London Spitfire 3 - San Francisco Shock 1
The London Spitfire added another victory to its belt when it took down the San Francisco Shock in a 3-1 victory in the opening game of Week 3 of the Overwatch League on Wednesday at Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California.
A lot of the excitement around the San Francisco Shock originated from its preseason games, where DPS Andrej "Babybay" Francisty raked in the highlight-reel plays, and since then San Francisco has tailored its team strategy to revolve around his explosive play. It would be unwise, however, to ignore DPS Dante "Danteh" Cruz, who was the real hero for the Shock in its map victory on Oasis. Even though Oasis seems to be the Achilles heel of the London Spitfire, as the team continues to not use Pharah despite it being one of the hero's best maps, the Shock's play, with Danteh's Tracer being the catalyst, can't be understated.
Oasis, however, was the only saving grace for the Shock, as the other three maps told the true story of this team. With its main strategy being Babybay putting the team on his back, San Francisco was easily read and shut down by the formidable London Spitfire squad. Whether it was DPS Lee "Hooreg" Dong-eun ignoring Babybay and taking out the rest of the team or DPS Kim "birdring" Ji-hyuk headshotting him on Widowmaker, there wasn't a real chance for the Bay Area team to succeed. One last player that deserves mention is none other than Spitfire support Seung "Bdosin" Choi-tae, whose phenomenal play on Zenyatta made all of the engages for his team possible.
London takes on the Boston Uprising with hopes of adding another win to its season-long streak at 2 p.m. ET on Thursday, while the San Francisco Shock will try to tackle the struggling Dallas Fuel at 8 p.m. ET on Friday.
-- Steven Nguyen
Seoul Dynasty 3 - Shanghai Dragons 1
In a match that was much closer than the 3-1 score would suggest, the Seoul Dynasty took out the Shanghai Dragons.
Yes, you read that map score right. The Shanghai Dragons fought hard against the undefeated Seoul Dynasty and showed vast improvement since the last time it played. In its previous series, the Dragons looked hopelessly lost and out of sync with one another. Wednesday, however, Shanghai's frontline stepped up in a big way, as main tank Wenhao "Roshan" Jing and off-tank Junjie "Xushu" Liu did well to create space for the Dragons. In addition, the Dragons displayed great flexibility, changing compositions on the fly to capitalize on Seoul's specific setups and eventually earn a Game 4 win on Dorado.
Shanghai looked better than ever, but Seoul wasn't exactly swinging for the fences. With ace DPS Kim "Fleta" Byung-Sun and regular off-tank specialist Kim "zunba" Joon-Hyeok riding the bench, the Dynasty didn't put its best foot forward coming into this series. This should come as no surprise, as Seoul probably wanted to hide as much as it could before its heavyweight clash with the New York Excelsior later this week. Still, substitute DPS Choi "Wekeed" Seok-Woo did a decent job flexing through several DPS heroes, and Seoul was still Seoul at the end of the day.
Seoul Dynasty now prepares for a clash of the titans when it takes on the New York Excelsior at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, followed by the Shanghai Dragons looking to keep moving forward against the Philadelphia Fusion right after at 9 p.m. ET.
-- Noah Waltzer
Los Angeles Valiant 3 - Los Angeles Gladiators 2
In the most exciting series to date in the inaugural season of the Overwatch League, the Los Angeles Valiant completed a 3-2 reverse sweep over the Los Angeles Gladiators on Wednesday at Blizzard Arena.
While the Valiant has gotten much of the attention early on in the season, the Gladiators entered this first edition of the Battle for Los Angeles looking to prove its worth. It may not have gotten the win, but the Gladiators showed an incredible amount of grit and resilience that can certainly lead to some wins in the future.
The Gladiators came out firing with wins on the first two maps in dominant fashion. It looked as though the Valiant was simply not prepared for the aggression coming from its cross-town rivals. Despite taking a 2-0 lead into the second half of the series, however, the Gladiators seemed to get ahead of itself. Bringing out an odd team composition to Ilios: Ruins in Game 3 didn't pay off for the squad and allowed Valiant to gain some momentum.
With everything coming to a head on Junkertown for the final map of regulation, the Gladiators pulled out all the stops to try and lock the series down. The star of the map for the purple warriors was off-tank Aaron "Bischu" Kim, who hit two massive D.Va ultimates from out of nowhere that threatened to turn the tide of battle. The Valiant, however, hung on and took Junkertown, forcing a final tiebreaker map. On Lijang Tower, both teams left everything on the map, trading 100-99 wins until the series came down to one round on Lijang Tower: Night Market. In the end, the Valiant, on the back of some clutch plays from DPS Brady "Agilities" Girardi, outlasted the Gladiators' triple DPS composition and took home the series win, claiming dominance over Los Angeles for the time being.
Both teams will be back in action on Saturday to close the week, with the Los Angeles Valiant taking on the Florida Mayhem at 4 p.m. ET and the Los Angeles Gladiators facing the Houston Outlaws at 6 p.m. ET.
-- Wyatt Donigan