Hey everyone, how's it going? It's Proilios again, and after a 2-week break from official League matches, we're all set to cheer on our favourite teams once again, but this time, in an online format. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has got each and every one of us troubled, and during such times, it's important to put your safety before everything else, so I hope you're staying at home as much as possible, and are practising good hygiene. All's not doom-and-gloom though, since in just a few days, we'll be treated to an action-packed weekend, with 10 (updated) OWL matches taking place over just 2 days.
Tension-filled team fights, dramatic duels, standout showings, dreadful debuts; I'm sure we'll see them all this week, and I'm really excited to share my predictions for Day 1 with all of you. As usual, this post will act as a thread for Week 8, meaning I will share my Day 1 predictions right now, comment on their actual outcomes after they're done, then share my predictions for Day 2, and comment on those here itself as well.
This weekend, I can see 3 different team comps being viable, and even though I may not be completely accurate, I think I have a good read on what'll be viable with those 4 heroes gone.
The first of the 3 compositions, which I can see being played on Payload maps/points (Hybrid & Escort) is a slight variation on the Rein-D.Va comp we saw in the first few weeks of Season 3. What I'm talking about is Rein-D.Va-Mei-McCree-Ana-Lucio, but with Lucio gone, I think you could replace him with Brig and still run this comp on Payload maps. Brigitte provides AoE healing to the team, similar to Lucio, and also has armour packs that can negate huge amounts of sustained damage. She can play a pretty similar role to Lucio's on Payload-based points, since these map types don't require you to reposition a lot, which is why I think running her with the Rein-D.Va comp will be quite efficient. It also comes down to what the pros are used to running, and since this comp was quite popular during the first few weeks of play, most, if not all the teams, are sure to have scrimmed with and against it a fair bit.
On non-payload maps/points (2CP, Hybrid, KOTH), I think we'll see pretty much the same composition as above, but with an Orisa instead of Reinhardt. With Speed Boost out of the equation, it's going to take Rein longer to close the gap between the enemy team and his own, which means it'll be easier to chunk down his barrier while he's repositioning. For this reason, I think it'll be better to have Orisa in his place, and still play a semi-brawl, semi-poke kind of style. It's also easier for Orisa-D.Va to reposition after short intervals, since Orisa doesn't necessarily have to move with her barrier; she can deploy it in one place, buy her team enough time to use it as cover and get to where they want to be, and have D.Va Matrix everyone in case it breaks. You can again play corners, poke, break barriers, and try to get a pick with Mei-McCree, and if that doesn't work, you still have some very powerful ultimates to help you win fights. For instance, when Brig gets Rally, you, in a way, get a Lucio for 10 seconds, along with armour, which you can use to get closer to your opponents and beat them in a brawl. You could also Nano the Brig while doing this, turning her into what KarQ calls a 'Raid Boss', and render her nearly unkillable while she smashes somebody's face in. Now I can hear you asking, "if you're going to brawl, isn't it better to just play Reinhardt anyway?" and sure, it's a fair question, but if you don't get the opportunity to close the distance, and the enemy just chunks down your barrier, how useful is Rein going to be? Wouldn't you rather have an Orisa, who can deal damage at midrange and not depend on just her barrier to get value? I know I would, and the pros likely will as well.
That leaves us with the third and final comp, which I think a lot of people may be sleeping on, and that is Hammond-D.Va Dive, with Tracer-Genji-Ana-Brig. Even though Winston is banned, Dive is ridiculously strong, and since Sombra is banned as well, Hammond can really get some work done. I feel like this comp will be map-dependent, being viable on popular Dive maps like Gibraltar and Oasis City Centre, but if executed properly, it can beat anything you could possibly run right now. The reason I don't think this will work in every situation is that Mei, McCree and Brig still counter Dive pretty hard, but given enough open areas and high ground to move about on, even those 3 heroes are beatable. Nanoblade will also be harder to counter, since Sound Barrier is no longer available, which will be fantastic for all the Genji players in the League.
Anyway, I don't want to ramble on about team comps any further, since what I'm saying may not even happen. I even had ideas about the Orisa comps' backline being replaced by Baptiste-Zen for more barrier break, or Symmetra being played instead of McCree with the Reinhardt comp to aid in repositioning, but speculation doesn't always work out, so I'm going to move on to my predictions now.
