Hello everyone, and welcome (back) to The OverSeer, where you can find match predictions for the Overwatch League every single week. My name is Proilios, and I'm feeling pretty hot right now, since I got 7/9 winners right last week, including 3/9 perfect scores, so if you want to follow this series of predictions posts, do subscribe to my blog, I'm sure you won't regret it.
As usual, let's try and guess the meta for the week before we get into our predictions.
2. Guangzhou Charge vs. Shanghai Dragons- Dragons win 3-0. The Chinese region as a whole hasn't played the classic MeiCree comp yet, so again, I'll have to judge this matchup based on past performances. First up, Guangzhou has been pretty inconsistent so far, whereas Shanghai has been straight-up dominating, which puts the latter at an immediate advantage. Composition-wise, I don't think there will be extraordinary variation on the Charge's side other than the possibility of them running Sombra, but the Dragons could very well pull out a special Pharah-Sombra Dive comp with DDing-LIP on the damage role. I believe such a comp can work wonders on maps with high skyboxes like Nepal Village, Eichenwalde 1st, or Dorado, since McCree and D.Va cannot contest you as well on them. Other than that, yes, put Fleta-diem on Mei-McCree and secure your free win, Dragons. Two perfect preds in a row, that's great! I was also right about Fleta-diem being the Dragons' Mei-McCree duo of choice, but what I didn't expect was the variety of comps they ran with just their starting 6. The fielded players were Stand1-Void-Fleta-diem-LeeJaeGon-IZaYaKI, and they played Dive, Anti-Dive, as well as Rein-Sigma with MeiCree, quite similar to the Dynasty. Versatility and effective counterpicking seems to be what's leading to wins this week (even more so than usual I mean), and with this win, I'm re-evaluating whom I think is the best team in OWL right now.
Well, Day 1 isn't over yet, but I'm feeling pretty confident right now, so let me jump into Day 2's predictions as well.
3. Guangzhou Charge vs. New York Excelsior- Excelsior wins 3-0. There's not much reasoning to this. I rate the NYXL very highly, but not the Charge. Therefore, I'm going with New York. Was there ever any doubt?
4. Florida Mayhem vs. Boston Uprising- Mayhem wins 3-0. I'll honestly be very impressed if the Uprising win this match. Last week, we saw some pretty great play from Florida, as they demolished the Paris Eternal, which is a pretty good team. Even though that doesn't put them at the top of the leaderboard, it earns them some respect, and they're going to have that from me. The Mayhem also has a pretty good roster for this match, and I believe they'll be running their favourite 'MeiCree with Brig' a lot. Having Yaki on Mei is going to be really useful; I think he's one of the best players on Florida's squad this year, and is very good at the most meta hero in the game right now, which is an added bonus. I don't think Colourhex is going to be able to match him at all. That said, Boston is likely to run Rein-Sigma-Mei-McCree-Ana-Lucio in my opinion, since brussen is a very good Sigma. If he can carry this team along with Jerry, I think they may get a map off, but it's still unlikely. If things aren't working out for them, they could always try some interesting variations, like putting Jerry on Hanzo and relying on those juicy picks he so often gets; I don't know, it's Jerry. Jerry will pop off on any hero he's given to play, so I'm not worried about him. My main concerns are Halo and axxiom, who really need to step up to the plate and pop the heck off to give their team a chance to bounce back. I feel really sorry for the Uprising. They're going through a rough patch with a very shallow roster, not a lot of experience between them, and some external challenges faced by the organisation. Hopefully they can bounce back in some capacity, but right now, I don't think that's going to happen.
