| Overwatch Season 2 Stage 1 Power Rankings |
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| Volamel shares his thoughts on the current teams contending in the second season of the Overwatch League. |
Taking my own estimates and comparing to other experts opinions on the metagame, I’ve estimated that around 60-65% of most compositions seen will be some variation of team fight oriented deathball compositions such as GOATs. Branching from that I’ve also tried to weigh how much experience the team has with compositions of this nature as well as the familiarity that the coaching staff has with it. I also believe that having a strong sense of synergy within your team is incredibly beneficial to this style of play and will be accentuated throughout this stage in particular. That said, I don’t expect the metagame to be completely dictated by traditional GOATs compositions. However, it’s important to keep in mind that your team is going to have to run GOATs at some point. I will add that overall player skill at these specific heroes does hold some weight within my power rankings. With the recent change to D.Va, I also expect her pick rate to be impacted a fair amount. So having a flex tank that can either rotate to one of the many DPS heroes or to Zarya is going to be important for maps and points where GOATs is not as favored. Also, it’s important to note why the D.Va, out of all the heroes, will swap. Generally, D.Va is the least valuable hero in GOATs and has been for some time. She tends to take off angles and can pressure the enemies collective health pool and her ultimate can combo nicely with Zarya’s Graviton Surge. However, her ultimate is a little too dependent. Read More….
| Spazzo Interview on OWL Season 2 |
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| Spazzo shared his thoughts on the second season of the Overwatch League with Esports Heaven. Within, he suggests that the skill level is continually rising, trumping the previous year |
Fusion University’s head coach, Chris "spazzo" Infante has worked within the Overwatch scene since early 2016 as both a player and a coach. His experience as a player as well as climbing up the support staff ladder makes him an incredibly well versed and knowledgeable asset to any team. Before he joined the Philadelphia Fusion’s academy team, he was a part of Optic Academy as well as the European Cloud 9 roster that competed in Contenders Season 1 of 2017. Spazzo took some time to sit down and speak with Esports Heaven about what may happen with D.Va since her changes, Overwatch League Season 2, and just what went on with Fusion University’s Symetra strategy in the final 2018 Contenders season. Looking back at your experience in coaching, you’ve repeatedly worked with mixed rosters. Could you give some advice about working with multi-lingual rosters? How would you suggest a young coach approach a mixed roster?
The best advice is to not get frustrated and stay patient because it will probably take double the time investment if there’s a language barrier involved. The most important thing is building trust with each player, and every player is a little bit different. Always consider your players' perspectives on situations and focus on building trust through your actions. Past the language barrier and cultural differences are just young guys who want to win. I’m grateful for learning experiences I’ve had and I’ve made plenty of mistakes. Be patient and remember the players come first. Learning Korean also helps.
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| Why have OWL's expansion teams been so successful? |
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| As we wrap up the first week of the Overwatch League's second season, one narrative has seemingly led the pack: the expectations and success of the eight new expansion teams. |
SM have ended Week 3 going 0-2. TSM might be looking down the barrel of a tight playoffs race if things don't turn brighter for the team. Their game against Cloud9 in particular was a tight race, with comebacks and chaotic teamfights that saw the game teetering on a knife’s edge. Esports Heaven discussed the game against C9 with TSM support Smoothie, as well as elaborating on his coach Ziks, reasons for joining TSM, and the stigma of joining TSM as a support.
When TSM saw Sylas in draft, was this an expected scenario?
We definitely saw a lot of Sylas in scrims. He looks like a pretty good champion if there are good ults to take. There's always the unexpected factor when new champions come out because people don't know how to exactly play against it. I think today, we had a good idea of how to play against it, we just played badly around our win conditions. At the end of the day we lost, but it was still a winnable game for sure.
How does Ziks differ as a coach compared to what you've had in the past?
The one coach that has made a huge difference for me has been Reapered. I haven't seen much of Ziks honestly, it's barely been a couple of weeks, and we have been scrimming before the season started but it hasn't even been a split yet. We haven't experienced high pressure scenarios yet. LCS is just the tip of the iceberg for pressure. When international events and playoffs come, that's when you really test teams on how they prepare, how they execute... Read More….