Volamel
2019-07-13 05:40:21
In the first semifinal, we have the Pacific Division leaders, the Vancouver Titans facing off against the craft and dangerous Shanghai Dragons. The Titans walked through the Houston Outlaws without much of an effort needed in their quarterfinal match.
The teams last big test was against the Los Angeles Gladiators whom they not only convincingly beat 4-0, but did so in a new style. The Titans seem much more keen on keeping Stitch in the starting lineup to play Sombra.
On the other hand, the Shanghai Dragons have been executing well on their triple DPS compositions. It’s easy to see why when you take a look at how individually skilled each of their members is.
Luffy played exceptionally well against NYXL on Ana, sleeping Mano constantly as he tried to engage. DDing becoming more a focal point with his world-class Pharah. Youngjin has been another weapon that the Dragon’s can rely on with his Doomfist and diem handles the Widowmaker and Sombra very well.
I don’t see Envy seeing too terribly much playtime this match. The Dragon’s seem very confident in their triple threat lineup and mirroring the Titans with Sombra GOATS. They’ll end up playing leaning into their color, as much as they can to try and force the Titans to adapt to their style, something which the Titans have struggled with in the past.
For great examples of this, revisit the Titans loss versus the Los Angeles Valiant and their struggles early in the season against the Chengdu Hunters. The Titans are at their most vulnerable when a team approaches them with a distinct style and forces them to become reactionary.
When it comes to brass tacks, I think this match is going to be incredibly difficult for Shanghai to win. With how quickly the Titans have adapted to their new style and how dominant they look with it, I don’t see where Shanghai has many advantages outside of a handful of Control maps and the odd Assualt map.
Now, I don’t think Shanghai has a 0% chance of winning. If anything I’d give them a solid 20% chance of winning. I think Control is going to be a dog fight, where Shanghai can come out ahead, but outside of that, the Titans just have more cohesive teamwork, they’ve shown mid-stage adaptation, and they look good integrating new members into the fold.
As for predictions, I’m going to give this to the Titans, 4-1, with Shanghai taking Control and falling to the Titans’ aggressive playstyle.
Speaking of the Valiant they were able to bring out quite a few different compositions in their quarterfinal match against the Hangzhou Spark. This, to me, seems like they have a good grasp on the new meta that has popped up towards the end of this stage.
Not only that, but they also have what seems to be a pocket map pick in Havana and looked solid on it against the Spark. However, this match, in general, holds a pretty big asterisk for me and I’m incredibly uneasy about Valiants form right now. That quarterfinal match felt like one of those games that no one truly won, but one team just made slightly more mistakes.
It seemed to be a carousel of errors between Agilities somehow finding his way into the enemy backline, FCTFCTN playing overly aggressive, and Shax had a number of awkward EMPs that slowed down the Valiant’s tempo. Again, I think I can excuse a fair bit of these due to the team still finding their footing and the pressure mounting on some of their more green players.
While I think neither team played their best match in the quarterfinals, but I still think that the Shock was much coordinated with their ultimate usage and were able to identify certain win conditions to pull them back from the brink. That said, I think the Shock are going to take this match 4-1 with the Valiant possibly taking Control or Assualt by leaning into their bunker compositions.