With all that out of the way, let's move on to my predictions for Day 2 of Week 8.
This week, I've just got 5/10 (50%) winners correct, and 2/10 (20%) scores correct. That's a bummer. Oh well, at least my score percentage has increased by 4.4% (that's not a lot, but we'll get there).
Tension-filled team fights, dramatic duels, standout showings, dreadful debuts; I'm sure we'll see them all this week, and I'm really excited to share my predictions for Day 1 with all of you. As usual, this post will act as a thread for Week 8, meaning I will share my Day 1 predictions right now, comment on their actual outcomes after they're done, then share my predictions for Day 2, and comment on those here itself as well.
META SPECULATION
Before I begin sharing my predictions, I'd like to speculate about what the meta will be like this week, with Winston, Sombra, Soldier:76 and Lucio out of the Hero Pool.This weekend, I can see 3 different team comps being viable, and even though I may not be completely accurate, I think I have a good read on what'll be viable with those 4 heroes gone.
The first of the 3 compositions, which I can see being played on Payload maps/points (Hybrid & Escort) is a slight variation on the Rein-D.Va comp we saw in the first few weeks of Season 3. What I'm talking about is Rein-D.Va-Mei-McCree-Ana-Lucio, but with Lucio gone, I think you could replace him with Brig and still run this comp on Payload maps. Brigitte provides AoE healing to the team, similar to Lucio, and also has armour packs that can negate huge amounts of sustained damage. She can play a pretty similar role to Lucio's on Payload-based points, since these map types don't require you to reposition a lot, which is why I think running her with the Rein-D.Va comp will be quite efficient. It also comes down to what the pros are used to running, and since this comp was quite popular during the first few weeks of play, most, if not all the teams, are sure to have scrimmed with and against it a fair bit.
On non-payload maps/points (2CP, Hybrid, KOTH), I think we'll see pretty much the same composition as above, but with an Orisa instead of Reinhardt. With Speed Boost out of the equation, it's going to take Rein longer to close the gap between the enemy team and his own, which means it'll be easier to chunk down his barrier while he's repositioning. For this reason, I think it'll be better to have Orisa in his place, and still play a semi-brawl, semi-poke kind of style. It's also easier for Orisa-D.Va to reposition after short intervals, since Orisa doesn't necessarily have to move with her barrier; she can deploy it in one place, buy her team enough time to use it as cover and get to where they want to be, and have D.Va Matrix everyone in case it breaks. You can again play corners, poke, break barriers, and try to get a pick with Mei-McCree, and if that doesn't work, you still have some very powerful ultimates to help you win fights. For instance, when Brig gets Rally, you, in a way, get a Lucio for 10 seconds, along with armour, which you can use to get closer to your opponents and beat them in a brawl. You could also Nano the Brig while doing this, turning her into what KarQ calls a 'Raid Boss', and render her nearly unkillable while she smashes somebody's face in. Now I can hear you asking, "if you're going to brawl, isn't it better to just play Reinhardt anyway?" and sure, it's a fair question, but if you don't get the opportunity to close the distance, and the enemy just chunks down your barrier, how useful is Rein going to be? Wouldn't you rather have an Orisa, who can deal damage at midrange and not depend on just her barrier to get value? I know I would, and the pros likely will as well.
That leaves us with the third and final comp, which I think a lot of people may be sleeping on, and that is Hammond-D.Va Dive, with Tracer-Genji-Ana-Brig. Even though Winston is banned, Dive is ridiculously strong, and since Sombra is banned as well, Hammond can really get some work done. I feel like this comp will be map-dependent, being viable on popular Dive maps like Gibraltar and Oasis City Centre, but if executed properly, it can beat anything you could possibly run right now. The reason I don't think this will work in every situation is that Mei, McCree and Brig still counter Dive pretty hard, but given enough open areas and high ground to move about on, even those 3 heroes are beatable. Nanoblade will also be harder to counter, since Sound Barrier is no longer available, which will be fantastic for all the Genji players in the League.
