After receiving four utter sweeps in a row, the Guangzhou Charge have struggled to find footing in the league as of late. It was essential for them to take at least a map against the Gladiators, but the Charge fell short and the home team delivered them their fourth sweep of the stage.
Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
On Gardens Guangzhou ran 3-3 out of the gate, but Jungwoo “Happy” Lee, who came back in to play today, was the initial pickoff on the Charge. This gave LA initial control. The map was a back and forth affair with both teams reaching 99% before the end. LA won eventually but it looked very competitive overall for both teams.
On Downtown, an early kill onto Chang-hoon “rOar” Gye gave GZ the first cap of the point. The Charge continued to successfully hold the point while using as few ultimates as possible. An all out fight occurred at 99%, which the Charge successfully weathered out, tying up the map.
On Control Center, Guangzhou took the first cap with neither team losing a member in a long fight. This fight was drawn out all the way to 45% before they found themselves losing possession of the point. This round once again proved a back and forth affair, with both teams gaining at least 90% capture. However, a big D.Va bomb from Junwoo “Void” Kang secured the first map for LA in a 2-1 fashion.
On the offense the Charge staved off the Gladiators’ initial attack off of a great bio-nade from Jinseo “Shu” Kim. However in the second attack they lost Happy early as well as two of their other healers, and gave up point A after 2 minutes. Happy was picked off yet again on their defense of B, causing them to lose the round with LA having 4:25 in the time bank.
On the attack the Charge began by running DPS on offense. After several slow pushes that took up all the time bank, Guangzhou finally took the first point in overtime before switching to 3-3 off of massive plays from Happy on Widow and Hanzo as well as Hongjun “HOTBA” Choi on Pharah. They continued on to take 2 ticks on B very quickly, but were halted right before a third could be taken. The Charge eventually regrouped, and took the second point for themselves.
On the third round the Charge began on the same DPS strat to attack. Seungpyo “Rio” Oh managed to actually take nearly 60% of A by backcapping, and this brought the Gladiators back to defend the point. The Charge used the rest of their time to stack up plenty of ultimates, but in a tragic turn of events, they were off the point too long to trigger overtime and the round ended there. The fourth round went strongly in the way of LA, giving them an easy 2-0 lead at the half.
Photo via Overwatch Wiki
On their initial defense, once again a pick onto Happy gave LA the first point of the map. The Gladiators steamrolled for most of B but Guangzhou finally held meters from the goal. After this hold, they were forced to relinquish B and got pushed the rest of the map with LA having plenty of time to spare.
On the second round, two long push attempts finally yielded the first point with very few ults used by the Charge. It was efficient in ult value, but the push took almost 3 minutes off their time. The Charge found themselves halted on the beginning of B for quite some time, but a bit of over-aggression from rOar was punished and the Charge used it to push the payload. They pushed into C, but were prevented from completing the map.
Gibraltar proved to be a very one sided affair. The Gladiators had a very strong showing on the entire offense and were only halted a couple of times before completing the map with time to spare. Guangzhou’s offense was slow and hesitant, and while they did come close to securing a second point, the Gladiators outplayed them in nearly every regard.
It’s a rough time to be a Charge fan. The Charge have lost 24 maps in a row, and now sit with a -17 differential. This map certainly started out closer, but the Charge seemed to lose steam as it went on. The one hope is that they face easier teams the rest of the stage, but after recent performances from Houston and Hangzhou, neither of these seem like certain wins anymore. Stage 2 Playoff chances are nonexistent, and at this point Guangzhou faces missing out on potentially the overall playoffs too. They need to work as a unit and seriously make up some ground to even have a chance for this season.
GG @LAGladiators, we head back to the drawing board before our next match. Thanks to our fans for all your support, keep fighting together! @Hangzhou_Spark we can’t wait to play you next week #FeelTheCharge #OWL2019 #GZTough pic.twitter.com/trM8V7IeOg
— Guangzhou Charge (@GZCharge) April 14, 2019
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