The Justice face another one of their difficult opponents in Stage 1. Although the Dynasty played a different roster than before, the Justice’s attempts to stop their losing streak continued to remain futile. This match was important for the Dynasty to try to make it into the stage playoffs. With their current map record, they needed this win to increase their chances before going up against the Spitfire.
The match started out with Seoul getting an early capture from a pick off on Gi-hyeon “Ado” Chon. After that, Seoul continued to defend the point with a shatter from Min-seo “Marve1” Hwang. The Justice captured the point at 97% in their third push after exchanging a better Graviton Surge-Self-Destruct combo that chipped away enough team damage to wipe Seoul. However, in one of the next pushes, the Dynasty captured off of a Graviton Surge and would continue to hold the point to take round 1.
Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
The next map started with Junhwa “Janus” Song getting knocked out as the Dynasty outdo the amount of healing the Justice can provide. Although the Justice got a sneaky capture in the next fight, Seoul still managed to win the fight and re-capture the point. In the next push, teams exchange bombs. Hyang-ki “SanSam” Kim’s bomb picked off the baby D.va from Seoul, winning them the fight. However, Joon-hyuk “zunba” Kim ate Corey “Corey” Nigra’s Graviton Surge in the next push, giving Seoul the momentum they need to capture the point. They didn’t manage to properly fight again. The Justice lost this map 0-2.
Hollywood Justice 1-2 Dynasty
Ethan “Stratus” Yankel was switched in for Gi-do “Gido” Moon, which is interesting as the team seems to constantly play Stratus in the flex support role. They ended up playing Stratus as their Zenyatta player. On the first rotation from Seoul, the Dynasty managed to pick off Janus first again. Even though the Justice took out some of the other players, the Dynasty continued to definitely win fights. This gave Seoul the momentum to push through point A and half of streets. Despite Corey trying to push the fight in their favour with his Graviton Surge, Marve1 got an early pick on two players. This ended the fight prematurely and Seoul captured point B. Seoul faced little to no resistance at the end of the map as Janus is the first to get picked off every fight.
2019-03-03 / Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
Seoul played their first defense carefully to hold the Justice. Despite a huge Earthshatter from Janus, Jehong “ryujehong” Ryu used his Transcendence to counteract it. They held the fight with the Graviton Surge Self-Destruct combo. On the next push, the Justice used that same combo to win themselves the fight as the Dynasty were out of ultimates to defend with. Washington managed to continue pushing through streets with SanSam repositioning Seoul into another Earthshatter from Janus. In the next fight, Seoul held Washington through another Graviton Surge-Self Destruct combo that got SanSam’s mech and Janus. They captured point B on their next fight with yet another massive Earthshatter from Janus, then continued to push midway into point C with their Graviton Surge. Janus got another fight winning Earthshatter which gives them point C.
On Washington’s second attack, their small time bank and a strong defense from Seoul meant the Justice were full held. On the Dynasty’s first push, they picked off Corey first and gained enough momentum to quickly capture the first tick they needed. The Justice lost to the Dynasty 3-4.
Gido is substituted back in for Stratus. The Justice lost the first fight after a long, slow fight. They put off the snowball with their supports’ ultimates, but the Dynasty managed to pick off the main tank and captured point B on the next push.
On attack, the Justice executed an intelligent rotation in the right room of Anubis point A that net them the first kill on ryujehong and gave them the first point. Corey got picked off after a long exchange of utimates on point B, halting the snowball. The Justice, having used most of their ultimates, continued to lose the next few fights. This pattern continues due to better positioning and defense from the Dynasty. Right at the end, with a minute remaining, Washington came back to life with a pick from Janus and Sansam eating a Graviton Surge. However, Seoul met this tit for tat with Zunba eating Corey’s Graviton Surge. At the end, Washington finally captured point B in overtime off the back of a massive Earthshatter from Janus.
On defense, the Justice had to hold for almost 6 minutes to tie the map, having already lost the match. Once again, the fight started with an early pick off on Janus and the Justice lost the map 2-3.
Image courtesy of Overwatch
The Justice put up an impressive fight, managing to match Seoul’s time bank with only 8 seconds difference.
In extra rounds, the Justice looked incredibly coordinated and well timed, managing to push the payload all the way through to the middle of point B. This was in spite of having less than two minutes to push the payload. This gave them a chance to also hold the Dynasty on the many chokes in Dorado. The Justice end up taking this map as they manage to hold the Dynasty at very first choke on point A.
Conclusion
Once again, the case can be made that the Justice have an incredibly difficult schedule. This means the games will likely remain lost, with the only game with a chance of winning being against the Mayhem. Although there is visible growth, there will still be some time before Washington shows enough consistency to have a fighting chances against some of the higher tier teams in the League.
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