Tag Archives: Overwatch League Season 2

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Overwatch League Season 2 Stage Finals: Who Took Home the Trophy?

Prior to the game, my Facebook predicted a Shock win, with either Moth or ChoiHyoBin taking home the MVP trophy. (When I reiterated this quickly prior to the match, I accidentally said Sinatraa or Moth, but the sleeper OT was the one I had my money on. From one OT to another.) For a long time, it was predicted that the Titans and the Shock would face off in the Grand Finals for a match to make all other matches look underwhelming.

…Except the only thing underwhelming was the Titans. In what should have been a nail-biter, a close match that should have gone the extra mile to a map 8, ended with a 4-0 win by the Shock. It wasn’t a battle for the times; it was a slaughterhouse. It was destruction. Just when the Titans figured it out, it turns out they didn’t. This isn’t a knock to the Titans, who made some spectacular plays. It was just that they really couldn’t stop the Shock’s total annihilation of their team. If you thought Sinatraa and Striker were a dangerous DPS duo, then you sorely underestimated the power of Rascal and Architect. These DPS duos couldn’t lose. And Moth? I think if there was any doubt that he was the best western support, no one is doubting that anymore. He’s flexible and talented and such a huge asset to this team. Maybe this is a sign that the USA Overwatch World Cup team won’t suck.

It seems that there was a difference that ended up paying off in the end. The Shock was relentlessly mocked for their willingness to drop so much money on the underaged-at-the-time Sinatraa before he could even play. And when he got on the stage last season, he was criticized for being overpriced for his skill. Turns out, with a good coach to hone those skills, Sinatraa became such a force to reckon with. As someone who had a distaste for his arrogance in the past, I appreciate the newly humbled DPS starter who has learn to balance that arrogance and humility. Then they were mocked for stacking their DPS ahead of the GOATs meta, while other teams either focused entirely on GOATs or tried to balance. This is where the Titans may have made their mistake.

The Vancouver Titans seemed to center around their tank Bumper, who was seemingly unstoppable in GOATs. They had some DPS stars in Haskal and Seominsoo, but they didn’t seem as strong as other DPS stars particularly on the Shock. They were good, but ultimately they just weren’t good enough. They didn’t lose the match because they played poorly though; it was just that the Shock utterly dominated them and the Titans didn’t have an answer for it. The closest map seemed to be Anubis, where the second attempt at capturing the points seemed a bit slower for the Shock. Aside from that, there was really no competition who the better team was.

This week, you can expect the onslaught of trades or cuts from teams. I suspect this is particularly true for us Uprising fans. Aimgod will likely be the first announcement of players who have been let go. I’d love Axxiom stay in place of Fusions because I still believe he’s a more well-rounded and talented tank. But for the love of whatever entity, can we please keep blasé and Colourhex. Maybe even Stellar. I don’t care if you dump the rest of the team but I would really love these 3 players to stick around. It will be an exciting off season to match the awesome season. I think the league will be even better with the addition of traveling.

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Overwatch League Season 2: Grand Finals

As the league mourned the last Overwatch League games in the Overwatch Arena, many fans are excited for the new chapter. Except for those of us who can’t afford the insane prices for the matches, which in some areas are much more expensive than others. (No, I won’t pay that much to see a team that bombed last season and may likely just get rid of all of their players again as much as I love and support the team still.) But, there is still excitement to come: the Grand Finals!

I admit, I liked this format so much better than cramming in the playoffs and Grand Finals in a single weekend, burning out players and fans. This gives us the excitement we want, the drawn out money grab for the league, and the much needed break before the finals for the final 2 teams. But, who will take home this years title?

I’m rooting for the San Francisco Shock. I like the story of a team who struggled last year to becoming arguably the strongest team in the league. I like Striker, the Uprising’s former star. I like Crusty, who worked hard for the Uprising. I like this team. The Titans may be the new kids in the league who feel as though it’s already in the bag. But it isn’t. If the past is any indication on how this game is going to go, this will certainly be an exciting match between two of the best teams this season. The story of a Contenders team running the Overwatch League as the Titans did would make for a good story, but I like the rise from the ashes story from the Shock.

Why will they win? The Shock has more versatile players on their bench and they are not afraid to sub in to adapt as needed. They have solid DPS players that can play any roles depending on who they choose. Sinatraa has been a consistent force on this team and between him and Moth, can motivate their team. Choi is an insane off-tank. These are solid players that as long as they don’t get tilted too much can destroy any team in their path. As strong as Haskal and Seo are, I don’t think they are stronger than any DPS duo put up by the Shock.

