London Spitfire Sweep Los Angeles Valiant To Move On To OWL Finals
The Los Angeles Valiant came into the Overwatch League postseason as one of the hottest teams in the league, after ranking second in the regular season and earning the stage four title. But the London Spitfire have turned the tables by destroying Valiant in a 2-0 sweep in the OWL semifinals.
London had to beat two Los Angeles teams back-to-back in order to move on to the finals at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York next week. And they made it look easy, playing better and better in each match in both series.
Despite getting off to a rough start against the Gladiators, Spitfire fought back and reached the semifinals. There, they showcased a more aggressive and proactive style against Valiant and were able to shut down the stage four champs.
Wednesday, Series One
Spitfire struck quickly in Wednesday’s series, gaining a 2-0 lead in a couple of hard-fought matches. The next two matches were extremely close, with Valiant taking a gnarly win on King’s Row and the teams going into a tie on Hanamura. It all came down to the ultimate map, Dorado.
Dorado gave Spitfire the chance to really set themselves apart from Valiant. Park “Profit” and Kim “Birdring” Ji-hyeok outplayed the snipers on the other side of the field, Brady “Agilities” Girardi and Terence “SoOn” Tarlier. Profit especially had a great showing as Hanzo, dealing an insane amount of damage over the course of the series.
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Profit and Birdring’s dominance as Hanzo and Widowmaker was key in London’s 3-1-1 victory Wednesday.
Friday, Series Two
In Friday’s series, Valiant’s main tank, Koo “Fate” Pan-seung, who is set to start for South Korea at the Overwatch World Cup this year, was no match for Spitfire’s Hong “Gesture” Jae-hee. Gesture dealt 30 final blows (more than anyone on Valiant) and delivered 93 eliminations (the second most in the match).
On the other hand, Fate had one of his worst outings of the season, with only seven final blows and 19,220 damge.
Meanwhile, Choi “Bdosin” Seung-tae showed off his flexibility as an Overwatch player. He ventured from Zenyatta to a variety of tank and damage heroes, even playing Zen, Roadhog and Tracer in a single map to fit different situations. This has given London a bit of a secret weapon against everyone they’ve faced so far in the playoffs, and will surely continue to play in their favor moving forward.
With Friday’s win, London became the first team to secure a spot in the finals of the inaugural Overwatch League season, where they will compete for a $1 million top prize.
Spitfire will face the winner of Saturday’s matchup between the Philadelphia Fusion and the New York Excelsior. Fusion currently holds a 1-0 lead in the series, largely thanks to their own secret weapon, Choi “HOTBA” Hong-joon. However, New York Excelsior are still dominant on the Overwatch stage and Spitfire’s Gesture said in a post-game press conference that he wants to face New York in front of a home crowd – so he can silence them.