Overwatch League Recap: Seoul vs Houston

Seoul WIN 4-0 vs Houston

Oasis – Seoul 2-1 Houston

If Houston were able to find value in playing DPS compositions against the League’s strongest team, Vancouver, then it would work against Seoul. For the first stage in City Center, it seemed so. The second stage would have the Dynasty swapping from a DPS composition to a more standard style around Dongeon “Fits” Kim on Sombra. This forced the Outlaws onto the mirror but with a Zenyatta.

Ryu “Ryujehong” Jehong on Moira would preemptively deal with the pressure and burst damage the Outlaws were playing. The immediate swap to triple tank and support would be the demise of Houston on Control. Playing the long game around their ultimates and over coming Dante “Danteh” Cruz ‘s Sombra and Jacob “Jake” Lyon’s Pharah on University.

Paris – Seoul 4-3 Houston

Seoul were able to blaze through their first attack with a standard triple tank and support composition. With Minseo “Marve1” Hwang playing Winston, Seoul were able to isolate and lock down targets of Houston as they were rotating or poking.

Even on defense Seoul were able to sustain the fight with a variation of their attack. Ryujehong enabling the front line in isolating targets at the choke almost had the Outlaws full held. Without having a secondary defensive ultimate as Seoul held onto the Ana, did not set up for the snow ball behind Alexandre “Spree” Vanhomwegen’s high charged Zarya. Forcing Seoul to stall, the Outlaws eventually captured all three ticks and the second point.

With exhausting most of the time bank through the opening rounds, Seoul deflected a double capture. Houston were able to catch Seoul off guard in the opening fight to lose the first. Seoul were able to play almost surgically in waiting for Danteh to find a hack and punish the dive as it came in from Houston.

Only needing a single tick meant the Dynasty could walk in on second and find an easy capture. Fits had Grav and he was able to catch many resources from Houston.

Blizzard World – Seoul 3-0 Houston

Seoul had four minutes to push through the third stage of Hybrid. The payload never really stalled out through a few fights where the Outlaws had ultimates. Seoul would always prevail through the fight with composed resource management. Marve1 maintained shield pressure from very strong terrain rotation to lead his team to victory taking little to no damage.

For two minutes Houston would try and force their DPS composition around Seoul’s standard 3-3 with Reinhardt. Shutting down Danteh‘s EMP showed high level defensive play from Houston. Even through an entire ultimate faze, the Dynasty had the resources to deflect. With only giving up two ticks Seoul secure the series.

Rialto – Seoul 4-3 Houston

The Dynasty would find themselves in a situation where they could play triple support but with Munchkin on Ana instead. Without a defensive D.va, Houston were open to a lot of damage including a biotic grenade from Seoul’s DPS player. Over-sustaining in the fight while Danteh looked for hacks would give the resource advantage to Seoul as they captured all three points. The Outlaws only fought back when investing EMP and Shatter but exhausted the time down to 1:21.

Houston wouldn’t change their composition for defense and through an early rotation from Seoul, had them split and punished from Houston’s cart control. A massive shatter from Muma would keep the tempo in the Outlaws favor. Houston have found their stride in making Seoul overstep while Houston disengaged. Every other engagement, Marve1 would step out of the line of sight from the burst healing from Sangbeom “Munchkin” Byun  on Brigitte. This allowed them to have complete control to capture the last point, but with less time.

Through extensive adaptations, Seoul would turn the aggression up to eleven. More than that they would stay more grouped together reaping the benefits of the cleave damage from Marve1 and the area of effect (or AOE) healing of Munchkin and Jinmo “Tobi” Yang. By forcing Houston to be aggressive with little time in a long fight Seoul would stall the cart on the first turn after the initial bridge.

With a fast trade of Reinhardts, Ryujehong was able to build his Transcendence first. Using it immediately gave Seoul the edge into Houston’s back line. Finding Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty before getting his support ultimate out gave Seoul the man advantage due to spawns and the four point victory.

Player of the match: Marve1

Coming into his own on the main tank role has allowed Seoul to play many different styles. Playing mostly aggressive he also has the patient and reactive style from Stage 1. Picking the engagement times while maintaining shield pressure allowed the Dynasty to win the majority of the neutral fights.

Conclusion

With the level of tempo change Seoul showed today they appear unstoppable. Although against a weaker team in the Houston Outlaws, Seoul were still able to find the edge even when their resources were down. Tobi was able to shine with displacement against the enemy tanks, or Marve1 in cleaving through the entire Houston roster. The Seoul Dynasty were able to adapt their playstyle to whatever Houston threw at them.

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