đź“ť Gen.G are back: OWCS EMEA Stage 3, Week 5 Summary
The penultimate week of the Overwatch Champion Series regular season in EMEA held limited promise, with most of the attention being given to Team Vision and Team Peps battling it out for fourth place. Gen.G had other ideas as their midstage turnaround forced Twisted Minds all the way. Before we enter the sixth and final week, we will catch you up on everything from Week 5
Game of the week: Gen.G 2 - 3 Twisted Minds
After Gen.G’s start to the season, little was expected of them against Twisted Minds. A convincing win over Goud Guys ANM the week prior led to slightly more belief in the lineup, but even the most optimistic of fans came in with tempered expectations for this clash.
It started on Ilios, and the opening pick of the series belonged to Christian "Khenail" RĂos. An early warning sign that Gen.G would not be going down without a fight. The map was back and forth, but as is often the case in high-level Overwatch, the support ultimate value proved to be the difference maker. Twice across the map, Gen.G used both Kitsune Rush and Tidal Blast to win a fight, not cleanly though, providing Kim "Simple" Ji-sung with the opportunity to convert the support ult advantage and grant Twisted Minds a 2-0 on Ilios.
King’s Row was the choice of Gen.G for the second map, and you immediately saw why. Alexander "Tred" Madgwick-Smith on the Zarya and Jamie "Backbone" O'Neill on the Reaper got their team off to a great start. Twisted Minds were left swapping to find an answer. Rammatra, D.Va, and even mirroring the Zarya, all came up short. Twisted Minds forced an extra round but without any time in the bank, leaving Gen.G with 1:57 to gain a single tick. Quick picks from Daniel "xzodyal" Castro and Backbone tied the series up 1-1.
Twisted moved us over to Junkertown to create a more difficult map for the Reaper, combined with a Zarya ban to force a D.Va mirror, playing right into Abdualziz "TVNT" Altmimi’s hands. Nothing was going to be easy for either team in this series as another round of attack and defence was required, but this time Twisted Minds had the timebank advantage and converted with time to spare.
Esperanca from Gen.G and a Tracer ban to handicap Maximilian "Seicoe" Otter while protecting the Reaper. Twisted Minds' answer was to counter the Zarya with Bastion, while Ibrahem "Quartz" Alali sent Tred low; he lived on a sliver of HP, and Gen.G won fight after fight, giving them a strong lead entering the final 3 minutes. Twisted tried to swap again, Hazard and Pharah this time, but to no avail. Gen.G’s lead was too great, and the D.Va swap from Tred snuffed out any chance of a comeback.
A map five Suravasa, but Twisted Minds still had access to their most powerful ban, Reaper. It was Gen.G’s turn to struggle to adapt. Backbone tried Torbjorn, Symmetra, Tracer, but nothing could slow down the Hazard/Kiriko/Lucio from Twisted Minds, and it snuffed out any hope for an upset.
As much as Twisted Minds will claim the win and move to 2nd in the table, the real winners this day were Gen.G. Unrecognisable from their early-season performances. Credit should be dished out widely across the roster. Lewis "crispy" Beer and Tred had received their share of criticism in Stage 3. In this match, though, they went blow-for-blow with their more established opposition, including more Wuyang than we’ve seen out of Crispy previously. Likewise, Khenail has come back into the starting roster and delivered a performance to rival those from his time on Virtus.pro last year.
The biggest standouts, though, were Backbone and xzodyal. Reaper is a hero who demands risks, and the line between carrying and feeding is slim. Backbone came out the right side of that more often than not. While xzodyal went toe-to-toe with Quartz, an unenviable task, however, the young Spaniard excelled. The future is not easy for Gen.G with Al Qadsiah this weekend and a tough run through the playoffs thereafter. Where there was once despair, there is now hope. Anything can happen in playoffs, and Gen.G suddenly look like the most dangerous team from the middle of the pack.
Player of the week: Luca “Tama” Gal from Team Vision
It was an important week for Team Vision, and while the expectation is that the Korean imports will be the difference maker for this roster, it was the Austrian Luca “Tama” Gal that proved the pivotal piece.
Up against William "Willys" Ersson on the Team Peps' side, it was a battle between two of EMEA’s most promising tanks, but there was a clear winner. Playing a wider variety of tanks, Zarya, Winston, Sigma, and Wrecking Ball, Tama demonstrated both his ability and flexibility, helping Vision get the most out of their double flex support backline.
Park "Viol2t" Min-ki shone as he so often does in these series against mid and lower table opposition, but the ability to get the Overwatch League champion onto his best heroes requires a range of playstyles and adaptability from the tank position. One that Tama thrived in during the series against Team Peps, making him our OWTV player of the week.