The Shock may show signs of arrogance, but these are kids. They have shown an equal amount of humility. I don’t think I can say the same about the Titans, especially when one of their players is so confident that he says “I can beat any team as any player”. It’s no wonder that this level of arrogance and cocky play is why he didn’t end up as the tank for the Korean World Cup team. There’s aggression to take the win, and there’s aggression for your own stats. That’s the difference between a player like Tom Brady and a player like Peyton Manning. That’s the difference between a solid tank like Mano and someone like Bumper.

Fortunately for me, the Patriots game will likely be over before the Overwatch League matches start. 3:00pm EST means that the broadcast will start at 3 with a pregame show then a move into the musical acts and any other thing they do before the players take the stage. My estimate is the game will actually start at 4, so I won’t have to switch between my phone and television. This will be a great match to close out this intense season. I can’t wait until the new traveling mode of matches begins because watching your team play in the home field is always more exciting.

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Overwatch League: Season 2, Onto the Grand Finals

Let’s be honest here: Everyone knew who would make the Grand Finals. As much as some of us wanted to have a different outcome than the predictable same 2 teams, that’s what we ended up with. The Titans would try to complete their amazing first year run in the Overwatch League with the title of Grand Finals Champion, but the San Francisco Shock stand in their way. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’m back and ready to go.

As an Uprising fan I can’t help but to think that if HuK actually let Crusty run the team when he was the coach, that we would end up in this same spot at this exact time. Crusty transformed a team like the Shock, who honestly struggled last year, into the powerhouse that they are now. Instead, HuK learned his lesson too late and we went from a top 3 team to a bottom 3 team and Crusty is leading the Shock to potentially win the championship.

Last week’s playoffs were exciting matches to watch. The matches were close and the heartbreak was real, seeing the Spitfire and Dynasty go home early. Going into this recent weekend of matches, it looked like these would also be incredible matches to watch. Except only one of the four matches was. Every other team lost in a 4-0 fashion. While some of the maps in these matches were insane to watch, they also kinda weren’t. Then the NYXL went up against the Titans in a crazy match that went down to the last map. NYXL did eventually lose horribly on Dorado, only getting 1 point to the Titan’s 3. This knocked them down to the Loser’s bracket to fight for their chance in the finals against the San Francisco Shock.

The match against the Shock wasn’t a total blowout, despite their heartbreaking 4-0 loss. The maps were decently close, but the NYXL has a tendency to choke in those big moments. That’s what cost them their shot in the Grand Finals last year, and they had a repeat of this again. Would Pine have made the difference here? As much as I like Pine, I don’t think so. Shock is a strong team and I think that the mistakes were more mental than a lack of skill. That moment between SBB and Flower though was as wholesome as it was heartbreaking. SBB is a leader on this team and I would be shocked to see him leave though seeing him on my second favorite team the Spitfire would be pretty awesome.

Who’s going to walk away the Champion in 2 weeks? Both teams are strong and we’ve seen this matchup twice before in the Stage Finals, with each team taking home a win. I’m rooting for the Shock though, only because I am one of those people that think the Titans are too arrogant and need to be taken down a few. They get tilted too easily and seem to think that they are just the heir apparent championship winners. They don’t need to work for it; it’s their right. But it isn’t. My unpopular take is that Shock is the better and more versatile team, but anything can happen when those kids take the stage. Plus, Sinatraa and Moth are killing it right now and I would honestly take them over Slime and Haskal.

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Overwatch League: Season 2 Nears Its End

With the upcoming Rivalry weekend comes the end of the regular season for the Overwatch League. There have been various ups and downs this season that the league can learn from. For instance, Comms Check makes my day every time that I hear it. I enjoy watching the players have fun and it’s great to show off their very colorful personalities. The new pre-show/post-show Watchpoint moments are also great. The desk is great, though I do miss Reinforce playing a bigger role as an analyst. The new All-Star set up was also great, as was the longer breaks for the players. I felt these were things that made the league better for the players. The Homestands were fantastic, showing what energy was capable when the teams moved to their home cities for matches.