5. Houston Outlaws vs. Dallas Fuel- Outlaws win 3-2. Yup, that's a hot take, but hear me out. The Dallas Fuel are coming off of a very close game against the San Francisco Shock, and I give them full credit for that, but this particular meta is one in which the Outlaws might look pretty darn good. With Tracer out of the pool, and Doomfist not exactly being an ideal pick with so much CC around, Decay and Doha will be deprived of their best solo-carry picks. They will, once again, have to rely on their team, which didn't do so well in the early days of this season on the exact same comp they'll be expected to play tomorrow. I'm almost certain both teams will go for Rein-D.Va most of the time, and if they do go for Sigma instead, I'll bet MekO outclasses NotE, even though NotE played a good Sigma last week. The DPS lines of LiNkzr-Hydration and Decay-Doha are well-matched in this meta according to me. Ultimately though, the reason I think Houston has an edge is because their shotcalling and teamwork seems to have improved, and they can win fights with it, whereas the Fuel rely on individual plays more than anything else. In the MeiCree meta, teamwork wins out over individual pop-off potential, so I think the Outlaws will take the series, but Dallas will make them work for it. Big oof! The Fuel took this match with a 3-2 score, which not only throws off my score prediction by just one map, but also means I got another winner wrong! After the Outlaws proved to be scary in bursts, what with their coordinated Dives, the Fuel had to rely on the most basic comeback tool in Overwatch: counterpicking. They populated every role with a hero that could counter/mitigate Dive in some capacity, and even though Houston made them work for it, they earned a well-deserved win.
As usual, let's try and guess the meta for the week before we get into our predictions.
META SPECULATION
With Orisa, Moira, Tracer, and Echo being banned, we're headed into a week where the unofficially-termed MeiCree comp is likely to make a big return. For those of you who don't know, MeiCree is a Deathbally comp which can control space like no other, primarily due to the presence of the Rein-D.Va tank duo. Reinhardt is the best main tank in the game right now, and can buy you all the space you need to re-position, and if you have to contest the high ground/the skies, D.Va can do that for you. Because of that, trying to take space against this comp is ridiculously hard. One thing to watch out for though, is the nerf to Reinhardt's Steadfast, which now reduces CC by just 30%, down from 50. I think this will definitely be noticeable, and we will start seeing Rein be the victim of environmental kills once again, or those classic Boop-Shatter combos we saw during Goats at times. However, Reinhardt's still a really solid anchor tank, so he's not going anywhere.
The DPS duo of Mei-McCree, after whom this comp is named, is super-powerful at poking down enemies and crowd-controlling them, thereby discouraging aggression. Now, there were some balance changes made to Mei, which nerfed her ammo capacity from 200 to 120, and reduced the ammo consumption on her secondary fire from 20 to 10. Essentially, she can now get 12 shots off instead of 10 with her right click, and use her primary fire for lesser time. Although this does nerf Mei's playstyle, I think it buffs her overall as a character, albeit not by a huge amount. Two additional icicles means she's better at the poke game, and can chunk down tanks or get picks on squishies more often. Although this does mean that she can't freeze enemies as much as she used to, think about this: in lower ranks, nobody is going to follow up on your freezes anyway, so you'll probably be either freezing tanks temporarily and watching them escape, or getting single-freezes onto squishies and eliminating them, which won't be affected by the ammo nerf anyway. At higher ranks, the opposite is true. You'll still have your teammates following up on your freeze calls, and since a single freeze is usually enough, and I say this with the assumption that you've got collaborative teammates, you'll win the team fight regardless. For this reason, I think Mei-McCree is going to be slightly stronger in the short run, maybe not to a noticeable extent, but numerically, yes.
The support duo of Ana-Lucio still stands strong due to the utility Ana provides with all her abilities, and Lucio's Speed Boost, which helps his team take space quicker, and enables Reinhardt to go aggressive when the need be.
I don't think any other comp will be as meta as this one in Week 12, but I'll try to guess any variations that other teams might want to run when I get into my actual predictions down below.
DAY 1
1. Seoul Dynasty vs. Hangzhou Spark- Dynasty wins 3-0. We've seen neither of these teams play the MeiCree comp, but if past performances are anything to go by, Seoul are leaps and bounds ahead of the Spark. A team that has had two super-clean showings, one against a noticeably-more-consistent team than the Spark i.e. LA Gladiators, the Dynasty haven't shown any signs of slowing down, and based on that, this should be an easy win for them. Meta-wise, Hangzhou might not adhere a lot to the comp I mentioned, and I can totally see them running Zarya instead of D.Va, for instance, since SASIN is quite good on that hero. I can also see them running different kinds of DPS heroes, like maybe Bazzi on Sombra, or GodsB on Hanzo, so we'll just have to wait and see how they interpret the meta. Seoul should be good on Mei-McCree, since Profit and FITS are both great at those heroes; also, expect Michelle to return to the fold. This perfect prediction was possible, thanks to Seoul's ability to play a variety of comps to a high level. They brought out Rein-Sigma with MeiCree, Dive with Sombra, and even Anti-Dive with McCree-Brig, and completely shut down the Spark's efforts. I must say that the Spark's strategies were pretty counter-intuitive, and they tried to force Dive quite a lot, which is not ideal in the current meta, with so many Anti-Dive tools available in the Hero Pool.
