Stage 3 kicks off in Overwatch League with new players and a new scandal

The first week of a new stage in Overwatch League is always kind of a wonky one for the standings. Depending on schedule a team could find itself rising to the top or sinking to the bottom despite previous success. Believe it or not the London Spitfire just barely outranked the Shanghai Dragons and the Florida Mayhem, while the L.A. Valiant and the Boston Uprising round out the top three.

Geguri finally made her debut, and Shanghai was a little better for her being there but not much. The communication gap between the Chinese support line and the rest of the Korean-speaking team was in full Effect. The Dallas Fuel’s Tracer player had a great game because he could just pick off the virtually helpless backline like a hungry shark finding a baby seal. The Dragons had issues with communication and adaptation when the entire squad was speaking the same language, so it’s not a surprise that this continues when they’re literally not speaking the same language.

The Valiant was the other team taking on the Dragons, so on that it’s not a shock that they’re toward the top of the standings. However they also dumpstered the Dynasty 4-0, full holding them on both Temple of Anubis and Junkertown.

Watch Full Match | Los Angeles Valiant vs. Seoul Dynasty from OverwatchLeague on www.twitch.tv

Their newest player Space, who just turned 18, has a lot to do with the Valiant’s success, but Dynasty has their share of the blame too. They played a lot of their “B team,” and didn’t even swap them in after halftime when they still had a chance of a reverse sweep, or even adding to that all-important match score.

After last stage, Boston’s rise to the top is no surprise, though they just had one of their best players suspended indefinitely on Sunday due to some pretty serious — and frankly pretty disgusting — allegations. Boston had a solid improvement trajectory in no small part due to Dreamkasper, who was central to improving their communication and technical skill while allegedly repeatedly soliciting nude photos from a 14 year old. He will likely be replaced in the short term by the poetically named Mistakes while the team investigates whether Dreamkasper knew the young woman he was allegedly trying to Facetime was incredibly underage. It’s fairly likely that Boston’s playoff hopes are in trouble now because the trade window is closed, but not more trouble than their 21-year-old DPS player on indefinite suspension from both the team and league.

This week we’ll be watching Boston’s game on Thursday at 6 p.m. CDT against the NYXL to see whether they can bounce back from the star DPS player facing serious jail time. It can be a real psych out to know someone you work with was allegedly a predator trying to groom a teenager. Best of luck to the remaining team going forward.