The Boston Uprising has 2 matches this upcoming weekend and I really hope that they pull off a win in one of those matches. This stage was supposed to be great for us, with our star DPS set up. What was the Uprising’s issue this stage? As much as I think Fusions is a solid guy who is talented and passionate, I still feel like he’s a GOATs Rein one-trick. His Orisa is slowly getting better but it’s not great. I feel like next year if Sigma is a good pick, you should keep him to off-tank as Sigma and give Axxiom the main tank role. The fact that they haven’t even put him in with the season over already anyways is annoying. The fact that they aren’t playing Aimgod is annoying. The reason this stage was tanked is solely on the backs of the management who are making these calls with 0 transparency at all and expecting fans to just accept it. The times of “In Huk we trust” are long gone. As Patriots fan, we still live by “In Bill We Trust” because even when he trades someone off or doesn’t play someone we think he should, it works out. It doesn’t work out for Huk. He is no Bill, no matter how hard he tries to run his team like he is.

I don’t blame blasé for the issues. He’s doing the best he can as a DPS being forced into an off-tank role, for whatever reason he’s playing. (The general consensus is that this is because rCk has an eye injury, but again, 0 transparency so who knows.) I think Colourhex (I know I hated him as Zarya, but that Widow tho) and Stellar are great and I hope that we keep these 3 DPS stars. I think we rebuild the team around them. Presumably they are selling off Aimgod as soon as they get the chance, but I also think that Fusions and rCk are going too. Persia may be good if he gets some better coaching, but I’d rather just get a solid player instead. Kellex, I could give or take him. He’s the only remaining player left from the original roster and he does show some technical skill.

So next year, I say our roster should consist of blasé, Colourhex, Stellar, Axxiom. Maybe pick up Nevix or Geguri as the off-tank. Then, maybe move Swimmer up from the Uprising Academy and Sleepy for your support duo? I’m picking players that may not be the best only on the grounds that the Uprising won’t pay top dollar for the big stars, so I’m sticking with players that I feel are “budget players”. Of course, this is assuming that they don’t just release everyone like they did last year and pick up players we probably never heard of.

Maybe the Uprising will surprise us and actually try something new for Rivalry weekend, which could give us a win. I just don’t want to go 0-7 this stage, or any stage really. But, we’ll see what happens.

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Overwatch League: Season 2, Stage 4, Week 3: Will Boston Go Winless?

This week was a little less crazy than last week, with matches going mostly as expected. I won’t focus too much on that. As an avid Boston Uprising fan, I’m going to focus on that. Because, ffs. Wtf. Srsly. Those are the best ways to explain what is going on right now.

First of all, the only good news out of the match: At least we did better than the Titans did against them. And… well, blasé is actually good at Roadhog. Not the best D.Va, but neither is rCk so we didn’t lose too much there. blasé has proven to be such a versatile and valuable player to our team that can fill any role. Maybe next, he’ll take the role of Persia since apparently we’ll never see Aimgod again. Of course, we all know what this means: Boston will sell blasé after the season is over because they always sell off their good players.

When LiNkzr was playing instead of Jake on roles that Jake excels at and LiNkzr, well, not that great at, the people did what they normally do: why did you make that call? Now, when we ask why Aimgod isn’t playing, we get nothing but radio silence. Not even some BS excuse. Nothing. The organization doesn’t respect their fans enough to give us any answers. At least lie and say he’s not feeling well or injured. But the Outlaws? They gave an answer to their fans. Something is going on internally and that decision was made as a result. The Outlaws respect their fans enough to give them some answer. It may have been vague, but it was something. As an Uprising fan, we deserve something even something vague. That shows you that they don’t value their fans.

Why didn’t rCk play against the Justice? It could be because his Roadhog wasn’t great. When fans saw blasé in the tank role, most knew that he’d been practicing Hog/Orisa with Fusions, so it made sense. But Persia over Aimgod? There is still no way that makes sense. Even if he has been outperforming Aimgod in scrims, something is happening on stage to make everything fall apart. This would be like sitting Tom Brady without giving any reason at all. Let’s tank a season without giving any answers while a star player is sitting the bench. Is it because of an internal issue and you don’t want to talk about it because it will ruin the trade value? Maybe the problem is with the organization, not the player? You would think if you wanted to increase his trade value that you would play him to get more value for him. The tank line isn’t working. The support line isn’t working. And the team management/coaching decides not to even try anything new, like maybe Axxiom over Fusions. But, we’ll put a DPS player as an off-tank. I don’t get it.