Anyway, I don't want to ramble on about team comps any further, since what I'm saying may not even happen. I even had ideas about the Orisa comps' backline being replaced by Baptiste-Zen for more barrier break, or Symmetra being played instead of McCree with the Reinhardt comp to aid in repositioning, but speculation doesn't always work out, so I'm going to move on to my predictions now.
DAY 1
1. Guangzhou Charge vs. Shanghai Dragons- Dragons win 3-1. We haven't seen either of these teams play yet this season, but based on the players they've got, I think the Dragons have the upper hand, at least with this week's bans. I'm expecting both these teams to run the Deathball and Bunker comps in the situations I mentioned earlier, and expect Shanghai to seize the win. I rate Stand1-Fleta-diem higher than Rio-nero-Happy on Orisa-Mei-McCree, which is the primary reason I'm going for the score I've predicted. Other than that, Shanghai just seems more flexible and adaptable, so unless I see them play, I can't judge them any worse than this. So, I was right about the Dragons winning, but they ended up having a more dominating performance than I anticipated, and ended the day with a clean 3-0. They brought some interesting styles into play, with Double Barrier being both, theirs and the Charge's composition of choice.
2. Chengdu Hunters vs. Hangzhou Spark- Spark wins 3-1. Chengdu is one of the few teams I'm expecting to play Hammond-D.Va Dive this weekend, especially because Ameng has been such a cornerstone of their team for the past year. I think with leave-JinMu as a Tracer-Genji pairing, they'll have a really good Dive comp, but in a meta that's actually leaning towards sustain more than mobility, they probably won't be able to outplay something more 'meta', which is the Bunker comp. Hangzhou's really likely to use the Orisa-D.Va strat; I think Adora's Mei was pretty underrated last season, and that he can contribute to a great Anti-Dive Bunker with GodsB's McCree. Being able to play what's more meta and having players who can play the required heroes well is key in the League right now, and I think the Spark have a noticeable advantage this week because of that. So yeah, that's why I think they'll win. This nail-biting game ended with the Spark clutching out the win 3-2. Chengdu played them super close, with nearly every map being fairly competitive. We saw a fair bit of Dive, Double Barrier, and even some Rein-D.Va in this match, which kept things quite interesting. Both teams ran the Hammond-D.Va Dive, which is one of the comps I'd seen being played, except that they used Zen instead of Ana, presumably to counter Dragonblade and play more aggressively. Hangzhou also ran the Rein-D.Va comp with Brig which I mentioned, and I'm super glad that I'm able to somewhat understand the logic behind compositional choices at the pro level.
3. Toronto Defiant vs. Boston Uprising- Uprising wins 3-2. Yes, you read that right. I think that Boston will be better than Toronto this weekend...by a hair's breadth. Toronto has been looking very shaky as of late, and since Bunker comps will likely return this week, I'm expecting to see Jerry pop off on the McCree again. Also, I've seen Mouffin receive criticism for his off-tank play, but after viewing him on the Replay Viewer, I think he's actually doing very well. He's almost always doing the right thing, and it's hard to find faults with his play, which is why I believe the Uprising have been losing because of communication issues and not individual errors so much. They can probably beat the Defiant though, who I think will adopt Hammond-D.Va Dive this week. They don't have a very good Mei player, and have shown an inclination towards playing Dive more than most teams, which is why I think they'll spout the high-mobility look this week. Logix-Agilities will be a fearsome Tracer-Genji duo, and I think they can challenge Boston a fair bit with that lineup, so expect this to be a close match! The Toronto Defiant seized a 3-1 victory in this match. Their composition of choice was Rein-Zarya for the most part, with Ana-Brig as the backline, and either Mei-Hanzo or two Dive DPS as their damage dealers. They ran this comp quite successfully, beating Boston's low-healing Double Barrier setup. For some reason, the Uprising opted into playing Zen-Brig, making them susceptible to burst damage, which the Defiant dished out aplenty. They also weirdly ran a lot of Tracer, which is unconventional, and doesn't fit into the Double Barrier setup. Running a Mei instead would've helped them split apart the Defiant a lot more and take them out with good wall positioning. Another reason why Boston lost the way they did could be the fielding of Brussen, who, albeit is a good Sigma player for sure, probably didn't have enough scrim time with his teammates, but was asked to play instead of Mouffin, who's currently facing some pretty powerful allegations from a talented support player/streamer, Khaleesi. I don't expect Boston to adjust to this sudden change very quickly, so expect them to get some more Ls in the near future.
