Four Matches Impact on the Seoul Dynasty

Four matches. That is the number of games that the community will get to see their team play in each mini-tournaments. That means that it is an overall of 16 matches. That is a far cry from the previous seasons that had many more matches per stage as well as overall in the season. With such a long offseason, it is a harrowing reality that there will only be 16 matches of the regular season to watch that specifically has your team in it. How will this impact the teams’ season performance with a shorter season? For the Seoul Dynasty, what does history and the trend of the team’s performances predict for this season’s outcome?

Courtesy of Daebakowl

Pros:

The Seoul Dynasty has always better good at perfecting one meta. The shortened amount of time and games per ‘stage ‘/mini-tournament means that there won’t be as many drastic meta shifts for the team to deal with. That means they could run through a whole mini-tournament before a team finds a counter or is able to master the composition better than them. This was seen when Jaehui ‘Gesture’ Hong was put on Hog at the end of Season 3, and teams such as the Hangzhou Spark and Guangzhou Charge were not able to find an answer for it in time.

Courtesy of the Overwatch League

With fewer matches means there is more tournament time. Therefore it has more tournament format time. That is a place in which the Dynasty has had a great amount of success in the past. A lot of that comes from Junyoung ‘Profit’ Park and his bump in performance when it is a tournament final on the line. The May Melee and, of course, the Season 3 grand final is a standout when it comes to the Seoul Dynasty and their track record with tournaments.

Cons:

There are many examples since their inception that show that it takes the Seoul Dynasty a little longer to warm up. With only four matches that doesn’t leave any teams a lot of wiggle room. A team like the Dynasty who have been in the past, very momentum-based could lose a game and have that spiral. The narratives that then would follow could continue that spiral. The four matches don’t give any redemption arc possibilities within each mini-tournament.

Courtesy of Bilibili

It also puts a lot of pressure on all the players. With previous formats, teams could afford to lose a game here and there as it would average out. The numbers are no longer in their favor. Each weekend that the team plays is a double hitter that means that the attention the week before is split. Canonically, Seoul did better the weeks that they didn’t have to split their focus. The two matches seemed to have an effect of playing a super close match against the harder opponent and then looking underprepared for the easier match. This is something that the Dynasty is going to have to fix, as in the APAC region there are no solo weeks in the regular schedule.

Four matches

Four matches change the dynamics within the League. Each team needs to make the most of every match. There is going to need to be a shift in the mindset of many of these teams. There are a lot of positive aspects for the Dynasty to look forward to in this new format, but also a few deadly pitfalls. It will be crucial that the players and staff circumvent these so that it can be a successful season.

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