Week 3 of Stage 2 of the Overwatch League’s Inaugural Season was arguably the most exciting week thus far with twists and turns throughout.
Gladiators the team of the week
The breakout team for Week 3 was clearly Los Angeles Gladiators, who were expected to struggle with a difficult schedule. Initially matched against their intercity rivals Los Angeles Valiant, Gladiators blew Valiant away in a stunning 4-0 performance. Not only did Gladiators claim Los Angeles, they also took down Stage 1 winners London Spitfire 3-1.
Gladiators have finally found their winning formula, which involves the rotation of their three DPS players, with an emphasis on Hydration’s Doomfist. Hydration is one of the only players continually playing Doomfist, and thus far his performances have been exquisite. The ability to flex onto multiple heroes is one of the strengths of this DPS rotation, with a myriad of compositions they can run depending on their enemies’ tendencies.
The sky appears to be the limit for Gladiators but questions will remain until they can prove themselves across multiple weeks of play.
Mayhem show improvement
Arguably the other best week belonged to Florida Mayhem, who had a 2-3 loss to Houston Outlaws before besting Dallas Fuel 3-2.
Florida have struggled ever since the creation of the Overwatch League, joining Shanghai Dragons towards the bottom of the standings from the very beginning.
However, this week Florida have finally showed their promise, particularly against the previously surging Outlaws – who were desperate for a win after their shockingly poor play against Valiant.
The question for Florida is whether or not this was more about their proactive play or the poor play of the other two teams? At the very least Florida finally have the taste of victory back in their mouths, with a chance to attempt to carry some real momentum into Week 4.
Dallas disappoint
The most disappointing team of the week has to be Dallas Fuel, who came in with high expectations given their seemingly easy schedule. Dallas failed to get off the ground this week, first falling 3-0 to an under strength San Francisco Shock, missing their best players due to age restrictions, before the loss to Florida.
Perhaps the only bright spot for Dallas was the decent showing when Rascal was in the line-up. The team will probably look to integrate Rascal more often, given the presence of EFFECT and aKm on the roster.
The poor performance was not restricted to within the game however, as multiple Dallas players were disciplined by the League. xQc once again found himself suspended, and Dallas have now decided to release him. This came as a bit of a shock as xQc was the best performing Tank player for Fuel and there are questions of how they will proceed without him.
Dallas needed to use this week as a building block for success down the road, yet the difficult times in and out of game have created a downward spiral with no signs of recovery.
Outlaws struggle
Another team with a disappointing week were Houston Outlaws, who came in looking to establish themselves as a title contender.
Houston struggled in the spotlight, getting absolutely decimated by Valiant 4-0 in one of the biggest surprises of the week before barely pulling out a win against a Florida Mayhem outfit they were expected to brush aside.
The question is where Houston goes from here, with Gladiators looking resurgent and the likes of SF Shock gaining super and sinatraa in the coming weeks.
