GC Busan has looked like a really solid team, but how will they do against the defending champions? I think this will be a 3-0/3-1 for LH unless they choke
LH are the kings at coming up with strategies to deal with a variety of situations and this should be no different. I'm thinking this will be a 3-0 win for LH, but I could see them losing control and winning in 4 instead.
Looking forward to seeing who will clutch out when it counts, and if GC Busan have what it takes to topple the team that can very well beat you while facing match point.
Not sure what I just watched there. GC Busan looked really good and took advantage of LH's lack of execution, it's just that the way LH failed was pretty spectacular.
I'm biased but it does feel like at times the LH DPS just aren't able to measure up to their opponents even with the clean strats they come up with.
The tournament is far from over for them so I still believe they can make the SF, but things will only be getting more difficult if they can't follow up on the openings they create for themselves.
Okay. Up to this point, I thought LH might still be able to dominate OWL without any changes in the team. I know their DPS is weaker than other top tier teams, but I felt like their tank and support lines were so good to be able to compensate for that. But it seems like both in the Western scene and in Korea, teams are getting much stronger, and players are learning to play together as a team.
Today, LH's DPS was far below GC Busan's the entire game, and even support plays were not that great. Most notably, ryujehong was really poor today. I mean, it was well-known that his Mercy isn't great, so there was no surprise there. But today, his timing of transcendence was just unacceptable many times, and as Ana he could not hit any impactful sleep dart or biotic grenade, which is so unusual for him. Woohyal's D.Va just ate everything ryujehong was throwing.
I know Lunatic Hai is a slow starter, and it is not so uncommon for them to lose maps (sometimes even matches) to underdogs, but today's game was different from those other upsets. Even after Lunatic Hai changed things up to bring up their tempo again, GC Busan found the way to break LH down. If GC Busan can perform as good as they did today, I do not think Lunatic Hai will be able to defeat them even if they get to play again in later stages.
Lunatic Hai NEEDS top-tier DPS players. There is no question about that now.
I remember Envy losing to X6 in last season's quarterfinal. Just saying. In fact I also saw a team called MVP space getting ranked from "easily the worst" to "easily the best" team in group A just because of 1 match. they placed 3rd in the end.
That being said, I'm not convinced yet that Busan is a better team than LH. We'll see.
A lot of the reactions to these matches are so over the top. I think it's Twitch chat rubbing off.
I do not think GC Busan is a better team than LH either. But I think there is a clear difference between MVP's victory and GC Busan's. MVP was able to take the win because they were the first team with a great Doomfist in Korea, and Lunatic Hai did not know how to deal with it. Now with the nerf of Doomfist and teams learning to deal with it, I do not think MVP is as scary as they once seemed. Also, Lunatic Hai's DPS were performing very poorly that day.
However, GC Busan was able to defeat LH using a standard comp, and they did it in much more convincing fashion (3-0 compared to 3-2 by MVP). I do not think Lunatic Hai ever lost without taking a map after their loss in season 1 against KDU. Lunatic Hai usually learns to play against the opponent by the third map and pull out reverse sweep. It seemed like that was happening again today once Esca was subbed in, but GC Busan was able to even overcome that. For this reason, I do not think GC Busan's victory today should be taken lightly.
That being said, I still think Lunatic Hai is a stronger team than GC Busan. Although I think today's match is a good indication that GC Busan is becoming a strong threat to even the top tier teams, I do not think they will be able to pull out today's performance every time. If they can do this again in the next match against RunAway and again in semi-final, I might change my mind, but I'm not convinced to that degree yet. Also, ryujehong's performance was not at his best. It was partly due to Woohyal eating up all of his heals and skills, but even his Zenyatta was off today. Once he is back in his normal condition, LH will look stronger than they did today.