I’m a Boston sports fan. These are my home teams. I was raised to support them when they fail, because we’ve seen a lot of fail in our time as Boston fans growing up. But it’s really hard to support a team that doesn’t value their fans as they should Will I support them still? Unfortunately, yes. Because they are the hometown team. But it’s getting really hard when the fans seem to care more than the organization does.

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Overwatch League: Season 2, Stage 4: Week 2, also Known as “What Just Happened?”

As it turns out, the 2-2-2 lock brought more surprises than anyone thought it would. One question that was waiting to be answered was how the Vancouver Titans, a team known for their GOATS despite their powerful DPS line, would fare outside of the GOATs meta. There were a lot of exciting events this week, so let’s get into it.

The London Spitfire was a strong team that did struggle a bit with the 3-3/GOATs meta. They found just enough success to stay in the playoff running, but they were expected to really take off when the 2-2-2 lock happened with their solid DPS duo in Birdring and Profit. Sure enough, they had a solid start to the stage. So when it was suggested that a strong looking, but still in last place Florida Mayhem could give them some trouble, the analysts laughed. Until it happened. While London did tie on one map, Mayhem still walked away with the win against London in a 3-0 match. Was the Spitfire just outplayed by Sayaplayer? Yes. This insane DPS player poppped off hard, taking out the Spitfire players easily. It shows that even though they are out of it, the Mayhem is still going to play hard until the end.

And what about the Spitfire? Did they just not prepare as hard because they underestimated the team? Did they just not play at 100% thinking they could get away with it? Or, is London just not as good as we think? I think they may not have given the match their full attention, but they also severely underestimated the skills of Sayaplayer, who is a versatile and deadly character that you can’t ignore.

The Washington Justice, also known as the second worst team in the league who’s also long out of the playoff running, went against the Vancouver Titans, who has been a solid team from the beginning and only lost 1 game during the season. It was a no brainer that the Titans would beat Washington Justice… well… until they didn’t. In fact, they lost in their first 4-0 match. They didn’t just lose… they got rolled hard. At least the other losses had the other team put up a fight. There was no fight to be had here. As someone who likes to see top teams lose, I was delighted by this. Corey was unstoppable and Stratus was just as solid. This is an amazing DPS duo that doesn’t get the attention that they deserve, but they certainly will now.

You’d think that would be the end of surprises, but then there was the NYXL vs. Chengdu Hunters. The Hunters… 4-0’ed NYXL. NYXL was expected to have an amazing stage with 2-2-2 but they keep falling short of expectations. Their DPS lineup just isn’t working for them and I think everyone is wondering why they aren’t putting Pine in. That’s the one thing they haven’t tried yet to dominate teams. Are they saving him for the playoffs? Are they trying to trade him? I’m not going to lie, I would be happy to see the Uprising pick him up.

Why are these solid teams struggling? You could use the excuse that they are sandbagging or that they just aren’t trying because they assumed they’d win anyways. But maybe there’s something more? The teams that are doing better seem to have mastered what is now likely going to be called the “Mei” meta. A great Mei, particularly with a great Hanzo or Reaper, can make or break these teams. I think that as long as Mei is meta, teams are going to suffer. We may have thought that the 2-2-2 lock was going to mean that dive was back, but we quickly see that this isn’t necessarily the case.

The rest of the stage is looking to be an exciting one and I hope that there are plenty more upsets to come. I’d like to see a team like the Justice or Mayhem go 7-0 this stage, because I want these underdog teams to show that they aren’t the jokes everyone made them out to be. Only a few more weeks until the stage playoffs and the Grand Finals stage, so these teams better shape up if they want to make the cut offs.

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Overwatch League: The Final Stage of the Season Begins and a Watch Party

Stage 4 and the 2-2-2 lock has officially begun and honestly, there were some surprises but mostly things have gone as people thought. A big surprise was that the analysts thought that the Boston Uprising would start destroying this stage, since their DPS duo had such great potential. I guess that’s what happens when analysts finally believe in the Uprising. Here is a brief summary of what happened with this massive change to the league this week, and my more in-depth Boston Uprising discussion.

