Overwatch Wednesday: Atlanta Reign and Houston Outlaws
Written by: Landon McBee
This coming weekend, there are seven matches being hosted in Texas by the Houston Outlaws. This article, like many future articles, will discuss the Overwatch League schedule. When looking at the schedule please bear in mind that, for the foreseeable future, all homestands being hosted in China or Korea have been cancelled.
Last Week's Heartbreak
The last week homestand in Washington, D.C. was something that could only be described as truly breathtaking. Week 3 of matches opened up with a very long awaited match: Philadelphia Fusion vs New York Excelsior. These are two teams that, up until this point, looked very dominant. However, this match was the true test for Philadelphia doubters. Before this match, the Fusion had only beaten the Florida Mayhem and the Washington Justice, and both of those teams could have easily been considered some of the worst in the 2019 season. With a lot to prove, Philly came out and had a very dominant performance over a team predicted by many to be top 5 this season.
The second most notable game of this weekend was the slugfest between the Houston Outlaws and the Boston Uprising. These two teams going into week 3 were predicted to be some of the worst in the league so far. With that being said, nobody expected this record breaking match to be quite as entertaining as it really was.
While this image sums up the match fairly well, the 3-2 scoreline does not really show how entertaining the game was for everyone. After being down 0-2, the Houston Outlaws were able to draw 2 maps for the Overwatch League's first double-draw. After this resilience, the Outlaws were able to win 2 control maps back to back in order to tie the series at 2-2. However, after a questionable coaching decision from Houston to substitute Jung-keun "Rapel" Kim in for Shane "Rawkus" Flaherty, Houston fell in the 7th and final map to the Boston Uprising.
Week 4: Atlanta Reign and Match Predictions
We are now heading into Week 4 of the 2020 Overwatch League season. Due to how the schedule works out, this will be the first week that fans get to see the Atlanta Reign take the stage this season. Although they have yet to take the stage, the Reign have a strong roster on paper. However, the lack of stage time for Atlanta make their matches difficult to predict. Please keep in mind that, for now, Asian homesteads have been cancelled, so I will only be predicting the matches that will take place at the Houston Homestand.
Mayhem vs Excelsior: 3-1 NYXL
While Florida has appeared to be performing marginally better than their previous two seasons in the Overwatch League, I feel like this will definitely go the way of the Excelsior due to the strength of the tank line of Mano and Hotba and the depth of the DPS lineup for New York.
Atlanta Reign vs Toronto Defiant: 3-2 ATL
Again, due to a lack of stage time from Atlanta, they can be hard to predict. However, I have to give the edge to the Reign in this one. The Reign just have a stacked roster on paper, and I see no holes in it like I could for Toronto. There is not a player on the Atlanta Reign roster that I could see failing the team, and even if they do, there is a suitable backup in every role. This is a scary 12-man roster that has insane depth.
Houston Outlaws vs London Spitfire: 3-0 London
Unless Houston gets their act together in front of their home crowd, it will be hard for them to even take a map in this series.
Philadelphia Fusion vs Boston Uprising: 3-0 Fusion
Again, Boston look as equally disoriented as Houston, and Fusion are an incredibly dominant team at the moment.
Atlanta Reign vs Paris Eternal: 3-2 ATL
Again, this match seems very similar to Atlanta vs Toronto on paper. However, I see this match being even closer due to Paris being a stronger team than Toronto at the moment. While this match could go either way, I am giving the edge to Atlanta here.
Florida Mayhem vs London Spitfire: 3-2 London
This is possibly one of the most entertaining matches of the weekend. In my eyes, London and Florida are fairly even in terms of skill at the moment. I think this match will come down to which team can come onstage as the most coordinated and who shows up to win the hitscan matchup.
Houston Outlaws vs Toronto Defiant: 3-0 Toronto
Again, even with the possible pitfalls in the Defiant roster, there is just too much of a skill discrepancy between these two teams to predict this any other way.
Thank you!
Thank you for taking your time to read the first edition of Overwatch Wednesday. Due to the length of these articles, I may do a separate article detailing my power rankings going into any given week Feel free to discuss any of my takes in the comments!
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