Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
On Village, Guangzhou came out with a very unorthodox strategy, featuring triple dps with Hongjun “Hotba” Choi on Pharah, Jungwoo “Happy” Lee on Hanzo, and Yiliang “Eileen” Ou playing his titular Sombra. An early pick onto Benjamin “BigGoose” Isohanni from Hotba gave the Charge a chance, but a loss of Eileen by João Pedro “Hydration” Goes Telleson Roadhog gave the Gladiators the first capture percentage. The Charge took a long fight to get back the point, but a Hotba barrage got a triple kill and the Charge retook at 57%. An insane Nano-barrage combo from Hotba and Jinseo “Shu” Kim lead to a full team-wipe, and kept the Charge in control. In the end, Guangzhou won off of a Hanzo double dragonstrike kill from Happy.
The Charge began the second round by running a Winston GOATS on Sanctum. An initial pick on Hydration gave the Charge the first capture percentage. They continued to hold the point, deftly shutting down the Gladiators at every push. However with an aggressive defense, an attempted back-cap from Chang-hoon “rOar” Gye distracted the Charge and they lost the point at 99%. They didn’t achieve much success in the following pushes, but at 99% they finally secured the point again and won the map.
On the Offense, Guangzhou lost Shu on first push, ending it short. On the second, Happy’s super quick grav results in Roar’s death, and conversely Guiun “Decay” Jang’s grav gets nothing, giving the Charge a teamkill to get the point. The Charge had a very one-sided push through most of B, but finally lost control of the point off of a double kill from Junwoo “Void” Kang’s D.Va bomb. An all out brawl near end of B finally led to the capture by the Charge. Most of point C was a back and forth affair, resulting in an overtime push, but insane plays from Shu managed to get the Charge a third point on King’s Row.
On the Defense, an early pick on Seungpyo “Rio” Oh caused the Charge to need to back off the point, allowing several ticks from the Gladiators. The Charge managed to come back at the last second to contest and hold the point for a bit longer, until it was inevitably lost. The Charge got mostly rolled on B and were unable to stabilize until halfway through C. However, poor ult management on Guangzhou’s side let the Gladiators finish with a much larger time bank.
On round 3 the Gladiators only needed one tick to win the map, with the Charge merely playing for the draw. They drained the clock for over a minute and a half, but the Gladiators finally managed to crack the defenses and take their first map of the game.
Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
With the Charge starting out on defense, the Gladiators took a long rotation and pushed the Charge out of position, but eventually they held off the attackers. With LA’s second push the Charge attempted a fight on the point but eventually lost it. Yet they did force out most of the Gladiators’ ultimates to prevent the snowball. After an all-out brawl they did give up two ticks, but barely manage to stabilize on the point. For the rest of the round they continued to hold and drain out the clock. However, an aggressive play from BigGoose set up an opening and allowed the Gladiators to take in overtime.
On their offense, the Charge took the same long path that the Gladiators did, and repeated it through their entire round, but found very little success in this method. After two failed pushes with less than a minute left, the Charge finally began taking ticks in overtime. Yet in the end, they were unable to take a single point on Anubis.
On their defense, Guangzhou waited to truly engage in a fight until Happy’s grav was online. However, as soon as he launched it, Rio was taken down, and Roar’s counter-shatter came in and allowed the Gladiators to sweep the first point. The Charge willingly let up a lot of point B, and finally stabilized near the end of it. They stalled for several minutes until the Gladiators finally took the point in overtime. Another back and forth on C eventually went the way of the Charge, and a successful hold came in meters from the goal.
The Charge had a rough time on A, and lost a lot of time pushing through the middle of the segment. This led to an insanely long overtime fight right at the end of A that nearly spelled doom for the Charge, but somehow with an insane miracle victory, they clutched out just enough kills to secure the point. This was all for naught in the end, as they still lost possession of the payload halfway through B, and never could regain it, officially dropping the match here.
It’s difficult to realistically fault the Charge for their loss today,as with rOar and Decay really starting to fit in with the returning 2018 squad just this week, the Gladiators are looking like the much stronger team that everyone expected. The Charge did make some odd decisions this match, such as trying to play Anubis the way the Gladiators did and failing. Rio was also very outmatched in the main tank battle all afternoon. The Charge did once again win control, proving they’re the kings of that map type, and do extremely well in dps-favored maps. Had the match went to a 5th map it’s likely they would have won. However, this 3-1 loss does severely hurt the Charge’s chances of making Stage 1 playoffs.
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