Now that the first week of Summer Showdown is over, there is time to account for what happened across the league. More specifically, it is time to look at the perceptions of players, teams and how the league has changed through the 2020 OWL Season. A lot changes with every new hero pool, so this is very subjective. Welcome to the OWL Stonk Market.
Photo by STEWART-VOLLAND for Blizzard Entertainment
The NYXL finally looked more like the NYXL of old this week. Part of that likely can be attributed to who they added back into the team. The two starting DPS were no longer SBB and Whoru/Libero. Instead, it was Nene and Haksal. Haksal of course being the new signing from the former Vancouver Titans roster, and Nene was returning from injury. The team looked so much better in terms of how clean the play was. Part of that can likely be attributed to the next team on the list, but it was great to see the NYXL return to form
Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
Words can’t describe how confusing this team is. Think of them as the Philadelphia Fusion in season one and two but more confusing. This team has Profit, Slime, Bdosin, Gesture, and Marve1 among other players. They are performing WAY below their talent level. They are running out of excuses for their performance. Originally it was they just came back to Korea. Then it was Echo entering the game. Now they can say there performance is lacking because they are adding in slime. At what point will we say this team is just a .500 team with insane peaks.
Via Toronto Defiant Flickr
Despite their record, the Toronto Defiant are progressively looking better. First the addition of Kruise made them look more coordinated, now Numlocked’s addition looks like a great decision. While Beast was fine, he could reach very low lows. Numlocked’s performance is more stable across all main tanks. In addition to these two moves, Surefour returned to the starting lineup after not playing for almost all of May Melee. Toronto likely won’t be a world beater, but they are going to look better.
Image Courtesy of Dallas Fuel
This team is really living and dying by Decarry, pardon Decay, and his performances. Decay single-handedly won the Fuel their match versus the Outlaws. He won them their lone map this past weekend by brute forcing his way to a win. This team relies on him too much. If Doha can’t play one of his pocket picks this team is not good enough at DPS. Note and Gamsu are both fine at tank, the latter of which is much better at their role. Crimzo and Paintbrush is also a fine duo, but does it scare anyone? The Fuel feel like a team that wants to do one thing but can never sustain that thing. They will need another DPS this offseason to make this team better.
Courtesy of the Boston Uprising
They aren’t winning matches yet, but man are they getting close. Since the addition of Punk, this team is playing completely differently. They are doing the exact opposite of what they were doing earlier in the year. Their playstyle is now more aggressive compared to their passive style previously. They seemed scared to make mistakes. They stopped playing Colourhex on his worst hero, Mei, and his performance has drastically improved. Meanwhile Punk is performing out of his mind and looks like a better than league average off tank. While they aren’t getting that win, their stonks are rising really high compared to six weeks ago.
Image Courtesy of The Overwatch League
Behind the Seoul Dynasty, the Atlanta Reign are the second most baffling team in OWL. They have a full 12 man team full of very talented players but seem to be under-performing. Erster, one of the most talented DPS player in the league, is now reduced to being a Mei one trick. Babybay is playing A LOT of Ashe for them. Edison, a well accomplished hitscan player, is now a somewhere in between flex and hitscan. Oh, and Sharp is just not seeing play time. This team’s peak potential is the best team in OWL. They never stay at that high though.
2018-02-10 / Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
Does the NYXL just hate Libero? After being great in season one, they bring Flow3r onto the team to seemingly take his place eventually. Flow3r then flamed out and went to Contenders, and this season they brought in Whoru. Whoru has seen a significant amount of playtime and has not performed anywhere close to how Libero would perform on the same heroes. Now they bring in Haksal and he started last week. At what point do they just offload him? They clearly have actively been trying to find someone with a similar skill set since season two, and the previous two failed miserably. This one should succeed which begs the question, when does Libero’s contract expire?
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What do you think? Tell Christian on Twitter at @TheWiz_SPM.
Featured image courtesy of Overwatch League.
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