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| Match of the Day: I'm really excited to see this stomp |
2. Guangzhou Charge vs. Shanghai Dragons- Dragons win 3-0. The Chinese region as a whole hasn't played the classic MeiCree comp yet, so again, I'll have to judge this matchup based on past performances. First up, Guangzhou has been pretty inconsistent so far, whereas Shanghai has been straight-up dominating, which puts the latter at an immediate advantage. Composition-wise, I don't think there will be extraordinary variation on the Charge's side other than the possibility of them running Sombra, but the Dragons could very well pull out a special Pharah-Sombra Dive comp with DDing-LIP on the damage role. I believe such a comp can work wonders on maps with high skyboxes like Nepal Village, Eichenwalde 1st, or Dorado, since McCree and D.Va cannot contest you as well on them. Other than that, yes, put Fleta-diem on Mei-McCree and secure your free win, Dragons. Two perfect preds in a row, that's great! I was also right about Fleta-diem being the Dragons' Mei-McCree duo of choice, but what I didn't expect was the variety of comps they ran with just their starting 6. The fielded players were Stand1-Void-Fleta-diem-LeeJaeGon-IZaYaKI, and they played Dive, Anti-Dive, as well as Rein-Sigma with MeiCree, quite similar to the Dynasty. Versatility and effective counterpicking seems to be what's leading to wins this week (even more so than usual I mean), and with this win, I'm re-evaluating whom I think is the best team in OWL right now.
3. New York Excelsior vs. Chengdu Hunters- Excelsior wins 3-2. The NYXL were one of the best teams in the MeiCree meta, and they looked their best with Libero on Mei and Saebyeolbe on McCree, which is the lineup I believe they'll run against the Hunters too. Now, why do I still think the Hunters will prove to be a challenge for them? Well, it's because they often throw-off teams who are very clinical in their approach, and the Excelsior certainly fit that description. Comp-wise, they might just resort to the Double Barrier comp again, which has been a favourite of theirs this season. They might run a variant of it with Rein-Sigma-Pharah-Hanzo-Mercy-Ana, with Ameng-Elsa-JinMu-leave-Yveltal-Molly. This comp specialises in spamming down the enemy's defences, which could prove to be a strangely-effective strategy against MeiCree, especially on maps with high skyboxes. Usually, the difference between a team beating Chengdu and a team losing to Chengdu is whether or not they're able to contest JinMu's Pharah, and I believe that the Excelsior will be able to do that in most situations. Therefore, even though the Hunters have been looking good on their signature comp, New York is more adaptable than most teams, and will probably pull through and win the series. Chengdu's strats were incredibly scuffed in this match. They refused to run JinMu on Pharah, despite Pharmercy being one of the Hunters' most effective strats, and put him on Sombra, Genji and Mei for the entire match. Now, JinMu's Genji is pretty good, but the hero itself isn't in a good spot right now; also, don't get me started on his Sombra and Mei, both of which I think he's way below average at. I feel like Chengdu's coaches should try fielding leave-Baconjack more as a duo, since leave is a pretty decent flex DPS, and Baconjack can play all the hitscans they need. They need only do this while the flex DPS is required to be on Sombra and Mei. Not playing to their strengths cost Chengdu royally today, as they just kept on crumbling throughout the series. Also, their opponents were the NYXL, who exploited all their weaknesses, and outclassed them in every situation. The final score was 3-0 to the NYXL.
