My oh my did I get a lot of hate for my Philadelphia Fusion review! In all honesty, I expected that sort of response; what else is going to happen when you fill up your article with hot takes about a team made up of a talented bunch of players? If I were to simply write popular opinions on this section of my blog, I'd change its name to 'The OverAgreer'. There will always be critics, and I'm prepared to face their criticism provided it's constructive, so I urge everyone who's reading this to combine their dissatisfaction, if any, with some educational feedback. It'll help me grow as an analyst and as a writer, so please do that, it's a humble request.
Anyway, let's move on to today's article, which is the London Spitfire roster review. The inaugural season champions no longer have any of the players whom they won the Season 1 title with, and are going for a fresh new look, with talent we know relatively little about. It does look like this is going to be one of the more agreeable reviews we have on this blog, so let's go ahead and talk about the team that I ranked 11th in my end-of-season power rankings for 2019.
Anyway, let's move on to today's article, which is the London Spitfire roster review. The inaugural season champions no longer have any of the players whom they won the Season 1 title with, and are going for a fresh new look, with talent we know relatively little about. It does look like this is going to be one of the more agreeable reviews we have on this blog, so let's go ahead and talk about the team that I ranked 11th in my end-of-season power rankings for 2019.
TANK
The Spitfire currently have JMAC and Jihun on main tank, and BERNAR and Clestyn on off-tank.
JMAC was, until recently, playing for LGE.Huya in Contenders China, and he's had a mixed bag of runs there in the past 7-8 months. A veteran of the Korean Overwatch scene, JMAC is a good pickup in my opinion. I've watched him play Orisa in the Double Barrier Meta, during which he seemed pretty solid, and he also seems to be a good Reinhardt and Winston player, based off of his track record during the early Zen Goats era. Maybe his Wrecking Ball isn't very good though, as the Spitfire have also picked up Jihun, who is at his most comfortable on that hero. He is also decent on Orisa, but I haven't watched him play Rein and Winston at all during the brief professional career he's had so far.
The first off-tank with London is BERNAR, who is a pretty versatile player on the role. His D.Va is really good, and his Zarya and Roadhog are fair as well. I can't say the same for his Sigma, since I haven't seen him play that hero, but I think we can assume him to be average on him for fairness' sake. Accompanying BERNAR on off-tank is Clestyn, whom I hadn't even heard about before the squad was announced. This Korean off-tank player has been in the professional scene for just about a year-and-a-half, and hasn't had much success since. His signature heroes are apparently D.Va and Zarya, but I'm just not confident in him overall. Usually, even if a player isn't popular, you at least hear and get familiar with their names while you're consuming content from tournaments like Contenders. I've just never heard Clestyn being mentioned or praised or even touted as a great player, and he's also not been on a top-tier team during his playtime in the Tier-2 scene, which is concerning, to say the least.
Overall, London's main tanks are decent, but they don't match up to a lot of other main tanks in the League. JMAC will probably be the go-to frontliner for this squad unless Wrecking Ball becomes meta, in which case Jihun can actually attempt to shine, but there are a ton of other main tanks out there who are more proven, and have more playmaking potential than these two, so don't expect them to become star players in the League all of a sudden. On the off-tank role, I have high expectations from BERNAR, who has been pretty consistent in recent times with Fusion University. He has a deep hero pool, and has played in a lot of metas, so his experience will be a guiding light for some of the more inexperienced players on this roster. Clestyn will probably just ride the bench. I don't see these 4 players forming a bottom-tier tank line, but I don't think they'll wow the audience and steal the stage either, so consider this a mid-table tank quartet for now.
DPS
Schwi, Babel, ALTHOUGH and Glister currently form the DPS line of the Spitfire.
A former damage dealer for RunAway, Schwi is a pretty good projectile DPS player, but we haven't seen him compete over his former teammate, Yaki, in recent times. I may just have missed his matches, but I don't think Schwi has played on stage in the recent Double Barrier Metas, which leads me to question how good he still is, and if we can compare him to the other projectile players in the League. Another player we haven't seen much of in recent times (or ever, really) is Babel, who is supposedly a good hitscan player. This signing doesn't do it for me, because Babel is very new to the professional Overwatch scene, and hasn't even played in Contenders yet. Without a doubt I can say that he will be a bottom-tier hitscan player compared to his competitors in the League.
Picked up from Gen.S is flex DPS player ALTHOUGH, and although he's had a pretty good track record with the Seoul Dynasty's Korea Cup team, he hasn't had any Tier-1, or heck, even Tier-2 experience before. This pickup is also really concerning to me, since you're banking on pure skill and completely ignoring experience when you sign someone who isn't well-established in the pro scene at even the Contenders level. Sure, ALTHOUGH might be a talented flex DPS player, but I think you're deceiving yourself if you think he's going to match up to the other flex DPS players in the League even remotely. The real question for London is probably whether Glister can carry this DPS line to victory. Hailing from Gen.G, the Dynasty's academy team, Glister is an amazing aimer, and can play your traditional hitscan heroes, snipers, and even flankers to a high level. He's had a pretty good track record with Gen.G, and is probably the best damage dealer with the Spitfire right now.
