impressive how well BERNAR was able to sync with his team and be at the right place at the right time.
Click to enlargeEILEEN – Guangzhou vs New York
Yes, darling rookie Se-hwan "ChoiSehwan" Choi absolutely pounded the New York Excelsior in their match last Sunday, but please everyone, let’s not forget that the Charge lost a map once they subbed out ChoiSehwan’s DPS partner, and put in another player who just simply wasn’t as capable. That’s right; you can’t give praise to Choi’s performance without giving the same to Ou "Eileen" Yiliang, who debatably changes the Charge’s skill-ceiling single-handedly. Society has progressed past the need for Zou "MYKaylee" Zijie; Eileen is now our new lord and saviour.
Seriously, though, how was Eileen on the bench for the majority of the May Melee when he just simply destroys this well? His Doomfist performance during Nepal is one for the history books. He singlehandedly lowered the value of the NYXL franchise while probably increasing the negotiating price of his salary for the next five years, with just a five-minute performance on Doomfist. Eileen, master of Dragon Blades and destroying NYXL fans’ hopes and dreams. Must be all that HERBALIFE they keep feeding him.
JAKE – Houston vs Florida
The king has returned, Jacob “JAKE” Lyon has graced us with his presence in the server once again. Like Michael Jordan for the Chicago Bulls, JAKE is that star for the Houston Outlaws. A storied veteran with tons of star quality, this time around he’s going to carry Houston to six Overwatch League titles and make millions of dollars in endorsement deals and Overwatch-themed movie tie-ins.
Okay, so maybe JAKE isn’t Michael Jordan, and the Outlaws aren’t the ’98 Chicago Bulls, but at the very least, it is pretty cool to see JAKE back in the league as a player, and the Outlaws performing at a level they haven’t even sniffed at since Stage 1 of 2018. The guy takes a year off from professional play, comes back as this revolutionary coach/DPS/support player hybrid, helps lead his team to a starting 5-1 record, and he hasn’t gotten an MVP nod yet? C’mon Overwatch League!
Jake is playing Mercy, Brigitte, and Junkrat in the same match, and not only that, but he also put on a freak Junkrat performance that hasn’t been seen since the Inaugural Season. The Jakerat full held the Florida Mayhem on Anubis in 2021; it really doesn’t get better than that!
FEATH5R – New York vs Philadelphia
The June Joust is crazy because sometimes this tournament will both giveth and taketh away. See, it was a rough time to be a NYXL fan during the May Melee. Basically, your team had all these rookies who were kind of melting at the whim of teams they should at least be performing well against, and as the common phrase goes, they were kind of dropping their spaghetti all over the floor. Really, no one knew what the team was going to actually be capable of, and the stress of losing starts to weigh pretty heavily.
However, everything changed in their match against the Philadelphia Fusion, where all of a sudden, they’re absolutely destroying their bitter rivals in some brutal displays of skill and power. Youngwoo “Flora” Lim got a deserved MVP nod for his performance in this game, but wow, did Seungwoo "FEATH5R" Lee, completely embarrass Dong-jun "Rascal" Kim on the Echo in this match. Maybe it speaks more to Rascal’s underperformance, but FEATH5R ran the train, he conducted it, and he demolished in the Echo matchup. It was really indicative and eye-opening to the level of skill on this NY team; the potential isn’t the problem; it’s finding the right mix to hit those highs that’s the issue. But when these guys hit, they hit hard, and FEATH5R on Echo in this match was just a pure and exciting example to help prove it.
