All Gamers have nothing to lose
As the third-place team in OWCS China, All Gamers are heading into the Midseason Championship with nothing to lose.
Stage 1 of OWCS China was defined by the rivalry between All Gamers and JD Gaming. After a demoralizing 0-3 loss to JD Gaming in their first regular season meeting, All Gamers won their next three matchups against the team, with two of those games going to five maps. Thanks to standout Tracer performances from Hua “Alphari” Yankai and a much stronger grasp of the Cat/Bastion meta, All Gamers took JD Gaming’s place as the second-best team in China.
Second-best in China, however, didn’t translate to the world stage. At the Champions Clash, All Gamers were predictably swept by last year’s world champions, Twisted Minds. While All Gamers’ following match against the Dallas Fuel looked competitive at times, they ended their Champions Clash run without taking a single map.
Keen on taking back their second-place title, JD Gaming improved in Stage 2. Suddenly, All Gamers were the ones struggling, as they failed to win a single match against JD Gaming through the stage. In their first playoff matchup, tank player Park “Roxy” Ji-heon led JD Gaming to a 3-0 sweep over All Gamers. JD Gaming coach Wang “Kama” Chao mentioned during the post-match interview that banning Mauga in the third map put All Gamers tank Jia “LiGe” Chengjie in a difficult position: LiGe’s Sigma wasn’t solid enough to be his first choice, but his other viable tanks, D.Va and Hazard, could be easily countered by Mei and Mizuki.
Still, All Gamers put up a hard-fought battle when they reunited with JD Gaming in the Lower Bracket Final. Playing a Mauga-Shion comp, All Gamers won a back-and-forth map of Antarctic Peninsula and had a dominant showing on King’s Row, where they full-pushed on attack and full-held on defense. Then, in a risky gambit, All Gamers banned their own Mauga on Map 5. They proceeded to lose the map and the series, finishing Stage 2 in third place.
For their first match of the Midseason Championship, All Gamers will play Geekay Esports, one of the strongest teams in EMEA. Barring a major miracle, All Gamers will almost certainly fall to the lower bracket, where they will face the loser of ZETA DIVISION vs VARREL.
Here, the power differentials get murkier. Can All Gamers defeat VARREL, the team that currently holds a 45-game winning streak in OWCS Japan? VARREL still has the edge, but an All Gamers victory doesn’t feel outside the realm of possibility. Plus, considering All Gamers’ Stage 2 performance and OWCS China’s status as a weaker region, a competitive match against VARREL should be enough for All Gamers fans to leave the tournament with their heads held high.