In 2021 the homestands for the Overwatch League have slowly started to reintegrate themselves into the League. So far the Hangzhou Spark and the Shanghai Dragons have been able to have a homestand so far. This past weekend was the Dragon’s first homestand event. After hours of the regular matches, the NA and other regional streams were shut down, the events still continued. Here is a look at the events that happened after the regular matches were done.
You can watch all the matches here in the VODs of Bilibili. Each of the individual matches will also be linked as the header.
Both the Shanghai and the Hangzhou Homestands after the regular matches on the last day had inter-team matches that are reminiscent of all-star event matches. There were three Overwatch-related matches at the end, which had participation from the Shanghai Dragons, LA Valiant, Guangzhou Charge, and Hangzhou Spark.
Courtesy of Bilibili
It started out with the popular custom game of the gun game in which every time an elimination is secured they change heroes. The winner would get 5000 RMB, which is around 750 USD. The players were Yang ‘Molanran’ Liao, Sehwan ‘Choisehwan’ Choi, Minho ‘Architect’ Park, Xin ‘Leave’ Huang, and Byungsun ‘Fleta’ Kim. This was on Hollywood through point B. They all started on McCree and moved upwards with the goal of ending at the 19th hero.
The match went so fast, as the players were constantly changing. It wasn’t just DPS heroes, but also support and tanks that were intermingled. Choisehwan was the one who sped through the heroes that fastest. Though Leave was only one kill behind him.
It was great to see that even though the Guangzhou Charge was not present at the actual homestand as it was a bye week for them, that they were included in the event for the Chinese teams. It gave Choisehwan this opportunity to show his flexibility.
Courtesy of Bilibili
The Widow deathmatch is a fan-favorite event. This had one player representative for each Chinese team. This is a match of skill and mind games. Just like before there was one representative for each Chinese team. Yiliang ‘Eileen’ Gu, Yijia ‘Jimmy’ Lei, Shilong ‘Krystal’ Cai, Yangjie ‘Shy’ Zheng, and Jaewon ‘LIP’ Lee were the five players that were participating. Again, Eileen, though not physically present, was able to participate in the event. The winner was also awarded the same prize amount as the Gun Game.
The match just like the previous one was pure chaos. It started out with all five Widows deciding that they wanted to do a Widow tower. It was a highly contested match with amazing Widow shots across the maps. Jimmy took an early lead, but once Lip got to the top of the leaderboard he never left. The second place did fluctuate quite a bit. Lip ended up winning it, which brought the top two in a 1 v 1 deathmatch. Second place was Shy, which meant that the end game was going to be Lip versus Shy.
Courtesy of Bilibili
Throughout the whole match, the spectators of the other players were joking in chat. Shy and Lip both accidentally missed stepping on the point to contest as the time ran out, giving each other a point. It was only a first to five. The whole match was always super close with it coming to a 4 to 4 scoreline. It came down to a close-quarters shot that Lip masterfully made to secure the win.
Courtesy of Bilibili
Courtesy of Bilibili
The Inter team match was the highlight of the event. There was a combination of all the Chinese teams that were shuffled onto the two teams. The red-background team had Li ‘Nisha’ Tan, Eileen, Yu ‘Showcheng’ Cheng, Qiulin ‘Guxue’ Xu, Jaegon ‘Leejaegon’ Lee, and Minchul ‘Izayaki’ Kim. While the yellow background team was Xianyao ‘Yveltal’ Li, Choisehwan, Haomiao ‘WYA’ Qi, Jeongho ‘MCD’ Lee, Pangseung ‘Fate’ Koo, and Chengzhi ‘Molly’ He.
Map #1
They were playing on the good faithful Lijiang Tower map. They started out on Gardens, which is a great map for Echo and Pharah as there is a lot of space for them to move around. As this was no limits, the yellow-background team came out with three Pharah and three Mercy team. The red background team was wiped and quickly changed to a three Echo and three Mercy composition. They eventually switched off the comp, but to no real team comp that would be seen normally. The yellow-background team won the first point.
Trolling was inevitable in chat. The banter was mostly in English as the common language between the Chinese and Korean players. For the second map, it was night market. Maybe this was previously agreed to, but both teams flew out of spawn with a five D.Va and one Lucio composition. And yes, one of the Lucio’s was Fate and not one of the many support players on his team.
Once the yellow-background team, lost the first fight they switched to GOATs. But even that wasn’t strong enough to take on the five D.Vas. There was a lot of spawn camping and exploding mech bombs. THe red-background team decided that what is better than five D.Vas? Four Zarya’s and two supports. This match was much closer than the previous one. It went all the way to 99-99 with the red-background team winning it.
The support players in the lineup were living their non-support dreams. Four Zarya’s went against three Reinhardts and One Orisa. Both had healers to mass heal the tanks. It seemed as this was a little more serious as the supports on the teams were actually on their roles. But then three Doomfists appeared, and it was back to the free for all. In the end, after a quick spawn camp, it was the red-background team that pulled out the map and overall win.
This match was a lovely way to see members of the different teams interacting. It made the fans want even more than just that one map of control.
Importance of After-Match Event
These are the matches where the personalities of the players are seen. It is pure fun, where there is nothing but a little cash is on the line. The fact that the North American stream ends right before is a disservice to fans. Even if there is no translation for the event just being able to watch is entertaining. There needs to be a supportive air around the APAC region, especially on something as special as a homestand.
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