4. Atlanta Reign vs. Philadelphia Fusion- Fusion wins 3-1. This was a slightly easier prediction to decide on since we've watched both these teams play in the MeiCree meta. Atlanta and Philly are both well-practised on the Rein-D.Va comp, and even though the Reign are pretty good, I think the Fusion are a tier above them. We saw them beating teams like the NYXL while playing this meta, and that's a testament to their skill. I don't think they'll be dropping more than a map to the Reign this time round. Composition-wise, I don't see Philly swapping things up at all, but I feel like the Reign might experiment with playing Hanzo a bit more, since it's one of Babybay's comfort picks, and it can be useful on maps with long sightlines. We'll probably see Philly sticking to their core comp of SADO-Poko-Carpe-Ivy-Alarm-FunnyAstro, and Atlanta fielding Pokpo-Hawk-Babybay-Erster-Dogman-Masaa. It was a frantic showdown between Carpe and babybay in this match, as they pulled out the recently-buffed Ashe quite frequently, and carried their respective teams across multiple fights. In the end though, the Fusion had better coordination, and were more precise in their execution, which led to them seizing a 3-0 victory. It wasn't a stomp, but Reign got no maps nonetheless. Another interesting thing was to see Zarya back on the off-tank slot. We don't usually see her being put in over D.Va, but since Mei's hold-left-click-and-win playstyle has been nerfed, maybe teams are willing to give up some defensive utility for additional damage by using Zarya. Interesting.
5. San Francisco Shock vs. Los Angeles Valiant- Shock wins 3-0. Quite honestly, I thought that the Shock and the Valiant were quite close in terms of skill level during the MeiCree meta in Weeks 1 to 4, with the former having a slight edge. However, since then, the Valiant have proven to be very inconsistent, and I'm not inclined to show much faith in them right now. The Shock, on the other hand, had their ups-and-downs, but seem to have found their footing at last. With the lineup of super-ChoiHyoBin-Rascal-Striker/ANS-Viol2t/Architect-Moth, this match should be a breeze for the Season 2 Champions. I really want them to field ANS this time round, since he's shown a lot of promise on his signature hitscan heroes, and given the opportunity, he can do as well as Striker. I think they could certainly field Architect on Ana, since he's clearly very competent on her, but they could also just put Viol2t in to play things safe. The Valiant will probably run GiG-McGravy-KSF-KSP-Lastro-Rain, the starting 6 that got them their first win during their opening week. I think this team will probably stick to the meta too, with maybe minor variations like running Reaper instead of McCree on enclosed maps/while spawncamping. Either way though, I'm certain they'll lose this matchup. It was rather puzzling to see the Valiant not run Mei a lot in this match, especially since KSF is pretty good at the hero. Instead, they used a ton of McCree-Reaper, with KSP and Shax on those heroes. It wasn't a bad comp by any means, but they weren't able to deter much aggression with it, and that led to a 3-0 win for the Shock. That's 3 perfect preds so far this week, wow!
Well, Day 1 isn't over yet, but I'm feeling pretty confident right now, so let me jump into Day 2's predictions as well.
DAY 2
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| Match of the Day: Chengdu's possible first-victory against the Hangzhou Spark; think this will be more fun to watch than Shanghai-Seoul |
1. Hangzhou Spark vs. Chengdu Hunters- Hunters win 3-0. Usually, the Spark have the Hunters' number, but I think the odds have finally been flipped. Hangzhou is a sinking ship right now, and I'm not too confident about their ability to play this meta well. Chengdu, I think, were pretty scared of busting out something like Pharah against the NYXL, whom they might've thought would counter it with ease. The Spark, however? Well, they've struggled against JinMu's Pharah before, and I see no reason they'd hold him back from busting her out in this series. Considering that the men in pink have been pretty inconsistent as of late, I don't think they'll be able to deal with that sort of threat this week, despite having a great McCree like GodsB and an amazing defensive D.Va like Ria. Also, if these teams end up in a Dive mirror, well, I think we all know that Chengdu has an edge in that matchup. Just when I thought I'd get every winner right this week...sigh. I'm genuinely confused as to why Chengdu randomly makes odd decisions like not putting JinMu on Pharah more often this week. He was on Sombra and Mei once again, which I believe can be considered a soft-throw, considering how mediocre he is on those heroes. When you make decisions like that, you open yourself up to weaker teams like Hangzhou, who aren't very good at adapting on-the-fly. They get thrown off by off-meta comps way more than other teams, but the Hunters played very mainstream comps and got outskilled by them. The final score was 3-1 in favour of the Spark.
