Overwatch League - Stage 1

Stage 1 of the Overwatch League ended this past Saturday with a pair of title matches. This followed 3 regular season matches, which made for a very long day of Overwatch. The eventual Stage 1 Champions were the London Spitfire, who took quite a strange road to be crowned champions. London came into Week 5 in 1st place at 7-1 and a better map differential than New York. It was almost certain that London and New York would make it into the Stage 1 Playoffs. New York secured their spot on Thursday with a 3-0 win over Florida. London looked to follow in the very next match against Houston, who needed to go 2-0 in Week 5 to have a chance. To the surprise of many other than maybe Houston, they were able to beat London coming out hot and taking the first 3 maps. London didn't tilt and kept their composure to take the 4th map, which was huge for their map differential because instead of a -4, they ended the match with a -2. London's next chance to secure a playoff spot would on Saturday against the 1st place New York. It was not a must win for London, but they couldn't lose my a large margin or else it would open the door for other teams to finish 7-3 and beat them by map differential. London took New York to 5 maps, losing a closely contested match 3-2. Even though they lost, they did enough to secure a playoff spot strictly off of map differential. Houston beat Boston 3-2 in the next match to take 2nd place and push London down to 3rd place. Even though, London went 0-2 in Week 5 and finished 3rd they were probably favoured against Houston in the Stage 1 Semi-Finals. Houston took the 1st map, but that would be the end of their success as London looked dominant in the next 3 maps, taking the series 3-1. This setup a rematch between London and New York, both All Korean teams. London looked like fatigue might have been setting in as they went down 0-2, but instead they pulled off the reverse sweep winning the next 3 maps to upset the 1st place New York. London took home $100,000, while New York took home $25,000 from the Stage 1 Playoffs. It was a crazy day for London, who played a total of 14 maps between 3 matches over a span of 10+ hours. It might have worked in London's favour that they lost to both Houston and New York earlier in the week / day, but in the end they are the Stage 1 Champions.

Last Week: 9-3

Total: 39-21 (.650)

I finished Stage 1 with a .650 record in predictions. I came into Stage 1 with a huge bias on Dallas and Seoul as I thought they could easily be the Top 2 teams in the league, but neither of them made the Stage 1 Playoffs, so my expectations have lowered. Dallas is still probably a middle of the pack team, while Seoul teeter on the edge of the upper echelon . Stage 2 brings major changes to the Mercy meta and a few roster moves have been rumored for many of the bottom teams. Houston, Los Angeles (Valiant), Boston and Philadelphia hope to prove that Western Teams can hold their own against the All Korean Teams.