📝 WAE rise and Falcons fall: OWCS Korea Stage 3, LCQ and Playoffs Week 1 Summary

The first week of Seeding Deciders has concluded, and it certainly provided the high-stakes, top-level Overwatch that we hoped for. Two teams qualified for the Regional Playoffs, there were plenty of close series with upsets to boot, and some inspiring individual performances to dive into as well.

Game of the week: Team Falcons 2 - 4 WAE

Would it be a Korea Playoffs without an unprecedented upset against Team Falcons? After beating the dominant T1 in the final gameweek of the regular season, Falcons fail to defeat a WAE side that had given a shockingly unconvincing performance in the Last Chance Qualifier the day before.

WAE started as they intended to go on, creating some absolute dogfights on Map 1, Samoa. The first point went their way playing their signature Wrecking Ball comp, with Park “Seonjun” Seon-jun and Oh “Maka” Eun-seok securing game-winning trades to prevent a Kim “Proper” Dong-hyun clutch.

Falcons even the score, winning the second point, and switch onto the Ramattra for the brawl-heavy final round. It was at this point that many Falcons fans breathed sighs of relief; WAE failed to get anything going on the Wrecking Ball comp, and when they switched to mirror Choi “Hanbin” Han-been’s Ramattra, things got even worse.

However, no one could have predicted what would transpire when WAE made the choice to take Falcons to King’s Row and attempt the Ramattra mirror once again. Most thought that the WAE coaching staff had made a blunder, but they were able to shockingly full hold Team Falcons. Some intelligent Mei play from Seonjun and great discipline from the rest of the team gave them all the ultimate advantage they needed to keep Falcons at just over one tick of capture progress. WAE then put on a clinic on offense, utilising the high ground that Falcons failed to take, and winning the map with ease.

WAE proved that they can not only win the brawl mirror, but the dive mirror as well, taking a huge advantage on Esperanca against the Hanbinston and converting it in the end, despite Falcons threatening a comeback.

Falcons take a dominant win on Watchpoint: Gibraltar - Ham “SOMEONE” Jeong-wan comes in and shuts down Lee “Ade” Ji-hwan on the hitscan in another Winston mirror. Ade had been a big reason why WAE were competitive in this series, and keeping him quiet really neutered them.

This would be the last sign of life from Team Falcons in this series, however. Ade truly comes alive on Suravasa, finding game-winning picks in multiple fights, and coming good in the clutch moments with help from Seonjun, who leaned on the Venture for the remainder of the series.

Ultimately, WAE close it out on Map 6. This was such a great performance from WAE, as there was very little belief following their performance in the Last Chance Qualifier - a 3-0 loss to ONSIDE and a far-from convincing map 5 win over Old Ocean that didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Their ability to turn it around and defeat the Midseason Champs was one of the moments of the season so far, and bodes well for their upcoming playoff run.

Player of the Week: Seonjun

This award could’ve gone to either of the WAE DPS players - both had popoff moments, fight-winning plays and crucial clutches, but Seonjun gets the nod from OWTV this week.

He was able to contain Proper on the Tracer a lot of the time, giving his backline the space and freedom to make plays of their own.

In multiple fights throughout the series, he single-handedly dealt with multiple Falcons members, be it winning the side fight against Proper or connecting with the backline to separate Hanbin or SOMEONE from their healing sources.

His Venture play in particular seemed to be a difficult for Falcons to deal with - it’s a look that not many teams are willing to give, but WAE noticed that it was working and stuck with it, even when Tracer was available.

In any case, when you have Proper in your back pocket for the majority of a series, good things will come to you.

Match Results

Last Chance Qualifier

ONSIDE GAMING 3 - 0 WAE

The first match of the Last Chance Qualifier produced quite the shock from the get-go. WAE went into this as favourites. These two teams like to play very similar compositions, and WAE have historically looked stronger against them. That wasn’t the case this time, though: Attack played the whole series, switching between D.Va and Zarya and finding success on both. Multiple members of WAE had shocking performances, and ONSIDE, especially Lee “Knife” Seon-woo and Jung “Kilo” Jin-woo, capitalised and won a dominant series.

Cheeseburger 1 - 3 Old Ocean

This match, in contrast, went largely as expected. Each map was extremely close, but Cho “Heiser” Yu-hyun and Kim “Becky” Il-ha were the big difference makers that turned the tides towards the Old Ocean. Becky was able to find value in the side fight and give the Cheeseburger backline a very hard time. Heiser was consistently finding multi-kills with Primal Rage and giving them the X-factor that Cheeseburger lacked. He earned the prestigious title of “Next Up” for this performance.

Cheeseburger did manage a win on King’s Row, their best map, but ultimately the player quality difference shined through for Old Ocean.

WAE 3 - 2 Old Ocean

WAE had to follow up their difficult start to the day with an elimination match against Old Ocean. Winners progress to the Regional Playoffs and the Road to World Final tournament later this month, while the Loser has their season and year end right here.

It was the slimmest of margins on Lijiang Tower, tied up 1-1 on rounds we went to Garden, and WAE required a long and dangerous stall to keep themselves in it. Then, a four-person bola from Ade onto a last desperate teleporter from Becky closed out the first map.

The maps were passed back and forth from this point; A New Queen Street Winston mirror that went the way of Old Ocean, a Ball mirror on Suravasa that WAE had to reverse sweep. As the Ball mirror continued on Eichenwalde, Old Ocean were able to tie up the series and send us to a map five Rialto.

This time, Old Ocean attacked with a Winston/Ana/Wuyang into the Ball of WAE, but a full hold off the back of some poor Old Ocean ultimates sealed their fate. WAE pushed with time to spare and preserved their life in OWCS Korea.

WAE can count themselves fortunate to survive the Last Chance Qualifier, but as we saw in the Game of the week against Falcons, they are far from done in the tournament yet.

For the Old Ocean side, their season ends here, but it was a more than respectable campaign. Heiser continues to look like one of the best prospects in Korea, and Ryu "ryujehong" Je-hong even got the better of Lee "LeeSooMin" Soo-Min on Lucio, proving you might just be able to teach an old dog some new tricks.

Regional Playoffs

ZETA DIVISION 4 - 1 ONSIDE GAMING

ZETA looked dominant at various points throughout this series. It seems that the meta has shifted away from the Wrecking Ball for teams that have good off-tank options, and Shin “BERNAR” Se-won is just that. He was incredibly consistent on both Zarya and D.Va throughout the series, but the standout for ZETA was Jun “Probe” Jun-yung. He gave his best performance ever in a ZETA DIVISION jersey, finding magic picks, hitting ridiculous shots and damn near carrying the team on his own at times.

They dropped a map on Suravasa due to what can only be described as a continuous lapse in concentration, but brought it home on New Queen Street to put to bed any notions that ONSIDE were coming back.