2. Shanghai Dragons vs. Seoul Dynasty- Dragons win 3-1. This has been the question of the week for many a fan, and I think I've got the answer. Yes, the Seoul Dynasty haven't dropped a single map yet, but it's also true that they haven't been challenged by a top-tier team so far. The Dragons, on the other hand, have been on a roll for weeks, and have mastered every meta the game has thrown at them. They've shown immense clutch potential, have a deep roster, and seem to know which players to shuffle in and out for maximum value. I'm not saying I'm not sold on the Dynasty, but at this point, the Dragons have been on a longer grind, and have still put up very impressive results on the board, so I'm going to vote for them. LIP you absolute monster! This guy was one of 6 players who played out of their minds and dominated the Dynasty...oh wait, 6 players...that's the entire team! With seemingly no loose ends on the roster and individual pop-off potential on every role, the Shanghai Dragons, with this win, have definitely overtaken the Fusion for the title of 'Best Team' in my mind. The final score was 3-0 in their favour.
4. Florida Mayhem vs. Boston Uprising- Mayhem wins 3-0. I'll honestly be very impressed if the Uprising win this match. Last week, we saw some pretty great play from Florida, as they demolished the Paris Eternal, which is a pretty good team. Even though that doesn't put them at the top of the leaderboard, it earns them some respect, and they're going to have that from me. The Mayhem also has a pretty good roster for this match, and I believe they'll be running their favourite 'MeiCree with Brig' a lot. Having Yaki on Mei is going to be really useful; I think he's one of the best players on Florida's squad this year, and is very good at the most meta hero in the game right now, which is an added bonus. I don't think Colourhex is going to be able to match him at all. That said, Boston is likely to run Rein-Sigma-Mei-McCree-Ana-Lucio in my opinion, since brussen is a very good Sigma. If he can carry this team along with Jerry, I think they may get a map off, but it's still unlikely. If things aren't working out for them, they could always try some interesting variations, like putting Jerry on Hanzo and relying on those juicy picks he so often gets; I don't know, it's Jerry. Jerry will pop off on any hero he's given to play, so I'm not worried about him. My main concerns are Halo and axxiom, who really need to step up to the plate and pop the heck off to give their team a chance to bounce back. I feel really sorry for the Uprising. They're going through a rough patch with a very shallow roster, not a lot of experience between them, and some external challenges faced by the organisation. Hopefully they can bounce back in some capacity, but right now, I don't think that's going to happen.
5. Houston Outlaws vs. Dallas Fuel- Outlaws win 3-2. Yup, that's a hot take, but hear me out. The Dallas Fuel are coming off of a very close game against the San Francisco Shock, and I give them full credit for that, but this particular meta is one in which the Outlaws might look pretty darn good. With Tracer out of the pool, and Doomfist not exactly being an ideal pick with so much CC around, Decay and Doha will be deprived of their best solo-carry picks. They will, once again, have to rely on their team, which didn't do so well in the early days of this season on the exact same comp they'll be expected to play tomorrow. I'm almost certain both teams will go for Rein-D.Va most of the time, and if they do go for Sigma instead, I'll bet MekO outclasses NotE, even though NotE played a good Sigma last week. The DPS lines of LiNkzr-Hydration and Decay-Doha are well-matched in this meta according to me. Ultimately though, the reason I think Houston has an edge is because their shotcalling and teamwork seems to have improved, and they can win fights with it, whereas the Fuel rely on individual plays more than anything else. In the MeiCree meta, teamwork wins out over individual pop-off potential, so I think the Outlaws will take the series, but Dallas will make them work for it. Big oof! The Fuel took this match with a 3-2 score, which not only throws off my score prediction by just one map, but also means I got another winner wrong! After the Outlaws proved to be scary in bursts, what with their coordinated Dives, the Fuel had to rely on the most basic comeback tool in Overwatch: counterpicking. They populated every role with a hero that could counter/mitigate Dive in some capacity, and even though Houston made them work for it, they earned a well-deserved win.
Wow, this week, I got 8/10 (80%) winners, as well as 5/10 (50%) scores correct! That's a pretty good improvement from last week! Feeling even more confident right now. If you guys think that's a good success rate, do subscribe to my blog so you get notified when I share my predictions for Week 13. Thanks a lot for reading, and I hope you have a great work-from-home week!
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