The Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, conveniently located in the heart of San Antonio, was the site for the annual PAX South game convention this past weekend. Along with the usual panels and exhibits as well as PC, video and board games, this year’s PAX also featured the final stages of the Overwatch Winter Premiere.
Four left standing
The recent patch implemented by Blizzard altered some of the most selected heroes in the game and there were clear impacts. For weeks upon weeks, teams have been primarily running a quadruple tank double support meta due to the underwhelming nature of many of the DPS heroes, but the update has changed things, favouring the use of more DPS.
After a month’s worth of games, the final four teams in the Overwatch Winter Premiere were compLexity Gaming, Ghost Gaming, Immortals and Luminosity. Both semifinal match-ups were short-lived affairs as Immortals and Ghost swept past Luminosity and compLexity respectively to set up a winner-takes-all match on the second day of PAX.
Quick adaptation rewarded
Blizzard made changes to two tanks and a support in this patch but all three were still regularly played as the alterations were by no means as oppressive as had been expected. The reduction in power of D.Va, Roadhog and Ana allowed many teams to begin running 1-2 DPS depending on the map, with the consensus being that the game has become much more healthy as a result. It was no coincidence that the two teams that adapted the quickest to the changes, Immortals and Ghost Gaming, found themselves pitted against one another in the Finals.
Map one
The first map in the best-of-five series was Lijiang Tower, a king of the hill style map (officially known as a Control map) where a team looks to control the middle ground. The first team to gain 100 points wins the round and the first to three rounds claims the map. Ghost Gaming completely dismantled Immortals on Lijiang, primarily on the backs of ConnorJ’s Roadhog and mykL’s Tracer/D.Va.
Immortals bounce back
The next map in the Finals was Dorado, a “payload” map (officially known as an Escort map) where the offensive team must escort said payload to the finish line while the defensive team tries to prevent this. It was a struggle, but Immortals found a way to defeat Ghost Gaming here in overtime no less (if the time runs out and an offensive player is still touching the payload, the game will not end until there is no offensive player within a short range of it). For Immortals the highlight plays were centered on star DPS player GrimReality, who looked much improved on his McCree compared to his Tracer, which he had played on Lijiang.
Immortals and GrimReality in particular kept their momentum going into another payload map; Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Grim continued his strong play on McCree, completely dominating on both offense and defense. This saw Immortals pushing the payload all the way to the finish line, while Ghost Gaming were stopped about halfway through, meaning Immortals claimed the map.
Immortals clinch in four maps
Immortals continued their winning ways even on a king of the hill map such as Nepal, the fourth of the game, this time with the help of fellow DPS/Flex player Agilities. Agilities displayed brilliance on Genji, using his ultimate ability at the perfect time to carve open the Ghost Gaming defence. This resulted in Immortals going on to take Nepal and become the winners of the Overwatch Winter Premiere.
It is difficult to understate the importance of flexibility within Overwatch and no team showed this more than Immortals this past weekend. This was typified by their playing heroes such as McCree, Tracer and Genji, all of whom had seen little action before the patch changes. The quick adaptation to the patch gave Immortals just the edge they needed and they left PAX as deserving champions of the Overwatch Winter Premiere.