4. Los Angeles Valiant vs. Seoul Dynasty- Dynasty wins 3-0. If you've been following The OverSeer for a while, you know that I rate Seoul very high just based on their players. I think they've got a fantastic team, especially for this meta, with Marve1's solid Reinhardt and Gesture's amazing Orisa. If you want to look farther, they've got Profit, who's likely to play Mei, a hero he did very well on in Stage 4 last year. Despite Valiant's surprisingly good showing in Week 1 this season, I don't think they're good enough to beat this behemoth of a team, which is why I fully expect Seoul to roll them. That was a perfect prediction. Seoul came out in dominating fashion, and after a chaotic Map 1, proceeded to roll and smoke the Valiant. I think a lot of it came down to who played more sensible compositions, and obviously, execution. The Dynasty just seemed to be on the same page more often, and with the Gesture-Marve1 Double Barrier duo, defeat was an impossibility, and this is something I did talk about in my pre-season power rankings. On the other hand, the Valiant played a sloppy Dive, chose heroes that either didn't work well together or were countered by the enemy team, and were just all over the place. For instance, they tried to force a weird Orisa-Zarya comp, played Doomfist into McCree-Sigma, and played the weird Double Barrier-with-Tracer, which led to Boston's failure as well. They also played Zen-Brig a lot, just like the Uprising, which was a little bit shocking. Anyway, GGs Seoul. Valiant, go next.
5. San Francisco Shock vs. Los Angeles Gladiators- Shock wins 3-1. When it comes to the Bunker matchup, I think the Shock have a great setup with Smurf-Rascal-Striker on Orisa-Mei-McCree, compared to whomever the Gladiators run on main tank and their DPS slots. When it comes to Reinhardt, I think super is better than LhCloudy, who seems to be the Gladiators' designated Rein player for now. The Gladiators ended up taking this match 3-1, which is something I did not expect. We saw a ton of stuff in this match: a great Rein-Zarya and Orisa-Sigma from OGE and SPACE, the fan-favourite sinatraa Zarya, the return of the moth-Viol2t backline, a Volskaya draw; this was like watching everyday Overwatch...and the comps were like something you would see in your ranked games. Even though I just watched bits and pieces of this match due to time zone mismatches, I enjoyed myself. I think the Gladiators showed their true potential in this match, and I think they'll finally silence all those who were rating Shock #1 despite watching 5 weeks of play since their first and only match. Sure, SF could still make it to the top, but right now, they aren't.
With all that out of the way, let's move on to my predictions for Day 2 of Week 8.
Day 2
1. Chengdu Hunters vs. Shanghai Dragons- Dragons win 3-1. After yesterday's dominating win against the Charge, I think Shanghai is set to get another victory this weekend. They seem capable enough of handling Chengdu's wacky compositions, and actually also have some interesting strats of their own. The one tip I'd give the Dragons to beat the Hunters more easily is to avoid running Double Barrier and go for Orisa-D.Va instead. Chengdu loves running JinMu on Pharah, and the Spark weren't able to counter that yesterday until they went D.Va and pressured him enough to force him to swap. In a pretty surprising series of events, the Hunters ended up winning the match 3-0. There wasn't much to it honestly, Chengdu just outplayed Shanghai in every way, reminding us of how easily they can pick up wins if teams don't prepare specifically for them.
2. Hangzhou Spark vs. Guangzhou Charge- Spark wins 3-1. The Charge got stomped by the Dragons yesterday, and I don't expect them to win today either, especially since the Spark proved how skilled and adaptable they are by clutching out against Chengdu. That said, the Spark did expose some weaknesses on their side, specifically that they were reluctant to switch off of the comps they'd scrimmed with, which led to them losing a couple of maps. They made the match harder for themselves, and I could see that happening again today if Guangzhou decides to adopt Chengdu's strategy and goes for Hammond-D.Va Dive comps. I could see them going for something like Hammond-D.Va-Pharah-Genji-Ana-Mercy, with the lineup being Rio-Cr0ng-nero-Eileen-Shu-neptuNo. Great, so now every Chinese team has a win. In a match that almost exclusively showcased Double Barrier comps, the Charge seized a close 3-2 win against the Spark. Man, this Pacific Division has been hard to analyse so far.
