The European arm of the Overwatch Open kicked off with a clash of styles. Ninjas in Pyjamas faced their recent rivals REUNITED and repeated their victory in the Lenovo Cup to win 2-1. The Finnish masters of the tank metagame took Volskaya Industries in a masterclass of tactics and went on to lock out REUNITED on first point Gibraltar, despite a close loss on Numbani in between.

Despite the Overwatch Open analysis team ignoring the results of the Lenovo Cup, it definitely happened. I checked. NiP and REUNITED had faced off twice, merely a week before ELEAGUE, and all three matches were on the same three maps. Amazingly the results were drastically different: in the playoff stage of the Lenovo Cup REUNITED had beaten NiP handily on all three maps; in the Grand Final NiP had come back with the same strategies, same players, and same playstyle to wipe them 3-0 on the same maps. The battle in Group A was an interesting but highly unpredictable mental game between these two sides. One thing was for sure though - neither team would be taking all three maps in the fixture.

Familiar maps for REUNITED against NiP. Image credit: Overwatch Open.

Volskaya Industries

NiP began defending the Assault map with their three tanks, this time with zappis on Mei to add even more health to the map. vallutaja’s flank on Tracer worked the second time around once Nanoboost was live for the frontline, letting his team take the first point with over six minutes still in their bank. After a few cautious pushes REUNITED baited out a huge range of ultimates from the defenders to put themselves in a great position to use a Nanoboost and Sound Barrier without any reply. NiP ran delay strategies for as long as possible and after spamming bodies onto the point (and feeding kyb’s k/d ratio) the defender’s spawn advantage let them regain the point.

NiP’s huge health pool and strategic use of D.va and Tracer to stall let them hold on despite losng the majority of the fights on defense. With one last attempt and 20 seconds remaining kyb couldn’t get enough done with his Nano-Blossom and all looked lost.

NiP seemed to assume they had won and didn’t swap off to their usual D.va/Tracer composition. In their hubris they got caught by a range of ultimates that had just come online and suddenly found themselves wiped by a Graviton and Sound Barrier that they hadn’t accounted for. They had managed to push it to OT however, so REUNITED were locked to a score of 2 for the map.

zappis came out on attack with a Hanzo and the team was allowed easy entry into the point, REUNITED choosing not to defend the first choke for fear of being flanked. REUNITED’s triple tank setup couldn’t beat the offensive advantage of fast spawners and the inherently attack-focused Nanoboost though and they crumbled as fast as NiP had before.

NiP defaulted to their classic engagement strategy, waiting for a crucial hook from hymzi. Their passive positioning invited a Nanoboosted Winghaven into the mix, but as fragi had his own Nano popped onto him he wrongly chose to go toe-to-toe with the opposing Reinhardt. Despite fragi wasting his damage and dying, the mere sight of his glowing form baited REUNITED into popping out two further ultimates. The dust settled and NiP found themselves in a huge ultimate advantage, which they cleverly realised and popped all together to wipe REUNITED in a moment and cap.

They finished the first round with four minutes still in their bank and easily strolled into A to win the first map. Given the history of the two teams and their reluctance to give each other close games, it set the Finns up well to dominate.

Numbani

REUNITED tried a hard counter to NiP’s strategy and rolled out a Bastion to the first point defense of Numbani. Damage boosted by Kruise and protected by Winghaven, the only option for NiP was to instantly adapt and pushed behind the Bastion through tunnel. They executed to perfection and slammed REUNITED out of the point.

NiP staggered spawns and destroyed their opponents as they took the cart at blistering speeds towards the final bend. It took a stabilising fight and a Pulse Bomb from vallutaja to get themselves back in the game, but they had to hold the final bend for over four minutes. It only took a minute for NiP to get around the bend and to the final stretch but REUNITED kept battering them back. Kruise had an amazing play on Lucio to deny two ultimates and kill three, his shouts of encouragement and hype audible even over the sound of the casters.

NiP found themselves with only 40 seconds left to take the cart the final metres after a great beginning to the map and couldn’t manage it. The overwhelming feeling was that REUNITED had mentally got back into the game. They looked utterly focused and on fire in the break between attack and defend.

REUNITED attempted to get back into match with the ultimate dive composition. Morte switched to Zenyatta for the added damage to support his D.va, Winston, Genji, and Tracer. kyb took a huge amount of attention as uNFixed dove straight for the point, cleaning up five kills as the rest of his team took 1v1s and funnelled NiP into his maw.

As soon as the cart was unlocked zappis and his teammates looked far more comfortable. They aggressively defended the payload with a quad-tank composition and delayed successfully for quite a while, re-engaging before the second checkpoint to delay for longer. An unfortunate consequence for them was that REUNITED’s ultimates got fed and the snowballing led to a cripplingly powerful push around the final bend. kyb and uNFixed flexed their ults and wiped the Finns twice over to take map two and tie the series up 1-1.

Watchpoint: Gibraltar

The final map between these two teams saw NiP again run the triple tank with zappis on Mei to attack. hymzi’s ridiculous hooks tore REUNITED apart - no matter how good the positioning or thought process, hymzi picking people at will let them get into the middle of hangar without any opposition. It was like a replay of Numbani, but the last area proved slightly harder to defend on Gibraltar.

Despite some really questionable ultimate usage from the Ninjas, their synergy and experience playing let them battle past that and slowly grind the cart forward. zappis swapped over to Pharah, without a Mercy, and although it took them a long time to get in a good position once they were set up zappis started dominating. In the final minute of the attack NiP dragged the cart over the line to get themselves three points - if REUNITED had been able to stall at all at the first point or in hangar it seems inevitable that they would have locked out the defense.

REUNITED could still have put themselves in a great position to win the series if they set a good time. The Ninjas in Pyjamas had the same thought though and made sure they were well established in server room, stacking all of their players in the room. REUNITED looked lost, without a plan of how to crack their positioning. It took so long for them to engage that NiP were completely prepared; zappis’ Mei split them apart perfectly and cleaned up to give REUNITED only a minute to capture the first checkpoint.

uNFixed picked up Pharah but nobody on the team had any ultimates after their previous failed fight. The Tracer and Winston were the first to fall for REUNITED as their team couldn’t find enough damage to crack the defense, throwing themselves against a brick wall that smashed them to pieces.

NiP cemented their new position as a top contender in Europe and masters of the tank meta, winning their first group game at the Overwatch Open LAN.