Day one Overwatch League highlights include two sweeps and a nail-biter

Opening day for Overwatch League was a great day to watch some esports. If you missed joining in with at least 400,000 of your closest concurrent friends on Twitch, here’s a recap of the action.

The first match between the Los Angeles Valiant and the San Francisco Shock had an electric atmosphere, with both teams getting huge cheers. Apparently a lot of out-of-towners came in to LA to root for the Shock in this California rumble. Dorado was the first map, and pretty close match, but the Valiant held the Shock just shy of finishing the map, then took all the points themselves. Temple of Anubis was an even closer match, with both teams taking two points. On the time bank, the Valiant took both points again, but the Shock gave up point two in Overtime, so Valiant took that map too. Valiant took both Ilios and Numbani pretty handily, leaving the score 4-0 for the Valiant.

The hype train for the home team didn’t stop there. The other LA team, the Gladiators, played against the Shanghai Dragons next. The only map the Dragons showed much spirit was the second, where they managed to take point A on Temple of Anubis. The Gladiators held the Dragons to zero points captured on Dorado, Ilios, and Eichenwald, giving them a 4-0 victory.

The final game between the Dallas Fuel and Seoul’s Dynasty looked like the most competitive match on paper. The quality of play was so good it looked like a final. The Fuel used Taimou’s Roadhog hooks to stop the Dynasty from capping the final point on Junkertown to claim map one. The second map, Temple of Anubis, was probably the most compelling Overwatch esports I’ve ever seen, with both teams having huge banks, going back on re-assault twice. Dynasty took this one. The win gave Dynasty new life, and they took Ilios without much fuss from the Fuel. The final map, Numbani, ended in a tie when both teams expended their time banks, failing to take a tick on point A. This awarded them each a point, so the Dynasty took the series 3-2.

Thus far the dive meta, featuring high-mobility tanks Winston and D.Va, is fairly dominant. All the characters in this meta except the supports and Widowmaker in her niche pick spots are very high mobility, making for a difficult viewing experience for some. My husband had to leave the room because he was feeling motion sick. Mercy — and her powerful resurrect ability — showed up frequently, too. The biggest surprise was likely HarryHook’s Bastion pick on the Fuel’s turn to assault Junkertown, which was shockingly effective. It was brash and straightforward, which seems to be the Fuel’s style. We’ll see how this evolves as the season progresses.

Matches today begin at 4 p.m. Central with the Florida Mayhem against the London Spitfire. They’ll be cast to the official Overwatch League Twitch channel, or you can go to OverwatchLeague.com for stats, scores, and extra goodies.