Overwatch League 2018: Stage 3 Week 3 Recap

[ComradeKoch]

Gather your brooms because this is the week of the reverse sweep. It’s also the week where teams decided to test our patience and our nerves with some tense tiebreaker matches. Five games out of 12 this week went to a final map, giving us some of the best (and most stressful) Overwatch we’ve seen all Stage.

Week 3 Day 1

Match of the Day

Los Angeles Gladiators vs. Los Angeles Valiant

The Battle for Los Angeles has come to Stage 3 and this time, it’s personal. Player trades between the Gladiators and the Valiant saw Ted “Silkthread” Wang trading his wings for a shield and looking to enact a little good-natured revenge against his former teammates. Both hometown heroes have a win a piece in the series, but it’s the Valiant that prevailed this time thanks to some killer plays like this one.

But the Gladiators didn’t go down without a fight. Look at this play from Fissure "the most handsome, best main tank, greatest in the world" (his words not mine).

Who is better than Fissure? Nobody.

Week 3 Day 2

Match of the Day

Boston Uprising vs. London Spitfire

Boston’s on a meteoric rise up the Stage and playoff standings. They’re first in the Stage rankings, second overall, and a very likely candidate to win the Stage 3 Finals. London, meanwhile, is at an uncharacteristic 1-3, putting them near the bottom of the stage rankings and quite possibly out of the stage playoff race. A win here for the Spitfire would have restored some much-needed confidence and boosted them over other teams in the standings, putting them back in contention for a playoff berth.

These two teams are 1-1 against each other, but the last time these two teams faced each other, London shut out Boston 4-0. For the first half of this match, it looked like history was ready to repeat itself. But Boston came back with a blazing fast 2-0 sweep of Ilios.

Things looked grim for Boston on the next map, earning only one point on Junkertown. Only a full hold could keep them alive. So Boston, in their best imitation of the Los Angeles Gladiators, put their shields up, and held the line.

After that, it was Boston’s game to win. London is 1-7 on Oasis and aren't at their best on control maps in general. The Uprising finished the game with a 2-1 victory on Oasis, completing the reverse sweep to end all reverse sweeps.

Week 3 Day 3

Match of the Day

Boston Uprising vs. Seoul Dynasty

Boston is unstoppable and currently undefeated. Now, after this match, they have earned the distinction of being only the second team in the League to defeat every other team. After last week’s upset over the New York Excelsior, the Uprising’s schedule only got harder, pitting them against the Spitfire and the Dynasty in the same week, on consecutive days no less. (RIP Philadelphia Fusion, who had similar consecutive day bad luck. They had a less than 24 hours between their match against New York and their match against San Francisco — their fatigue was evident in their stunning 3-1 loss against the weaker but better prepared Shock.) Seoul, meanwhile, is still struggling to claw their way back into stage playoff contention, and looked to close out the week with a sorely needed second win.

Boston took Volskaya in grand fashion. Both teams were undefeated on this map, but through a combination of Mistakes on Genji and Striker on Tracer, the team held Seoul to a 2-1 victory. Then on Blizzardworld Seoul forced a draw, able to match but unable to overcome a dominant Boston.

Mistakes on Sombra shut Seoul down at critical moments with his EMP ultimate while his team, in perfect sync, collapsed on the crippled enemies, wiped them out, and went on to win the match.

Week 3 Day 4

Match of the Day

New York Excelsior vs. Los Angeles Gladiators

The Excelsior just like playing with our emotions. Earlier in the week, in a rematch of the Stage 2 finals against the Philadelphia Fusion, New York went down 0-2 at the half just like they had done during the finals. And, just like they did in the finals, they came back in a reverse sweep. This match they did it again, suffering through the first half 0-2 before waking up and rolling the Gladiators in the next three maps.

No one knows why New York has suddenly developed a fondness for map five. Maybe they like playing Oasis, or maybe they like giving us a show. Or perhaps in their marathon race to be the top team in the League at the end of the season, they’re finally showing some signs of fatigue.

Final Thoughts

The top four teams headed to the Stage 3 Finals right now are the Boston Uprising, the Los Angeles Valiant, the New York Excelsior, and the San Francisco Shock. The Shock pulled off some interesting upsets earlier in the Stage, beating the Gladiators and the Fusion, but next week their winning streak will undoubtedly be humbled by the Spitfire and the Excelsior. That leaves a huge opening that anyone could capitalize on as the next four teams have the same record and an extremely thin map differential between them.

You’ll want to pay attention to all these teams’ matches next week because every map they play will mater come the Stage playoffs.
But ultimately the team to watch out for, the team that will win or come exceedingly close to winning the Stage 3 Finals, is Boston. Boston’s ability to coordinate, communicate, and dive with laser accuracy is exactly why they are the team to beat this stage. It’s true all teams need some level of coordination to be successful, but a lot of times teams rely on hard carries from their star players. Architect and Sinatraa for the Shock, Sayaplayer for the Mayhem, Geguri and Ado for the Dragons.

They get the kills that win the matches but at the end of the day the team with the superior teamwork is the winning team. And no team in the League right now is better at working together, and better at winning, than Boston.

Ash, the first of her name, keeper of Zenyatta lore, protector of Hanzo mains and Mother of Shanghai Dragons, is a content writer for the Overwatch section of MMO-C and Gamepedia.