📝 Breaking out of the Slump: Geekay Esports 2025 World Finals Preview

Geekay Esports had spent the first two stages of their 2025 season making statements and taking names.

They had successfully won first place in the Stage 1 Regional Finals, and they were the first western team to beat Crazy Raccoon when this core competed under the NTMR banner at the Champions Clash.

Even after DPS Xavier "zeruhh" Zambrano left for Team Liquid, William "WMaimone" Maimone helped continue the same trajectory. Not only did they successfully win Stage 2’s Regional Finals, they had taken Team Falcons to five maps at the Midseason Championship.

Everything seemed to be trending upwards for this squad. When Stage 3 began, the goal was to repeat the successes of the 2024 Toronto Defiant and win another North American Final.

And for the first four weeks, that seemed to be the case — Geekay ushered in another era of dominance, consistently 3-0ing every team they faced. It seemed as though their path to a third 1st Place finish was on track.

However, that era of dominance did have one large caveat. While they had shut out all their opponents convincingly, Geekay had yet to play a team within the Top 3 of the region, with their only serious opponent during the first few weeks being NTMR — and that match had a large asterisk due to Ryan “Painkiller” Cooper being unavailable for NTMR because of internet issues.

When their final two games of the stage arrived, cracks in the armor began to show. Liquid had defeated Geekay after five maps in Week 5. One small hiccup would be expected, as a winning streak cannot stand forever, but Geekay then lost to Spacestation Gaming after another five-map series the following week.

The new meta brought on by the Season 18 balance patch seemed to throw the team off balance. Geekay had utilized the new support hero, Wuyang, as the crux of their strategy. While Benjamin "UltraViolet" David performed dominantly on the water-based hero —and synergized well with Oliver "Admiral" Vahar on Lucio — the entire support strategy of Geekay seemed to revolve around only Wuyang.

Many assumed that the introduction of the new hero meant that their composition variety would simply increase, as opposed to relying predominantly on one backline. The rest of the team was able to showcase different styles of play, but committing most of the playtime into Wuyang was a departure from previous stages’ flexibility.

The decision not to swap off the Wuyang impacted the DPS of the team. Both WMaimone and Denis "Lethal" Tari cycled through hero selection and rotated between playing Tracer, Sombra, and Symmetra. All with mixed results. Lethal eventually shifted back to more hitscan, which brought improvement, but was ultimately not enough.

Perhaps it was due in part with Ramattra being heavily nerfed and a dive centered meta having formed. The prior rush dominated metas of Stage 1 and 2 played well into Riley "cuFFa" Brown’s wheelhouse, as he looked to be one of the elite Ramattra players in international competition. When the Omnic tank departed the meta early on, cuFFa demonstrated high-level mechanics on Winston and Wrecking Ball, just as he had done in past dive metas. But this time, he was unable to have the same impact he had previously had on Rammatra and Hazard.

When Spacestation and Liquid took notice, all that needed to be done was either ban the Wuyang or play on maps where the composition wasn't viable. And unfortunately for Geekay, this worked.

The map differential they had between Liquid and Spacestation was concerning. Geekay struggled on dive-favored maps and routinely fell flat against both Boston "Infekted" Fine and Xander "Hawk" Domecq. This was most evident on Flashpoint, as Geekay lost Suravasa all four times they played it against both teams, and only managed to win Aatlis once.

In Stage 1, this core had played against both Liquid and SSG in a total of 22 maps, going 9-13. This map record seems lopsided, until it becomes clear that of the 5 games they played against their rivals, the team went 3-2 and won the Stage 1 Regional Finals. That trend improved in Stage 2, where under a new banner, they played 23 maps against Liquid and SSG, this time finishing 14-9 in 5 games. Of those five series, only one game was in favor of their opponents, as Geekay went 4-1 and later won the Stage 2 Regional Finals.

By the end of the Stage 3 Regional Finals, Liquid and Spacestation had played against Geekay for another combined 5 matches. Of those five games, however, Geekay went 1-4 in match victories and 10-14 in maps. This time, there would be no last-second comeback — Geekay placed 3rd, their worst performance of 2025.

Despite the troubles this team faced, Geekay managed to lock in and win their first match of the Upper Bracket finals, securing a spot in Stockholm. As cuFFa said all the way back in Week 1 of Stage 3, “[their] focus is to compete with the best, and the best is outside of NA.”

The World Finals is going to be the biggest challenge of the season, as previously at the Champions Clash and Midseason Championship, they had a first-map advantage by being the first seed from North America. Now, they will need to play strong competition with even tougher conditions.

Currently, Geekay’s first opponent in Round 1 will be Al Qadsiah, the 2nd Seed from EMEA. Their previous meeting at the Midseason Championship was a near reverse sweep, but ultimately went in favor of their opponent.

If Geekay hopes to reverse their trajectory, coach Eric "Wheats" Perez will need to study the tape and find the right strategy during their bootcamp in Portugal. They will need to recapture the flexibility they demonstrated at the start of the year. And — assuming they still would like to have a trick up their sleeve — they can still keep UltraViolet’s Wuyang in their back pocket and use this pick similar to their previous Lifeweaver style.

Throughout all eras of Overwatch Esports, there has always been one team that performed well all year only to stumble towards the end. During the APEX days it was LW Blue, then the New York Excelsior in the Inaugural Season of the Overwatch League, and later the 2022 Los Angeles Gladiators and 2023 Atlanta Reign.

Now, the buck seems to be passing to the 2025 Geekay Esports core. The only question is if Geekay will take their place among the aforementioned teams, or chart their return to greatness.