The fact that Houston lost to Paris was a little shocking to me, but they took a win home against the Gladiators to go 1-1 this week. NYXL struggled this week and Shanghai is still on a tear, especially since pulling out what is now known as “Roadfrog” with Geguri making a solid tank line with her Roadhog and Gamsu’s Orisa. Honestly, she was spectacular and it was great to see her back on the stage. It was also great to see Fragi and Bischu make their first appearances on the stage this season. All that’s left really is to see Pine freed from GOATs jail and all will be right again. Most of the other games went pretty much exactly how you thought they would, such as Titans showing that they aren’t GOATs one-tricks and it paid off for Shock to stack their team with star DPS players.

Boston Uprising Watch Party in Foxborough

Normally they do the watch parties in Boston, so to have one that was easier to get to in Foxborough was really exciting. Naturally, we had to attend. We left earlier in the morning to ensure that even with Cape Cod traffic, we would make the event in time. I’m glad we did. We ended up with a great parking spot, got to enjoy walking around the facility without the mass amounts of people that were there during my first trip to Patriot Place. (Apparently there was an Irish festival going on.) We ventured to the ProShop, happy to see that they had a lot more Uprising gear there. Then after some waiting, we went to the place where the watch party was being held.

The restaurant was pretty big, but honestly the fact that they had such a small section for the watch party setup was a little disappointing. The fact that all of the chairs were a foot off the ground was also a little annoying. (Plus the food was meh at best.) Still, they had giveaways and free Uprising stuff so that made up for some of the annoyance. To my surprise, every other television in the bar was switched to Overwatch League. This was good considering that about 80% of the people in there were there for the Uprising match. There were some “oohs” and “aws” during the Valiant match, but the real excitement came when the Uprising were on.

Until.. there was nothing to cheer about. The match was a quick 4-0 domination by the Charge. It was awful. As a fan, it was painful. There have been some bad losses, but this felt different. This was the first time that I was actually really salty over the game. Primarily because I think that my points have been proven about this team. Obviously I have no insider information or even know how their scrims go, but they did so poorly that you have to wonder if they even scrimmed during the break. Fusions is only good at GOATs Rein. I said that he was a “GOATs Rein One-Trick” so many times that I feel like a broken record pointing that out again. The one reason we picked up rCk was his versatility to switch between a mediocre D.Va and a decent Sombra. We gave away NotE because he could only really D.Va and Roadhog. Well.. now we’re in a 2-2-2 lock so we can’t use rCk for his versatility. But NotE… now NotE gets to shine on D.Va and Roadhog. On another team. The tank line is definitely one of the weakest links so far in this stage. They have no synergy and they just can’t seem to get the job done. On one map it almost looked like Ameng got his Hammod alt 3 times before Fusions even got one. That shouldn’t happen. But it’s been a consistent problem for him… since he’s a GOATs Rein one-trick.

The DPS line did well enough. Colourhex seems much more comfortable now than when he played Zarya. There were some shots that I found myself screaming “You need to make those”, but overall he had a solid performance. People were mocking blasé but honestly I felt like he was doing the things that he was supposed to be doing. That’s always been the problem with blasé. He does what he’s supposed to do, maybe without Colourhex’s flash, but he gets the job done. I don’t think the DPS was the problem.

Then.. there is the support line. Kellex has been doing well, and I admit I have been very critical of him since the beginning. But he has shown to be a versatile support that makes the big plays when he needs to. But then there’s Persia. Admittedly, he did better this weekend than he has in the past. But even in this “better” state, he’s still not even close (in my opinion) to Aimgod. You can count on Aimgod to also make those big plays… and to survive most fights. Sure, Persia made some good sleeps and his Moira was fantastic. But I didn’t see a lot of purple enemy players when he played Ana. I saw Colourhex ask for heals to not get any from Persia as he was standing next to him. I saw his problems with positioning and staying alive. Persia may be doing better in scrims but that has not translated to him playing better on stage.

Saturday was a disaster, but at least Sunday wasn’t as awful. It’s still disheartening to see as an Uprising fan. This is supposed to be a meta where we were going to shine. Instead, management seems to want to throw the matches rather than win. Why isn’t Aimgod playing? Why hasn’t Axxiom scrimmed or been given a chance? You’ve given Persia plenty of chances on stage, but not Axxiom. Axxiom is supposed to be an amazing and versatile tank who probably only didn’t start because Fusions’ GOATs Rein was better. But we’re not in GOATs anymore. I hope during this bye-week that Uprising figures it out, because it’s one thing to lose because we’re being outplayed. It’s another thing to lose because you’re too stubborn to stick with what works or try something completely new. I think the fans deserve better from the management, or at least some answers.