Unfortunately, overall, this team has one of the weakest DPS lines in the League. Sure, the conversation would change if we were talking about simply the carry-level players, because Glister is actually quite good, but Schwi's lack of playtime as of late, combined with the inexperienced backgrounds of Babel and ALTHOUGH aren't very encouraging factors when it comes to determining the Spitfire's success in 2020. I think these 4 players have one of the lowest average skill levels among all the League's DPS lines, so I'm going to put them in my bottom-5 category of damage dealers.
SUPPORT
London's backline consists of Fuze and SanGuiNar on main support, and Krillin and Highly on flex support.
Now I haven't seen Fuze play a lot, but from what I gather, his main successes have been during Mercy-centric metas like the Moth Meta and Double Sniper. He hasn't had super-impressive results during Goats or even in Orisa-based metas, which leads me to believe his Lúcio isn't all that good. What Fuze brings to the table other than his prowess on Mercy is his experience from the Tier-2 scene, which he has been part of for nearly two years. He could help push his co-main-support, SanGuiNar, towards being a more well-rounded player. SanGuiNar has been doing quite well with Gen.B in their Korea Cup matches, and he's seemingly been playing Lúcio, Mercy as well as Baptiste, which means the main thing he lacks is experience, and if Fuze could guide him through the nuances of what a main support is supposed to do, I could see him being a decent player despite the other big main support names out there. I'm not saying he's going to be top-tier at all, but he could be workable in the League's setting with the right guidance.
Krillin was with the Spitfire all throughout the 2019 season, but he rarely got to see playtime over the more experienced flex support on his team, Bdosin. Whenever he was fielded, however, he never seemed like a downgrade by any means, so I actually think his presence on the team is a good thing. Krillin will obviously have learnt a lot even during his time on the bench, and alongside a talented bunch such as the original Spitfire squad, he's sure to have picked up on a few new tricks. I don't really know if my confidence in this guy is misplaced, but I'm inclined to think he's going to be one of the better players on London's team in 2020. On the flex support role alongside Krillin is Highly, who was with the Seoul Dynasty last year. Again, he was a substitute player for ryujehong, so we didn't see him fielded a lot, but from my time spectating him, I did like his Ana a fair bit. His positioning was fairly safe, and he never acted reckless or tried to go for selfish plays, so he does seem like someone who can be fielded by London without worry, at least on Ana.
From how I see the Spitfire's support line shaping up, I think they could form one of the more stable backlines in the League this year. I trust Krillin and Highly on the flex support role, even though we haven't seen them play on the big stage a lot, and I feel like SanGuiNar, due to his lack of nuanced coaching experience but recent success in Korea, will be susceptible to both, his coaches', and his peers' inputs, and can be melded into a stable main support player. Fuze, I presume, could be somewhat a guide for SanGuiNar, and explain the intricacies of main support play to him because of his experience in Contenders, and even though he may not be a solid Lúcio or Baptiste himself, he can push SanGuiNar to bring out the best in him. This may seem like a really odd point, and I can't really explain what's causing me to make it, but the variables in my head are hinting a lot at this happening, so we're just going to have to wait and see how these 4 supports actually do on the field for validation.
THE RAW LOOK VS. REALITY
On paper, the Spitfire's lineup for 2020 really concerns me. They don't have bad players per se, but a lot of their team members are either inexperienced, unproven, or both. I think they've got a decent tank line and a good support line, but their DPS players really worry me. Apart from Glister, none of these players has showcased a ton of talent at the Tier-2 scene, or in Schwi's case, shown their prowess in the recent high-sustain, Double Barrier Metas. If you look at this team on paper, they're probably a bottom-5 roster, but what if they perform a little better than their raw look suggests? What could be their best-case scenario? To be honest, it's not much different. Even if say, Schwi turns out to be a good Mei player and the tank line starts showing more fight, can we confidently say that they can beat more than a quarter of the teams out there? I don't think so. I think even at their best, the London Spitfire won't be able to make it to the Play-Ins, let alone the Playoffs. Sure, they may be able to avoid looking like a dumpster fire, because not all their players are that new to this level of play, but they just realistically don't have the experience or the skill to outplay most other squads as a unit. Therefore, I'd say they'll settle somewhere between #13 and #18.
I think that rounds up my thoughts on the London Spitfire pretty well. If you liked what you read, please share this post around with other Overwatch League fans, and subscribe to my blog for more similar content (button on the top right side of the page). We've only finished reviewing half the teams in the League so far, so you really don't want to miss out on what's yet to come! My next post will be about the Los Angeles Valiant, so stay tuned for that, and I'll see you guys there. Bye!
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