APAC games have turned many into sleepless zombies that have a coffee IV permanently attached. The Seoul Dynasty were the first match of the morning. It was a quick match, lasting only around an hour for the entire match. Tiger Nation, don’t fear. Though usually short matches mean pain and suffering, this time around the stomp was the Dynasty winning in a 3-0 fashion. This means that tomorrow, another early match for NA fans, will be against the #1 ranked Guangzhou Charge. This will be a match of the highest ranked vs the lowest ranked in the May Melee tournament bracket. What factors need to align so that the Dynasty are able to create a major upset?
Courtesy of @GZCharge on Twitter
The first night of the May Melee tournament for the APAC region had many close matches with the lower bracket teams almost upsetting the higher ranked teams. In the case of the Dynasty they did create the ‘upset’ being the 7th ranked team winning against the 4th ranked Hangzhou Spark.
The Charge, when watching the match, would have seen the Dynasty show a proficiency on dive that they were lacking before. This sets up a scary situation, as on Anubis, Seoul also showed that their double shield comps hadn’t deteriorated in power. Now that the Dynasty are able to play both dominant metas, how will they match up against the Charge who have been running rampant in the APAC region?
Hero pools seem have been the savior for the Seoul Dynasty. This isn’t taking away from the hours of strategizing, practice and sheer determination that the staff and players put in to prepare for the match. The Dynasty being able to flex onto different heroes such as Tracer, Echo, Mei, McCree, Hanzo, and Sombra all on map (Hollywood) allowed them to play at their full potential.
Seoul have always been a flex heavy team. The original team as all their players (with the exception of Jinhyuk ‘Miro’ Gong and Daekuk ‘Kuki’ Kim) start in the game as DPS. The community saw Jimno ‘Tobi’ Tracer, Joonhyuk ‘Zunba’ Kim Hanzo, Jehong ‘Ryujehong’ Ryu Widow, Gido ‘Gido’ Moon Doomfist before the 2/2/2 lock. The Dynasty continue this tradition with the pick ups such as Junyoung ‘Profit’ Park who is a hugely flexible Overwatch Player.
The Dynasty needs to finish off kills through focus dives so that the Charge are not able to stall out the point or fights. It will be important for the Dynasty to not overcommit to fights as the Charge are known for punishing and drawing out those fights to burn the clock. It will be essential that they also combo big ults like they did against the Spark to net team fights while also be conscious of the ult economy.
Photo: Ben Pursell For Blizzard Entertainment
Every time the prediction is against the Dynasty they seem to pull out a win. Not to be superstitious, but this is a 3:2 match and a coin toss of who will come out on top. Will Charlie ‘Nero’ Zwarg be in the line up? Last match in week 15 against the Chengdu Hunter there was no Nero in sight. Nero gave the Dynasty a lot of difficulties on Echo the last time these two teams faced off. Alberto ‘Neptuno’ Gonzalez is also unavailable because of visa issues.
The last time these two met, the biggest factor was the Echo play as well as the coordination of Seoul. It looks as if Seoul has worked on their coordination, but it is dependent on Nero and Profit. Jinseo ‘Shu’ Kim is an excellent Ana player, with his bio grenades so it will be interesting to see how Seoul Dynasty plays around the supports of the Charge. They will not be able to do any sneaky dives on the back line like they were able to to the Hangzhou Spark without the fear of getting naded or slept.
Profit showed that he had been practicing his Echo last week in the match against the Spark. By the eye test, Profit had improved greatly since fans last saw him on the hero. It was by no means a masterful performance that could make the Tiger Nation sit back and relax. Some of his combinations of abilities seemed off, and kills were not completed. If Nero is in, last time he ran circles around Profit. Seen in Ryujehong’s twitch stream, Profit has seemingly been playing Echo in ranked to practice. Ranked and the Overwatch League are two different monsters. It will be essential to see the 1 to 1 match up or if Seoul decides not to take that fight how will they shut down Echo?
How Fleta’s McCree singlehandedly beat the GZ Charge
This is reminiscent of when in playoffs everyone expected a Pharah V Pharah battle between Nero and Byungsun ‘Fleta’ Kim, but instead Fleta came out on McCree and shut Nero down. That set the whole tone of the match netting Seoul a win back in Season 2.
Profit will have to pull a trick out of his hat to come up with just as spectacular results to help the Dynasty win the match this time around. Keep an eye out of Profit and how his success correlates to the overall success of the Dynasty tomorrow morning.
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