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Overwatch League, Season 2: Stage 4 Preview

By now, you have heard the biggest change coming to the Overwatch League this final stage of the season: the 2-2-2 lock. AKA, the GOATs killer. In case you need a recap, this is exactly what it sounds like. There must be 2 DPS, 2 support, and 2 tanks queued up to play, a change that’s coming to the next Competitive season as well. Once you queue up to a role, you are locked in that role until the end of the map. This means that there cannot be a 3-3/GOATs comp anymore.

This could potentially change everything. While Vancouver Titans are known for being a top GOATs team, they have not had much success outplaying the DPS comps. (Seriously still happy Shanghai took the Stage 3 title.) Teams like Spitfire and NYXL just didn’t quite get their footing trying to out-GOATs other teams. This could be a whole new stage for a lot of teams that have been struggling, and you can expect some interesting surprises for the next stage.

I’m going to take a closer look at the Boston Uprising here, a team that had seen some highs and lows in GOATs. What does this change mean for them? First of all, thankfully no more Colourhex on Zarya. I was never a fan of that and it almost caused me to doubt his capabilities as a player. Until I saw him play Widow. He’s a solid DPS player that can now shine. blasé has long been a solid player that performs well where they need him, even on Tracer, which leads me to wonder what their new pickup Stellar is there for. The Uprising aren’t exactly known for their tendency to sub players in and out… or really pretty much ever. What is he there for? To farm up the talent than sell him to the highest bidder? Are they getting rid of one of their other DPS? Will they actually sub him in for some maps? This will be interesting to find out.

Then there is the tank line. This 2-2-2 lock makes the trade for rCk with NotE worse for us: we lost a solid D.Va/Hog player. Will rCk now be stuck in a D.Va role, where he has made some decent plays but is overall mediocre in the role? Will Uprising give up their Sombra player for a better D.Va? Will Axxiom step into the off-tank role instead? But what about Fusions? He seems to only be a GOATs Rein one-trick? Will we see his true potential to erase this one-trick take on him? Or, will Axxiom step into the main tank role as he was supposed to prior to Gamsu’s departure? These are all great questions that will be interesting to see answered when the stage starts this week. I am looking forward to attending my first official Uprising watch party this weekend at one of my favorite places: Foxborough/Patriot’s Place. It’s going to be pretty great to cheer on the team with my boys, seeing what they can do in a 2-2-2 lock.

Shanghai might even be stronger now with this change, which is something that will be great to watch out for. The London Spitfire, Philadelphia Fusion, Houston Outlaws, and NYXL may also have a strong showing with these changes. This could potentially change everything, though it may be too late for some of the teams to really benefit from these changes. Either way, more exciting Overwatch League is on the way for fans.

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Overwatch League Season 2, Stage 3 Playoffs

Holy cow. I’m still in shock over the events of the Stage 3 Playoff Weekend. I went in rooting for either Houston or Shanghai to take it all. Why? First of all, as a Boston fan I’m all for an underdog story. My private Facebook had me pulling for Shanghai especially, since they had Gamsu. As it turns out, this was a playoff for the books.

I was, as usual, actively rooting against the Titans. Arrogance bothers me and I like watching people be taken down a peg or two. I honestly didn’t care who won as long as it wasn’t the Vancouver Titans. The Titans easily went 3-0 over Houston. What was the real shock of the night was how Shanghai managed to go 3-1 against NYXL. I was rooting for them, without actually expecting them to win. I thought they would put up a great fight but I didn’t think they would actually win. When they did, I put all my eggs in the Shanghai basket even if they were going up against the Titans. Why? Because I wanted a team that was crapped on by everyone last season for not winning a single match the entire season to win. Because I wanted my beloved former tank Gamsu to finally get a Stage title since he was a great player and person and he deserved it. Because it was a new team rather than the typical teams to make a play for the finals. Because they were the last seed in the playoffs and the biggest underdogs.

After the Shanghai match against XL, the other matches in the Quarterfinals went exactly as you’d expect. Then, it was the Titans versus Shanghai. Everyone expected the Titans to trounce Shanghai. Except they didn’t. In fact, I would argue that it was the Shanghai Dragons that laid down the destruction over the Vancouver Titans, winning the match 4-1. That put Shanghai Dragons, the team who didn’t win a single game in the first stage, into the finals against the Shock. At first, the Shanghai was dominant over the Shock, leading by 3-0. Then the Shock came back, forcing a tiebreaker map in a potential reverse sweep situation. It was a nail biter tiebreaker, with each team winning a round. It went to Round 3…. and then Shanghai was able to celebrate their big win. Shanghai Dragons truly broke through, now proud owners of the Stage 3 Championship title.

