Preview of Week 7:
THE DYNASTY BEGINS, to harken back to the Season 1 hashtag. The Seoul Dynasty and Tiger Nation finally get a match in Season 3. It is not the magnificent Seoul Homestand stage or even matches in front of a crowd, but it is gameplay. The Dynasty have not touched the stage since the beginning of the season and only time will tell if that is a hindrance or help to them. Finally here is the preview for the Seoul Dynasty’s Week 7 matches against the San Francisco Shock and LA Gladiators.
San Francisco Shock (3/21) : 1-0-0
The Seoul Dynasty is jumping into Season 3 with a bang. Their first match is going to be against the Season 2 champions the San Francisco Shock. In the offseason, the Shock have not made many changes. They have added Seonchang ‘ANS’ Lee to their lineup. He is mainly known for his Widow play from contenders. It is hard to tell where the Shock actually are in the power rankings as their one match isn’t enough of an indicator of where they are at. Most rankings have them top 3 if not #1.
Seoul need to shut down the DPS in order to win. The sheer amount of chip damage a Jay ‘Sinatraaa’ Won’s Tracer or a Dongjun ‘Rascal’ Kim’s Pharah could bring to whittle down the Dynasty could be the breaking point. If Junyoung ‘Profit’ Park can go toe to toe to shut Shinatraa down and Dongeon ‘Fits’ Kim or Jemin ‘Illicit’ Park focus Rascal or another DPS then that would allow the Seoul’s supports and tanks to do a lot of work.
Prediction: 2:3 Shock
This is the first match for the Seoul Dynasty. The Shock has only played one match before this, so there haven’t been many VODs to give away secrets. The Dynasty hasn’t played at all so they might have an edge with hidden strategies. The biggest issue is that Lucio is going to be out because of the hero bans. This is a hero that has saved the Dynasty in many situations. This is going to be a close game, but with the coordination and built-in synergies that the Shock has, they have the edge in this match.
Player to Watch: Fits
Fits is the player to watch without a doubt. At the end of Season 2 Fits started to make a name for himself. He is really going to be able to show his flexibility between hit scan heroes, Doomfist, and maybe even a Tracer. Just as it is essential to shut down the Shock’s DPS it is just as important for the Dynasty’s DPS to have a good match. This is a good testing point to see how the Dynasty stack up against the Season 2 champion and a good predictor of their strength coming into Season 3.
LA Gladiators (3/22): 0-1-0
The LA Gladiators have only played one match since the beginning of Season 3. They played Week 1 against the Vancouver Titans and lost 2:3. The Gladiators did bring the 2nd place Season 2 team to a map 5. Indy ‘Space’ Halpern has greatly improved the tank line up for the team. They are a very hot and cold team if the Seoul Dynasty allows them to get into a groove that could be disastrous.
The LA Gladiators have had Jonas ‘Shaz’ Suovaara and Benjamin ‘BigGoose’ Isohanni as the support duo since the beginning. As tanks and DPS have changed the support core has stayed strong. To win the match the Seoul Dynasty need to take out the Gladiator’s support. Profit’s Tracer needs to get to the backlines to disrupt as well as support on support violence. All four of the supports in this matchup, Youngwan ‘Creative’ Kim is yet unproven in the Overwatch League, are as Erik ‘Doa’ Lonnquist would say bloodthirsty support players. It will be interesting to see which support gets the most kills this match.
Prediction: 3:2 Seoul
With Winston being banned, which is a strength of Minseok ‘OGE’ Son, could be a small bit of struggle for the Gladiators. The Seoul Dynasty and the LA Gladiators have always given the community iconic matches. Whichever way it does go, it is going to be a match to remember. The Gladiators already being 1 down in the season will want to prove themselves. It will also depend on how much recon they do the previous day on Seoul’s match against the Shock; how much they have prepared and practiced off what they have seen.
Player to watch:
When it comes to the LA Gladiator and the Seoul Dynasty matches it would feel wrong not to have the player to watch a Main Tank. From Season 1 of Chanhyung ‘Fissure’ Baek and Jinhyuk ‘Miro’ Gong, to then Fissure and Changhoon ‘Roar’ Gye, and now Minseok ‘OGE’ Son and Jaehui ‘Gesture’ Hong/Minseo ‘Marve1’ Hwang. The player to watch is Marve1. Is he going to play the support tank role on Sigma or on a more traditional main tank role. Marve1 had a high point at the end of last season, but this will show the Tiger Nation if he is continuing to rise or had reached his peak.
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