Weekly recaps are back, but this time instead of giving long-winded summaries of each match I’ll just give brief thoughts and updated power rankings. It's way easier for me this way.
London Spitfire 3-2 Florida Mayhem
London figured out how to play a second comp. Poko on Sigma is legit and gives the team a way to win maps that don’t let Hadi and Backbone play their heroes. Mayhem has work to do and Someone wasn’t quite as inspiring on Ball as when he was on Winston.
SF Shock 3-0 Dallas Fuel
Dallas couldn’t quite figure out their dps lineup in time to avoid getting steamrolled by a Shock team that knows its win condition (Proper). Guriyo-Sp9rkle seems like the answer for Dallas, but the team still has room to improve once they figure that out.
Washington Justice 3-1 NYXL
Justice just needs to put Happy on Sojourn permanently and they’ll steamroll teams. Him and Decay form a deadly duo that is complemented well by Kalios’ Sigma. As long as the team doesn’t make errors like playing Assassin on Sombra, they’ll be a force to be reckoned with.
London Spitfire 3-1 Toronto Defiant
Defiant in theory should have a good lineup with Hotba on Sigma and Twilight on Zen, but they seem to have trouble putting things together and not shooting themselves in the foot. They will benefit greatly from not playing Sombra anymore.
Atlanta Reign 3-2 Boston Uprising
I’m still not sure how Atlanta lost 2 maps in this series, but good on Boston for fighting hard I guess. Kai, Ultraviolet, and Hawk are simply too talented in the current meta for Atlanta to have performances like this.
LA Gladiators 3-0 Vancouver Titans
Titans looked a lot better with Mirror on Doomfist to go with the Aspire-Shockwave dps duo, but still they’re nowhere near good enough to beat a team like Gladiators. Surprisingly, ANS didn’t play much Sojourn as Patiphan ended up doing the heavy lifting on that hero. Apparently Space sent explicit photos to a 16-year-old, so that’s not good, but Reiner seems good enough to handle whatever comps Glads want to play.
Houston Outlaws 3-2 Washington Justice
Again, if Washington simply lets Happy kill everything they will win. Houston looks good enough in the new meta, although the choice to sub out Pelican for even 1 map is concerning, especially in a close series like this one.
LA Gladiators 3-1 Paris Eternal
The talent gap was pretty clear in this one, as Patiphan cemented his position as Glads’ top Sojourn player. As long as he’s in the game and the team doesn’t make any terrible decisions, they’ll be able to beat just about anyone they come up against.
Atlanta Reign 3-0 Dallas Fuel
Dallas were on the verge of winning the first map of the series before Ultraviolet pulled out a massive clutch play to give Atlanta a lead they would never relinquish. Kai is just too good to keep in check for very long, and on the last 2 maps he basically took over.
Florida Mayhem 3-1 Toronto Defiant
A rather ugly game for Defiant that saw some great moments from Heesu but otherwise very lackluster play. Mayhem doesn't seem like an overwhelming team, but Rupal has been a good addition and SirMajed looks better when he’s not playing Ana. He still hard feeds from time to time, but he makes up for it a bit more.
SF Shock 3-0 Boston Uprising
Boston doesn't quite know what to do with their supports. MCD has not been very good but they haven’t had much success with Crimzo-Faith as a duo either. Punk and Itsal have been ok but not nearly good enough to be competitive with a team like Shock.
Paris Eternal 3-2 NYXL (Match of the week)
This was a good, old-fashioned toilet bowl between a team that simply lacks talent (Paris) and a team that has talent but no idea what to do with it (NYXL). In the end, NYXL threw harder after going up 99-0 on the final point of control on map 5. These teams might lose to Vancouver they’re so bad.
Houston Outlaws 3-0 Vancouver Titans
Breaking news: the Titans are still very bad. Mer1t and Lastro ran around killing everything all game and there was nothing Titans could do to stop them. Houston did the concerning move of subbing out Pelican for a map again, but this time they were playing Titans so they won anyways.
Team of the Week: SF Shock
Player of the Week: Kai (Damage, ATL)
Power Rankings (with changes from last week)
West
- LA Gladiators (+0)
- SF Shock (+1)
- Atlanta Reign (+1)
- Dallas Fuel (-2)
- Houston Outlaws (+0)
- London Spitfire (+3)
- Washington Justice (+1)
- Florida Mayhem (-2)
- Toronto Defiant (-2)
- Boston Uprising (+0)
- Paris Eternal (+1)
- NYXL (-1)
- Vancouver Titans (+0)
East (no changes)
- Seoul Dynasty
- Shanghai Dragons
- Philly Fusion
- Hangzhou Spark
- LA Valiant
- Chengdu Hunters
- Guangzhou Charge
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