It was an exciting weekend. I actually believe it was one of the most exciting playoff weekends ever in the Overwatch League at this point. It was peak competition. It was glorious entertainment. I can’t wait to see what’s next in the final stage before the Grand Finals. Will Uprising overcome their issues and make the cut off for the fight for a playoff spot? Who are the teams to watch next stage? We’ll take a look at these questions next week.

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Overwatch League Atlanta Homestand and the Latest WoW Patch

That’s a mouthful of a title. This post will be broken up into 2 discussions: First a brief paragraph or so of the Overwatch League Atlanta Homestand weekend and the “Rise of Azshara” patch will get the most attention this post. So here we go.

Overwatch League Atlanta Homestand Weekend

The second homestand adventure was just as exciting as the Dallas homestand. This time, the Atlanta Reign hosted the event, which offered the same level of energy that makes you excited for when the teams start having home matches. While overall the matches weren’t too exciting or surprising, the atmosphere was incredible. Plus, I really love when the league does fun things like the 1v1’s as part of a pregame. This weekend, we were treated to 2 hilarious ones. Originally, the Bridowmaker Bren was supposed to go up against Dafran in a Widow 1v1. That was until Mangachu was picked up by Toronto Defiant. Then, the fans clamored over the OG Torb Mangachu to face off against Dafran in a Torb hammer-only 1v1. However, you couldn’t let the Bridowmaker down so Babybay stepped up and participated in the Widow 1v1.

The weekend kicked off with Babybay “coming in on his helicopter” and the Bridowmaker walking out to walk-out music with Widomaker leggings and no shirt. He was trolled a little bit by Babybay, who ended up winning 9-4. Then it was the Torb 1v1, which was close but the OG Torb Mangachu took home the win. Aside from that, the games went almost exactly as expected though some people may have been shocked that the Shanghai Dragons locked up the last Stage playoff spot. Even though they Shang9’ed again.

Rise of Azshara

I’m not going to lie: the only reason I wanted this patch was so that I could get flying to level alts and get some new mounts. I had some high hopes for the new zones, but I feel a little let down. While the grind isn’t as annoying as it could be, especially since you only need to get the rep to revered rather than exalted like previous achievements. My issue is navigating through these zones. Here’s a closer look at my impressions of the new patch.

On Mechagon, first of all I expected a cooler looking zone from how they were talking about it at Blizzcon. For some reason, the concept art looked so much cooler than what we actually got. It almost looks like they just recycled maybe Stormsong Valley and added junkpiles to it. There’s only 1 flight path, which is pretty annoying when you are trying to run around an island full of annoying mobs. The quests are simple enough to do. The going to the alternate reality/Mechagon’s future for quests seems cool enough, but there’s still something lacking here. I feel like there should be some more quests here and that rep grinding here isn’t quite as fast as in Nazjatar.

Nazjatar does have a ton of flight paths, but this zone is even crazier to try navigating around. In fact, I would say that these 2 zones were designed more with flying in mind than ground mounts. There are so many levels to this zone that if you miss the quest area, it takes you an hour to get back to it. Then there are those drops that you get, which actually kill you if you hold onto it too long, making it really annoying if you are trying to find where they go. Today on my stream, I will make the journey to turn in these cursed items. Watch me die a lot.

At this point, I just want to see the end of the story. I want to see the loose ends tied up and move on from this expansion. When Legion dragged out this long, it was exciting because the story was so interesting and I found it exciting as I leveled each toon. There was playability factor here that is missing when compared to Legion. You level alts because you’re bored or because you want them all to be max level, not because you enjoy the story that much. I know that’s the case for me.

Maybe it’s because we’re all excited to relive the nightmare that was Vanilla WoW. Or maybe this expansion filled us all with an exciting storyline, but nothing else. And it takes forever to get the conclusion to the storyline. Do I think this Evil Sylvanas/Baine, Thrall, and Saurfang the Hero/What about Calia Menethil? storyline is great? Yes, when we get the pieces of it. I like trying to figure out where they are going and theorizing the endgame. But it’s so slowly paced that my interest is being quickly lost. At least there’s Guild Wars 2 to fill in the time?