The next test is against Virtus.pro, and Tama and Vision have said it themselves on many occasions, the goal is not fourth, the goal is top 3. The challenges and tests will keep coming as we head into the playoffs, but with a patch change on the horizon, the level Tama has shown on a wide variety of heroes will be crucial for Vision to turn their dreams into a reality.
Honourable mentions have to go to a lot of the Gen.G players. Taking Twisted Minds to five maps is an achievement in itself, but after the start of the Stage that Gen. G had, the turnaround has been all the more impressive. Backbone, xzodyal and Khenail were all reasonable candidates for Player of the week for the impact they had in this week's match and the part they have played in this up tick in form.
Meta summary: There is no meta
No singular hero or combination of heroes is defining the meta in EMEA right now. Support is the closest with Wuyang, Kiriko, and Lucio being the most common combinations. Occasional use of Baptiste, Illari and Ana are in the mix; most of that is coming from Team Vision, though.
Tank-wise, D.Va continues to see large amounts of playtime; it is EMEA after all, but space has opened for more variety. We’ve seen Wrecking Ball from both Jonas "eisgnom" Stratemeyer and Tama be largely successful. Even some rare Sigma success was folded in by Tama on Junkertown, too.
LoĂŻc "KroxZ" Ricci played both Doomfist and Junker Queen, with the latter being more successful than the former. Zarya continues to have her place for certain teams, with Gen.G being the shining example. The tank that struggled the most was Hazard, both in the hands of Team Peps against Vision, while Twisted Minds had mixed results with him against Gen.G.
Rammatra’s demise may have been greatly exaggerated, as we saw multiple attempts, especially into Zarya. Success may have been limited, though it would not be surprising to see the hero creep up in playtime once again.
Symmetra continues to be one of the strongest picks, both combined with hitscan and in place of a hitscan. While all this is often expected in EMEA, this pick rate is fairly consistent across all regions. Freya and Sojourn were the most common hitscans, while Tracer was the most common alternative to Symmetra. Unless, of course, your name was Backbone and you fancied Shadow Stepping onto Daniel "FunnyAstro" Hathaway every fight. Two players also played Torbjorn; neither had a good time.
Whatever your preference in meta to watch is, most agree that variety is king, and there seems to be a good amount of it right now in EMEA. The deeper we get in the regular season, the more we see teams committing to their styles, making for engaging matches and diverse clashes. With a patch round the corner, it is all liable to change again during playoffs, but for now, we can enjoy the variety.
Results summary:
Quick Esports 0 - 3 Virtus.pro
Quick set out to try and ruin Niclas "sHockWave" Jensen’s Fantasy score by focusing him down. In that sense, it was mission accomplished. Regarding winning the match or taking maps, the mission was a complete failure.
Virtus.pro continued with eisgnom in the lineup for all maps, while Kim "JaeWoo" Jae-woo made a brief appearance for the final map. No drama or surprises here as Virtus.pro looks to close out the regular season strongly and secure the second seed going into the playoffs.
Team Peps 1 - 3 Team Vision
The battle for fourth was the highest stakes game of the week, and it was Team Vision who turned up strongest. A Freya ban on Esperanca allowed Team Peps to find some success with their Hazard composition, clutching out the final fight courtesy of a Florian "Dip" Lefèvre Pulse Bomb. The rest of the series, however, felt like an uphill affair.
Sigma, Zarya, Wrecking Ball; Team Vision’s solutions felt endless, but in many ways, Team Peps proved to be their own biggest hurdle. Multiple support ultimate pushes failed to find kills, the most egregious of which was at the end of Junkertown, where a Sound Barrier push failed to kill Tama on the Sigma. The normally squishy tank to such situations managed to live, and Team Vision prevailed.
At the top end, missed advantages cost the world, and Team Peps paid the price. While their ability to finish top 4 and avoid starting in the Lower Bracket of playoffs is not impossible, it is improbable. It requires wins in both their doubles, including one over Virtus.pro. While the season is not over for Team Peps, a higher level is needed to go deep in the playoffs. With Gen.G stocks rising, the field is only getting tougher as we reach the end of Stage 3.
Al Qadsiah 3 - 0 Goud Guys ANM
Business as usual for Al Qadsiah, who are well on course to finish the regular season with a perfect win record. KroxZ on the Doomfist provided a bit of a scare on Lijiang Tower Garden, but that would be the only fight Goud Guys would win that map.
Goud Guys threw every tool and tank in their locker at the Al Qadsiah behemoths, though it wasn’t until Junker Queen on Esperanca that there were any signs of life. Goud Guys took the lead against the Hazard from Al Qadsiah, however, the gap in objective management during the fights illuminated the skill difference between the teams. When Al Qadsiah finally won fights, they won big, quickly eclipsing the Goud Guys' lead and from there, there was no taking it back.
Spirited but inadequate is the summary of Goud Guys' season so, with one final test against Team Peps next week. While Al Qadsiah will take on a revitalised Gen.G.