Hey everyone, Proilios here, and I'm ready to share some Week 14 predictions with you all! Hope everyone here is staying indoors and being as socially-distant as possible.
The past few weeks have been rough for the professional Overwatch scene. Sinatraa quit Overwatch, along with a few other OWL players; the Vancouver Titans imploded and 'parted ways' with all their players and coaching staff, and Mei wasn't banned last weekend...for the bazillionth time in a row. Still though, we do have 12 matches scheduled for the upcoming weekend, so let's get predicting! I'm not going to do any meta speculation this time round either; I think although there is a rough meta in the League each week, every team sort of puts their own spin on it and sees if they can incorporate their strengths into it. For that reason, I'll be trying to guess what sort of comps each team will run, while predicting their match results.
The heroes out-of-rotation for Week 14 are Reinhardt, Ashe, Reaper and Brigitte.
DAY 1
1. Shanghai Dragons vs. Seoul Dynasty- Dragons win 3-0. Shanghai is the best team in the League right now, and there's barely anyone that can challenge them, including Seoul. These two teams are significantly apart in terms of skill level and consistency, because of which I'm certain that the Dragons will easily take this series. I believe they will mostly break out Dive with Sombra-Pharah/Echo, which they've been very good at. Fearless-Void-LIP-DDing-Luffy-LeeJaeGon are great at Winston-D.Va-Sombra-Pharah/Echo-Ana-Mercy, so this meta should be great for them. Seoul are best off running Anti-Dive into the Dragons; playing Gesture-Marve1-FITS-Profit-Bdosin-Tobi on Orisa-Sigma-McCree-Mei-Zen-Bap is their best bet according to me. In a very close series, the Seoul Dynasty claimed a noteworthy victory against the Shanghai Dragons. I was surprised to see the Dragons running as much Double Barrier as they did, especially since Seoul opted into Dive a lot. I would've thought the Dragons would beat the Dynasty in a Dive mirror, but they didn't favour that for some reason, and lost the series 2-3. I mean, there's obviously more to it than the comps they played, but that's what stood out to me the most.
2. Chengdu Hunters vs. London Spitfire- Hunters win 3-2. This is actually the only match I think will be even slightly competitive on Day 1. We haven't seen the Spitfire play in a while, but they're a pretty decent team, and have so far shown more promise than we thought they would. That said, I don't think they can beat the Hunters just yet. It's their first match against the pandas, and there are always growing pains involved while playing a team like that. For the level of experience London's players has, I'm not sure they're quite good enough to beat Chengdu; I think they will lose once to them, learn from it, and maybe bite them back the next time they face off. Although the Hunters themselves are a slightly inconsistent team, they can play really clean at times, and against a team full of rookies (even though they're talented), they'll be able to do that for the most part. I'm sure they'll go for a Divey look once again, with maybe Winston-D.Va-Tracer-Sombra-Zen-Ana, which has been their favourite playstyle in Dive-favoured weeks. I'm not sure what London will run, since we haven't seen them playing without a Reinhardt, but I think they'll play Chengdu close nonetheless. After what seems like ages, the Spitfire returned to League play and claimed a dominating 3-0 victory against the Chengdu Hunters. Although was London's flex DPS player for the match, and he was phenomenal on Mei, shutting down JinMu's Echo time and time again during his duplicates. I feel like the Hunters need to think long and hard about whether JinMu is worth fielding all the time if he's going to be put on heroes he isn't comfortable on. I believe leave-Baconjack can be an amazing Tracer-Sombra duo, but maybe there's something I'm missing which the Hunters' coaches know.
3. Guangzhou Charge vs. New York Excelsior- Excelsior wins 3-0. Although the Charge can be extremely scary at their best, they don't bring their best very often, whereas the Excelsior are always ready to provide their opponents a challenge. This meta also seems to be great for the NYXL, who can run a Tracer-Echo Dive comp like they did last week. Maybe we see a lot of Winston-D.Va-Tracer-Echo-Ana/Zen-Mercy? I think we will, and I'm sure the Charge will try something similar. They'll probably run Eileen on Sombra instead of going for Tracer, so maybe we see Winston-D.Va-Sombra-Pharah/Echo-Ana/Moira-Mercy. Guangzhou loves making space for and pocketing nero, so I think we'll definitely see Chara following him around on Mercy. Well it's just a rough day for me, isn't it? Seoul upset Shanghai, and then, the Charge upset the Excelsior. After being overwhelmed by Guangzhou's proactive Dive strats, the Excelsior were backed up against the wall for most of the match. I'm also surprised that the NYXL fielded Libero-WhoRU as much as they did, especially since Saebyeolbe's Tracer could've put a lot of pressure on the Charge's backline. The final score was 3-1 in favour of Guangzhou.
4. Paris Eternal vs. Los Angeles Gladiators- Gladiators win 3-0. The men in purple are currently on the up-and-up, looking more-and-more solid each week, whereas the Eternal always seem to be at a metre's length from success. They seem to have enough of a consistency gap between them to allow the Gladiators a sweep, although each individual map could be close. Comp-wise, I think the Gladiators will play a fair bit of Double Barrier, which they seem to prefer over Dive. I'm not sure which DPS heroes they'd run with it, maybe we see Mei-McCree? As for the supports, Bap-Zen seems like a good choice. Paris could very well run something similar, since I don't see Echo getting much value with McCree, Bap and Zen in the picture. After having two excellent weeks of predictions, I can see that my luck has run out. The Eternal brought their A-game today, and put on an amazing display indeed. This was one of the most entertaining matches I've watched this season, and even though it ended with my prediction being defied, I was honoured to have witnessed such high-level Overwatch firsthand. Kudos to Paris, who took the series 3-1.
