Guangzhou Charge: Stage 1 Week 5 Preview

After looking shaky last week, the players of the Guangzhou Charge need to pull themselves together for the final week of the stage if they want a shot at making the stage playoffs. They sit right at the cusp of missing out at the moment, and in order to lock in that spot they’ll need to win their next match. Unfortunately for them, this is against the Vancouver Titans, one of the league’s strongest powerhouses. Although the Titans have shown weakness thus far, it’ll take a near miracle for the Charge to win this battle.

Week 4 Recap

Los Angeles Gladiators (3-4)

After dominating the Atlanta Reign 4-0, the LA Gladiators had clearly found their groove late into the stage. Unfortunately for the Guangzhou Charge, this meant fighting a team that became revamped and formidable nearly overnight. While many of the maps seemed close, the Charge failed to take the win in the series. As a result, they dropped down to 8th place in the standings.

Player of the Match

The player who shined the most in this match-up had to be Hong-Jun “Hotba” Choi. On top of playing D.Va at such a high level, he showed the audience once again why he’s renowned as a flex monster by switching onto the Pharah, a pick no one had seen from him before on stage, and destroying on Nepal, the Charge’s most dominant map.

Do you #FeelTheCharge from @shu_overwatch & @HOTBA_OW yet!?

Cause they’re all charged up. #OWL2019

LIVE: https://t.co/U6dIipgQGs pic.twitter.com/rGaRB81Ylm

— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) March 9, 2019

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Week 5 Preview

Vancouver Titans (6-0)

Photo: Ben Pursell for Blizzard Entertainment

The Vancouver Titans are currently second place in the league for a reason; they have strong team synergy, experience on GOATS, an insanely aggressive main tank player in Park “Bumper” Sang-beom, and a nine-man versatile roster. However, they Titans have shown weakness against both the Chengdu Hunters in their last match, and the Charge itself the last time they faced off. It is entirely possible that the Charge could pull off a miracle and take this match like they almost did before by being unpredictable, using heavy DPS combinations and forcing that game 5 that the Charge nearly always do so well on. However, while this would be sweet poetic justice for the Charge, it’s an unlikely outcome.

Prediction: Vancouver 3 – Guangzhou 1

Player to Watch

Image Courtesy of @GZCharge on Twitter

This week, the player to keep an eye on would have to be Jung-yeon “Chara” Kim. Chara has definitely not been talked about much due to how many strong plays his teammates have put out. Yet he’s always been a solid member of the team, providing shot-calling and doing his job completely under the radar. When Bumper’s overaggressive plays come in, Chara needs to be the one to disrupt and isolate him from his team in order for the Charge to come in with the kills. Additionally he needs to stay alive in the back line in order to keep the team moving forward.

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