3. Florida Mayhem vs. Atlanta Reign- Reign wins 3-0. This week, the Double Barrier comp seems to be quite popular, and we all know that Atlanta is fantastic at that. With the lineup of Gator-Hawk-Erster-Babybay/Edison-Masaa-Dogman, I think they're set up for an easy victory against Florida, who, although hasn't been playing badly, has been a little inconsistent. I also don't see Florida playing nearly as cleanly as the Reign, especially in this meta, which is why the 3-0 seems inevitable. A perfect prediction! The Reign were amazing in this match. They seemed to be on the same page all the time, and got an extra boost because Edison and Babybay kept popping off. We saw a lot of Double Barrier with Tracer-Hanzo-Zen-Brig, a comp which Atlanta executed with great precision, and it really made me aware of how high this team's skill cap is.
4. Seoul Dynasty vs. Los Angeles Gladiators- Dynasty wins 3-2. I'm just giving this one to the cleaner of the two teams, since otherwise, this matchup was nigh-impossible to judge. This weekend, Seoul won against the weaker team, but was really dominant, whereas the Gladiators beat a stronger team, but weren't as clean. This should actually balance itself out, or rather, we should think the Gladiators are the better team, but I don't know, Seoul just seems a tad bit stronger to me, which is why I'm giving this one to them. The Dynasty stomped the Gladiators 3-0, thanks to some really sloppy play from the shield-wielding men in purple. It was probably just an off-day for them, since they were really good against the Shock. I'm not too worried about them, so GG go next.
5. Los Angeles Valiant vs. San Francisco Shock- Shock wins 3-2. "Wait why would you think this would even go to a Map 5?" "Shock are crazy good!" "They won the Championship last year, man!" I know, I know. I'm just pitching you guys a score that reflects my impressions of these two teams at the moment. The Shock had some cracks in their armour while playing against the Glads, and I don't see them getting fixed in one day. On the other hand, yes, the Valiant were sloppy, but they were playing against a really really clean team. The Shock didn't look their usual clean selves at all, meaning things could get a little more chaotic in this match, which is when the Valiant could secure a couple map wins. I look at it this way: when you're an objectively weaker team, you have to try and thrive on chaos, because better teams are generally so good because they're always on the same page. I just don't see San Francisco dominating the Valiant like everyone seems to think, but they're still my favourites in this matchup. Dude this is unbelievable...the Shock lost again. I haven't watched the entire match, but from what I could gather after watching parts of the VOD, San Francisco was trying to force some weird compositions and lineups to work, which just didn't. There were some glaring weaknesses that the Valiant found easy to exploit, especially with KSP's Tracer being a constant threat to their backline, and a lot of it came down to who was playing which hero. For me, it's pretty simple. If you're going to one-trick Rein-Zarya for the entire map, run super-sinatraa as your tanks. If it's Orisa-Sigma, run smurf-ChoiHyoBin. Put Rascal in for Mei, Striker in for McCree, either Striker/sinatraa for Tracer, ANS for Widowmaker, and Architect for Genji/Pharah. Just let moth-Viol2t be your supports all the time. As someone who tunnel-visions on min-maxing, I find the lineup-forming logic pretty straightforward, and I know there have been rumours of the Shock sandbagging (intentionally playing worse than they actually can), probably to figure out their lineups, but with Hero Pools, can you really afford to spend that much time experimenting, or do you spend your scrim time for all that? Anyway, I'm not buying it. I just think this was a bad meta for the Shock, and I'm still surprised at how people think they're still going to be as dominant as they were last season, and still have them in something like Top 3 in their power rankings. I don't even have them in my Top 10 right now, and that's saying something.
This week, I've just got 5/10 (50%) winners correct, and 2/10 (20%) scores correct. That's a bummer. Oh well, at least my score percentage has increased by 4.4% (that's not a lot, but we'll get there).
If you guys liked this post, do share it around and subscribe to my blog for more Overwatch League content. The more matches we watch, the better I get at predicting their outcomes, so do return in a few days to watch The OverSeer go at it again! Thanks a lot for the read, and I wish you a safe work week. Cheers.
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