Overwatch League Recap: Guangzhou Charge vs Paris Eternal

Paris Eternal 4 – Guangzhou Charge 0

With a fresh new patch to play on and their first match against one of the bottom five teams of the league, the Charge were expected to pull off an easy initial victory. However, the game was anything but easy for Guangzhou as they ended up on the receiving end of a dominating Eternal.

Oasis: Paris 2 – Guangzhou 0

Both the Garden and University phases of this map went in a relatively similar back and forth fashion. Both rounds even went to near 99% for both teams before Paris overwhelmed the Charge each time to secure the win. On Garden the Charge ran a Winston GOATS variant which never fully got the kills that were needed. And on University, while a McCree/Orisa strategy was a good idea, not switching off once they lost the point cost them the map. They entered the rest of the match with a first map loss, one of the only times this has happened to them.

Paris: Paris 2 – Guangzhou 0

Photo courtesy of Overwatch

On a shaky initial defense, Guangzhou lost point A to a multi-DPS composition from the Eternal which almost turned into a snowball. While the Charge lost some initial percentage, on B they finally stabilized and fended off the Eternal. The Charge continued to hold for several minutes, but were overwhelmed in the end by well placed ults by Paris.

On the offensive, after seeing Paris running a bunker comp, Guangzhou chose to opt into a super bunker comp. This involved Bastion, D.Va, Orisa, Reinhardt, Mercy and the new support Baptiste who was played by Finley “Kyb” Adisi. However, while entertaining, Paris’ Sombra was easily able to dismantle the composition and the Charge were unable to take a single tick on A.

Eichenwalde: Paris 3 – Guangzhou 2

The Charge began on a unique triple DPS composition with Jungwoo “Happy” Lee on Solider: 76 and Hongjun “HOTBA” Choi on Pharah, but were rolled over easily on Point A after losing Jungyeon “Chara” Kim who was on Mercy. Paris continued a dominant push through the majority of the map, only being halted twice, one of those being inches from the end of Eichenwalde. Guangzhou held this final point for several minutes, but in the end were forced off the payload with 1:30 in the time bank.

On the offense, while it took some more time than Paris to execute, the Charge successfully took their first point of the game by using a similar 3-DPS composition. The Charge were stalled on the second point, but entered the castle with time still on the clock. They chose to switch to standard GOATS at this point, and eventually pushed through most of C, but were prevented from finishing the map, giving the Eternal the match win.

Junkertown: Paris 3 – Guangzhou 2

Photo courtesy of Polygon

The initial defense for the Charge proved disastrous, as Paris ran a pirate ship composition through all three parts of the map. The poor Guangzhou Charge were never able to dislodge the team from the payload. They were completely steamrolled and lost with a huge amount of time in Paris’ reserve.

On their offensive push, the Charge attempted their own similar composition. Once again it took longer to setup, however they began to come alive in this final map and pull off some powerful plays, especially from Happy on Widowmaker. Ultimately after reaching point C the Charge’s momentum began to wear off and they refused to swap to GOATS until less than 30 seconds were left. With that they were bombarded by Paris’ stack of ultimates. The Charge couldn’t complete this map either, giving them their second 0-4 finish in a row.

Conclusion:

It’s hard to say how much of this match was Paris being completely underestimated and how much was poor play from Guangzhou. Most of all, it seemed the Charge looked completely caught off guard in the first half, and though they did come alive in the second, they were on less favorable maps and it was too late to make a comeback.

The most glaring issue the Charge appeared to have was their stubbornness when it came to changing compositions; they continued to run Orisa and Bastion despite losing possession of the point, and they never switched off that composition on Paris that did not seem to gain anything for them. Whenever they did switch to GOATS it was usually far too late to be effective, showing they are likely doubtful of their own skills with the composition. Despite some strong individual plays especially from Happy, the Charge once again looked nervous, akin to their first ever game against the Chengdu Hunters. If they want to succeed this stage they’ll need to overcome that and find a playstyle that truly works for them in this current meta.

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