Volamel
2019-09-17 05:47:24
Rallying back from a disappointing inaugural season, Sinatraa was dominant throughout the regular season on with the San Francisco Shock. So dominant in fact he ended up winning the regular-season MVP award.
Haksal, on the other hand, entered the league alongside the Vancouver Titans, who were comprised entirely of the latest roster from RunAway. With an equally impressive performance compared to his foil, Haksal took home Rookie of the Year for 2019 as well as joining Sinatraa as a DPS Role Star.
These two players and their respective teams would constantly meet throughout the regular seasons' most important game. First, San Francisco Shock and the Vancouver Titans would have on of the most memorable sets in Overwatch history in the Stage 1 finals. Trading blows back and forth, each team barely moved an inch, but in the 23rd hour, the Titans roared back against the Shock on Rialto to win the series and the Stage 1 title.
The Shock would have their run back in the following stage with more successful results. After completing the league’s first golden stage (going undefeated in both matches and maps), the Shock would defeat the Titans in their rematch, 4-2.
And now both the teams meet in the grand final of the 2019 season Overwatch League.
Right as the Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles California closes its doors for good, right as the 2020 season inducts massive homefronts into the league’s equations, right as the league realizes its core goal, the loop connects.
And that’s the thing about history. It’s doomed to repeat itself.
Let me indulge you with a colorful explanation.
The pre-final festivities begins with a brilliant musical performance from Zedd, but as the setlist reaches its climax, Zedd signs off and the Wells Fargo Center goes quiet. The eerie silence drones on as the audience lie in anticipatory wait. The pause lasts almost too long, but right as the dramatic tension reaches its peak--a faint noise cuts the room.
The Vancouver Titans are revealed on a plateau. One by one they step forward, each receiving their own, but each player on the starting roster is given a small audio vignette of the caster preaching the gospel of their achievements before turning and walking away. Cut to the clearing below them--from the brush emerges the San Fransisco Shock. As they trek towards the mouth of a tunnel under the same mountain range, they’re accompanied by their own individual moments captured by the commentary team.
The faint whispers in the wind are interrupted by the horn of a train.
As the camera pans down, it’s revealed to the audience the Shock are walking headfirst into a tunnel with a train painted the very colors of the team they just decimated in the losers’ bracket finals; the New York Excelsior. As the train blitzes past them, the windows flicker a slideshow of memorable moments the Shock had throughout the season to bring them to this point.
The defeat at the hands of the Titans in stage one.
The victory over them in Stage 2.
Shanghai’s upset in Stage 3
Atlanta’s upset in the quarterfinals.
The screen then fades to black.
Cue a slow but triumphant return of the Shock backed by an inspirational theme composed and performed by Zedd in the arena. The entire Shock roster emerges triumphantly from the ground floor, on the leftmost side of the arena, spotlight above them, dimly illuminating the pitch-black Wells Fargo Center.
As the team finds their marks and waves to the audience and the music reaches a valley in tempo, the Vancouver Titans reinvigorates the stadium, emerging from a small stage on the right side of the arena extended from one of the upper-floor suits. As both teams stand, basking in the spotlight and fan elation, two men step forward from their respective teams.
Sinatraa and Haksal step forward from their respective teams, flanked by the remainder of their rosters to meet center stage. The Rookie of the Year meets the regular season MVP and both men shake hands almost signifying a mutual understanding that there is a sizeable chance that either one of them, performance pending, could walk away with not only the coveted 2019 Championship Title but the Finals MVP as well.
Two years in the making.
From a humble online competition to a sold-out crowd in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Haksal and Sinatraa will clash to decide the fate of the 2019 season.
And that’s the thing about history. It’s doomed to repeat itself.
Someone once told me time is a flat circle.
Everything we’ve ever done, or will do, we’re going to do over and over and over again, spiraling to infinity.
These two teams and these two incredibly talented men will wage war against one another on September 29th. And behind them is another budding generation of young men and women that are going to follow their footprints. The titles may change, the genres may be different, but time will reconnect again.
And again.
And again.
Forever.