This series was not one that the Los Angeles Valiant were expected to win. The Shock were fresh out of a silver medal placing in the Stage 1 playoffs, and the Valiant were winless. Everything went as expected, and now it’s back to the drawing board for Los Angeles.
Courtesy of Gamespot
The first round took place on MEKA Base. It ended up being very one-sided in favor of the Shock, with the Valiant only able to grab 29% in total by the end of the round. San Francisco had overall better ultimate usage, and were the team finding most of the picks. Much of the time, the Los Angeles Valiant could barely leave their spawn.
The second round brought the teams to Sanctuary. The Valiant had an even tougher time, unable to capture the point even once. In similar style to round one, they still struggled to get a good foothold and fight back against the Shock’s unrelenting assault. The round ended with a two-man D.Va bomb from San Francisco off-tank Hyo-bin “ChoiHyoBin” Choi.
The map ended 2-0 in favor of the San Francisco Shock.
Courtesy of Gamepedia
On map two, the Los Angeles Valiant decided to substitute in Brady “Agilities” Girardi for Jun-hyeok “Bunny” Chae. The Valiant started on the attack for round one. They had a considerably slow start, with each of their capture attempts being shutdown by the Shock for several minutes. Their last second attempt at taking point A was extremely scrappy, but slowly and surely, the Valiant were able to dismantle San Francisco. Though, they suffered a similar fate trying to take point B. Try after try, the Shock’s damage was simply too overwhelming for the majority of the time. Despite this, thanks to a nice Earthshatter from Pan-seung “Fate” Koo, the Valiant turned the fight greatly in their favor, flushed the Shock out, and claimed point B with 0:19 in their time bank.
The Los Angeles Valiant were swiftly defeated on point A during their defense after two crucial picks onto their members, and the Shock immediately went for a rush attack onto point B. The attack proved to be successful, and the Shock, before the fight even ended, took point B with 6:44 left.
With only one minute in total to act, the Valiant tried to take point A, but the Shock held steady and did not let them through.
In the next round, San Francisco found an early pick onto Agilities, but what caused the Los Angeles Valiant to ultimately lose point A was a lack of members on it.
The map ended 3-2 in favor of the San Francisco Shock.
Courtesy of Overwatch Wiki
The Valiant started on the attack on Blizzard World. After a decently long stalemate, Valiant DPS Kyle “KSF” Frandanisa found a nice headshot, and kill, with Hanzo onto Shock support Dong-jun “Rascal” Kim. Despite this, the Shock were able to strike back with enough force to wipe out Los Angeles. San Francisco maintained their defense until the round went into overtime, where the Valiant finally found the necessary picks, and captured point A. They struggled greatly on point B, only able to push the payload close to the end of the point in overtime before the Shock, waiting patiently for a mistake to be made, finally ran them over after an eaten Graviton Surge from KSF.
The Valiant had an equally rough time on defense, where a rather scrappy fight that started out in their favor quickly went sour after some crucial picks from the Shock. San Francisco were able to capitalize and captured point A. In the end, Los Angeles could not hold off the Shock on point B, and they finished the map.
The map ended 2-1 in favor of the San Francisco Shock.
Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
Map four had the Valiant starting on the attack again. The round started extremely rough for them, but they eventually broke through the Shock’s spawn camp defense. Though, San Francisco quickly regained composure and held their ground. Los Angeles ended the round with 0 points, nearly getting to the end of point A.
The Shock had to fight a couple times, but overall had little trouble matching the Valiant’s distance pushed. They finished out Gibraltar with ease.
The map ended 1-0 in favor of the San Francisco Shock.
This was an expected loss for the Los Angeles Valiant, but they looked especially weak in this match. However, the Shock are clearly not average opponents in the league. They are regarded as one of the best, and that’s how they played. It’s safe to say, though, that the Valiant are not at the same level they were last season, and that the reason lies most likely in the meta. Still, a winless record this far into the season definitely does not help their morale.
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Featured image courtesy of the Overwatch League
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