Overwatch: Can the Shock Handle the GOATS Meta?

OWL is only a couple of weeks away, and GOATS is still around, despite multiple nerfs to key components of the composition.

OWL teams should be preparing to play at least a few weeks with this dominant composition. This leaves a few teams with some interesting decisions to make as to who plays what role. The Shock are no exception. The Shock have some very flexible players, so who to use when could be a tough decision. Here are a few things that the Shock are likely keeping in mind when choosing the GOATS starting roster.

The Givens

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There are a few positions that are pretty easy to predict. These positions can be narrowed down to just two people, if not one.

Grant “Moth” Espe will almost certainly be on Lucio duties. This will probably hold true for other compositions as well, as he is the only main support player on the roster.

Rein and D.Va duties are fairly flushed out as well. Both of them have two players competing for the role. Matthew “Super” Delisi and Myeong-hwan “Smurf” Yoo will be competing for the main tank role, while Andreas “Nevix” Karlsson and Hyo-bin “ChoiHyoBin” Choi will compete for the off tank role. Flex support will also have two players competing, with Nikola “Sleepy” Andrews and Min-ki “Viol2t” Park looking to take the starting job.

The Questions

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

Things become way less cut and dry when we get to the next two Heroes in the equation: Brigitte and Zarya.

Jay “Sinatraa” Won played a ton of Zarya last season. He also shared Brigitte duties with Min-ho “Architect” Park. But new additions Nam-joo “Striker” Kwon and Dong-jun “Rascal” Kim slightly complicate. Both of them could potentially challenge Sinatraa for the Zarya role, but Sinatraa is known for his excellent Zarya. Unless he has fallen off a cliff in scrims, he seems to be a likely Zarya candidate. And Brigitte is anyone’s guess.

However, the main question is something completely different: How well will the team actually be able to run GOATS?

GOATS v. GOATS games require immense coordination. One mishap and the fight is over.

The Shock will have to prove that they can coordinate at the highest level. This roster has had several new additions, and there are questions as to how well they will mesh together. An uncoordinated GOATS team will get rolled in a mirror GOATS game.

The biggest question is will the Shock be able to coordinate GOATS effectively?

Moth is an insane shotcaller, which does help. And the Shock do hypothetically have the tools to make a GOATs comp work.

But the coordination is a big question mark. The Shock weren’t the most coordinated team in season one, and that will not fly in season two.

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Featured Image Courtesy of Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment

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