Battle for Los Angeles goes to Game 5

Los Angeles Valiant 3 - Los Angeles Gladiators 2

The Los Angeles Valiant took the title of Kings of LA once again on Wednesday as it took down the Los Angeles Gladiators 3-2 at the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California.

The Valiant's game hinged on the performance of DPS Brady "Agilities" Girardi. Just a few short weeks ago, he was sitting on the bench looking for a second chance to break into the starting lineup. He's had a big presence throughout Stage 3, though, and he was clutch in all three of the Valiant's map wins.

Agilities was not without an excellent supporting cast, though, and he meshed well with his support duo of Park "Kariv" Young-seo's Zenyatta and Scott "Custa" Kennedy's Mercy. Despite having some troubles with Gladiators DPS Lane "Surefour" Roberts on Junkertown, Agilities shined in the waning moments of overtime, closing out Oasis:Gardens as Pharah with a Rocket Barrage ultimate to secure the Valiant the victory.

The Gladiators, meanwhile, looked like the better team for most of this matchup except in the moments that mattered most.

Main tank Baek "Fissure" Chan-hyung reaffirmed his status as the best tank in the Pacific division and showed incredible mastery of both Winston and Orisa. Surefour played lights-out in his games for the Gladiators as well, with his Widowmaker securing a Junkertown win by shutting down nearly every RIP-Tire by Agilities' Junkrat. The Gladiators stuck to a set strategy rather than riding the hot hand of Surefour, though, and opted to play DPS and Tracer specialist Choi "Asher" Joon-seong on the overtime map.

Instead of game-planning for Agilities' Pharah, the Gladiators attempted to ignore it, and the team was punished accordingly with a series loss.

The road ahead only gets rougher for both teams. The Los Angeles Valiant will take on the slumping-but-dangerous London Spitfire at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday, while the Los Angeles Gladiators attempt to hand the New York Excelsior its second loss of Stage 3 at 6 p.m. ET later that day.

-- Travis Elliott

San Francisco Shock 4 - Dallas Fuel 0

The San Francisco Shock beat up a hobbled Dallas Fuel in a 4-0 series sweep on Wednesday at the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California.

With the Fuel jettisoning head coach Kyle "Kyky" Souder and DPS Kim "Rascal" Dong-jun just a few days before the start of Week 3, not much was expected of this team when it took the stage Wednesday. Its performance, however, was even more shaky than what was expected.

Outside of a few moments throughout the series, Dallas was destroyed. This was especially true of the DPS duo of Dylan "aKm" Bignet and Hwang "EFFECT" Hyeon, who would frequently rush onto the point by themselves before being quickly picked off, which allowed San Francisco to tear the rest of the Fuel apart. If that wasn't bad enough, Dallas topped off its final push on Junkertown by popping a slew of ultimates only to have no one touch the payload as time ticked away.

While it's true that Dallas were at a huge disadvantage from the jump in this series due to factors outside the game, that shouldn't take away from the performance that the Shock put on.

Notably, DPS duo Dante "Danteh" Cruz and Park "Architect" Min-ho shined from start to finish. Whether it was Danteh consistently one-clipping Dallas supports as Tracer or Architect clicking on heads with impressive ease on Widowmaker, the two gave the Fuel fits all night and were a crucial part of this lopsided win. This might not have been the toughest competition, but San Francisco is now 3-2 at the halfway point of Stage 3 and looks to be on the right track going forward.

San Francisco will have its work cut out when it takes on the Philadelphia Fusion at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, while Dallas will look forward to a Texas showdown with the Houston Outlaws at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday.

-- Wyatt Donigan

Seoul Dynasty 3 - Shanghai Dragons 1

The Seoul Dynasty earned a 3-1 victory on Wednesday night against the Shanghai Dragons at the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California.

For the third time in the inaugural season of the Overwatch League, the Dragons have taken a map off of the Seoul Dynasty. The major difference between this and the previous two series is that this had a lot more to do with the Dragons being a better team rather than the Dynasty making silly mistakes.

Every series the Dragons have played so far in Stage 3 has seen marginal, yet visible, improvements in coordination, but most of all has seen Tank Kim "Geguri" Se-yeon shine. Geguri's tracking and determination to snuff out the Dynasty supports as D.Va was incredible, and she allowed the rest of her team to step up and show its strength. This came to a head on Ilios in Game 3, where Shanghai proved it could earn a map victory and teamfight with the best of the world. If this is how the Dragons can play in Stage 3, then there may be hope yet for the squad in the coming weeks and Stage 4.

Of course, this effort wasn't enough to win any of the other maps, but Games 2 and 4 on Blizzard World and Route 66, respectively, were relatively close. Seoul wasn't using its best roster, notably missing support and captain Ryu "ryujehong" Je-hong, but both main tank Gong "Miro" Jin-hyuk and especially DPS Kim "Fleta" Byung-sun extinguished the hopes of the Dragons and closed out the series with a solid payload push on Route 66. Seoul as of late has raised concerns about its play by winning games only off of the weaker teams and losing to playoff contenders. This series in particular hasn't necessarily pulled the team out of its slump, so Seoul needs to make some more adjustments soon before it misses out on the Stage playoffs again.

The Shanghai Dragons still has a chance at its first victory in the League later this week against the Florida Mayhem at 9 p.m. on Friday, followed by the Seoul Dynasty taking on the Boston Uprising at 11 p.m. that same day.

-- Steven Nguyen