Stage 1 is officially in the books, and the Guangzhou Charge had their fair share of ups and downs in it. Coming into Stage 2 with a 3-4 record in 11th place, the Charge need to pick up momentum and start climbing back up the leaderboard. They absolutely have potential, but Stage 2 will not be easy for them, as they face several of the top teams in the first few weeks. With huge patch changes coming into this stage, a brand new support hero and possibly an entirely new meta, it’s time to see how the Guangzhou Charge can hold up in their first week.
Image Courtesy of Stewart Volland For Blizzard Entertainment
Facing off against another 3-4 team on the very first night, the Charge’s initial matchup should give some insight as to their level of play in the current meta. Paris may be near the bottom of the rankings, but they have a highly stacked lineup, especially in the DPS field. While Guangzhou is more likely to pull off a win given the skill they’ve shown on triple dps comps in the past, this will truly be their proving ground for the stage. Even this early, losing here would almost guarantee missing the stage playoffs for a second time, so they’ll need to come out strong with everything they have.
Prediction: Guangzhou 3 – Paris 1
There are only four returning maps from the previous stage, one from each category. There’s the control map Busan, the escort map Rialto, the assault map Temple of Anubis, and the hybrid map King’s Row. For both Anubis and King’s Row, Guangzhou has a 50% winrate (one win and one loss). On Busan they’re undefeated 3-0, but on Rialto their record is the opposite at 0-3. This means that overall the Charge should be about average when it comes to taking advantage of the returning map pool.
Image Courtesy of @SFShock on Twitter
Don’t let the Shock’s sixth place position be misleading; this is the team that took Vancouver to Game 7 in the Stage 1 Playoff Finals. The Shock are likely one of the top four teams of the league at the moment, and even with a changing meta, they should still be given extreme caution. Their deep roster pool also proves dangerous, as with 12 players to Guangzhou’s seven, they’ll be far more flexible with hero selection. The Charge should expect a rough battle, and hope that they are able to match San Francisco’s decisive but controlled aggression. This match-up in particular will be important for Guangzhou, as they’ll be facing the Shock yet again in the following week, and if they could win this first game and get that momentum towards the second, it would be huge for their whole stage chances.
Prediction: San Francisco 3 – Guangzhou 1
Image Courtesy of @GZCharge on Twitter
In this new meta, it’s not certain who the Charge will choose to field as their dps players, as they have three to choose from. Therefore, rather than a single player, keep an eye on whichever dps Guangzhou elects to play. They’ll mostly likely play Jungwoo “Happy” Lee due to his insane hitscan skill, but that other slot will likely be filled by either Finley “Kyb” Adisi or Yiliang “Eileen” Ou, and like before they might rotate depending on the map type. Both players are known for their Genji and Sombra (as well as Brigitte), but either one might have a deeper pool than that, and it’ll be interesting to see which one fits the new patch better.
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