5. Washington Justice vs. Vancouver Titans- Titans win 3-0. Rumour has it that the Titans have picked up an entire Contenders team once again, and this time it seems to be Second Wind. Now I'm no expert, but I think a well-established Contenders-level team like Second Wind will have enough pre-made synergy to topple the likes of the Justice, who have been playing really messy in recent weeks. Washington will most likely play a ton of Echo; TTuba and Stratus seem like they'd be good at her. Maybe a Winston-D.Va-Tracer-Echo-Ana-Mercy comp will be best-suited for them. ROar's best main tank is arguably Winston, so they'd probably be really comfortable on that playstyle. That said though, if the Titans are running a full Contenders roster, it's GGEZ. UPDATE: Corey just retired. That doesn't change my prediction, but it does change my perception of what the Justice are likely to play. I'm assuming they'll have another hitscan player signed by now, but if not, they're in deep trouble. Maybe they pull out Doomfist-Echo or Pharah-Echo if they don't? Who knows? Let's wait and watch. Okay I promise I'm usually way more accurate than this. This match was really hard to predict, since Corey had retired, and Vancouver had picked up a brand-new roster. I have to say, the Titans' pickups aren't too good, but they're serviceable. They were probably a little nervous coming into their first OWL match, and played a little too scared for a team running Dive for most of the series. They made a fair share of questionable decisions, and even though Washington did as well, they were punished a whole lot more. Not the most skillful series, but at least we have an idea of where both these teams somewhat stand (Hint: It's towards the end of the leaderboard).
6. Houston Outlaws vs. Atlanta Reign- Reign wins 3-0. Although this match could certainly be closer than 3-0, Atlanta is considerably more consistent than Houston, and I just have more faith in them overall. Yes, they were reverse-swept last week, but that, to me, was an outlier in their run this season. I feel confident in them running Double Barrier comps, quite similar to the Gladiators; I think they'd excel in that, and could very well mess around with their DPS line, since their hitscans are quite versatile. Want McCree? Good choice. Want Hanzo? Break him out. Want Widow? Sure. The Outlaws will surely be on Dive; it's by far their best playstyle. Winston-D.Va with either Hackfist, or Sombra-Echo-Mercy-Ana, would be their best bet. That's more like it! It was a GGEZ for the Atlanta Reign, who dominated the Outlaws with every strategy they could pull out. They played Dive as well as Double Barrier, and did very well at both these comp styles. This was a perfect prediction (which is why it's marked green).
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| This isn't my Match of the Day (it's the Chengdu-London one), but I really wanted to use this as a poster, so... |
7. Los Angeles Valiant vs. Boston Uprising- Valiant wins 3-0. With a solid Tracer-Echo Dive that they can pull out during the series, the Valiant are already equipped to use a playstyle they're comfortable with. As for the Uprising, I think they'd best stick to Double Barrier with Mei-McCree-Bap-Zen. Trusting Jerry and brussen to pop-off is the only way Boston stands a fighting chance (map-wise of course, not match-wise), and knowing their capabilities on McCree and Sigma respectively, it's a good approach to take. I feel bad for Boston, but they're super-weak right now, and I'm not sure they can bounce back this season. GG to the Valiant! They won because...they were better, and because their opponent was Boston. 3-0, perfect prediction.
DAY 2
1. Hangzhou Spark vs. Shanghai Dragons- Dragons win 3-0. If Shanghai loses this, it'll be an upset of monumental proportions. Got it perfect! EZ clap!
2. London Spitfire vs. Guangzhou Charge- Spitfire wins 3-0. A hot take for sure, but let's see what happens! Although London made the match competitive, they lost 1-3 to Guangzhou.
3. Dallas Fuel vs. Philadelphia Fusion- Fusion wins 3-0. Eqo POGU. I underestimated Dallas in this prediction for sure. They made the Fusion work very hard for this win, and it was a very credible effort by them. GGs to both teams. Philly won 3-1.
4. Toronto Defiant vs. San Francisco Shock- Shock wins 3-0. Rascal POGU. I haven't watched much of this match, but in the parts I did watch, Shock showed flairs of their incredible clutch potential, which was a great nod to one of their signature traits from last year. They won 3-1.
5. Florida Mayhem vs. Vancouver Titans- Mayhem wins 3-0. I think the Titans will still be experiencing growing pains, and if Washington took them 3-1, Florida can certainly do better. Another perfect prediction, even though Vancouver could've easily flouted it. Similar to Dallas against Philly, the Titans gave this match their all, and it took a lot of blood and sweat for Florida to beat them. Kudos to this brand-new OWL roster!
This week, I got just 6/12 (50%) of the winners, and 4/12 (33.33%) of the scores right. I've done way better before this, but I guess it's very hard to account for upsets. I'm going to leave you guys at that, and hope you return for a definitely-more-accurate slate of predictions for Week 15!
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