What happened in the week 3 Overwatch 2 matches? – Student Champs 22/23

Last Wednesday, the first ever matches in Overwatch 2 took place for this season of the Student Champs, and four teams were highlighted on our stream as they battled for the first win.

Morgan Decanter-Morris looks back at the intense matches between the GCS Owls and Llandrillo Dragons, and Belfast Met Buffalos and KC Mystix.

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Broadcast Talent:

Vlad ‘WaXen’ Catusanu – Host
Terry ‘Servitude’ May – Caster
Suzie ‘Pro_Suzie’ White – Caster

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Game 1 – GCS Owls Vs Llandrillo Dragons

GCS Owls:

VVOXXZ – Zarya
MythicalMini – Mei
Golden – Sojourn
K4MI – Ana
TheTodd38 – Lucio

Llandrillo Dragons:

Motor – Zarya
LlandrilloD2 – Reaper
Wrath – Sojourn
LlandrilloD4 – Lucio
LlandrilloD1 – Ana

Map 1 – New Queen Street, Push:

A fairly standard aggressive comp on both sides is broken up by a Mei pick – quite literally, as MythicalMini drops a cut-off wall right in the way of the backline Ana, and completely negates her through the lack of line-of-sight. Without their main healer, GCS’ Golden quickly snipes two and gets the robot (fun fact: his lore name is TW-1!) moving up fast to push, with a three-man shove gaining a huge amount of ground, and allowing GCS to pick off Llandrillo’s Reaper and Sojourn on the rebound.

With little time to fix up a defence and stop the steamroll trundling toward their base, a last-ditch Llandrillo attack mounts up – a nanoboosted, overclocking Sojourn comes rolling up, but is once again stonewalled (or ice-walled?) by MythicalMini. Despite this, Wrath still manages to land a clutch fully charged railgun shot past the team, sniping out Ana shortly before Llandrillo are annihilated by the all-important Mei blizzard. Moments later, the round goes to GCS, putting the safe-styled comp they picked to good use – with smart Mei walls sectioning off the team into strategic lines-of-sight that forced swift duels against their resident Sojourn, Golden.

Map 2 – Llandrillo Dragons Attack, Kings Row:

GCS Owls: Orisa, Lucio, Mei, Sojourn, Ana

Llandrillo Dragons: D.Va/Reinhardt, Baptiste, Mei, Sojourn, Moira

Immediately into game 2’s first half, we see a pair of picks by GCS onto Llandrillo’s healers and DPS, cutting off the first push and leaving the choice for a high-pressure, fast-moving comp with D.Va negated. As GCS gain the time they need to build up ultimates for Orisa and Mei to mitigate those pushes, butIt’s not quite enough. However, as a well-placed Mei wall from Llandrillo02 allows them to single out Orisa and steadily shove the GCS DPS away from the first control point. From there, it’s a battle for the archway chokepoint – with Motor’s mistake of being caught out-of-position on his charge by the Mei ice wall being resolved through a well-timed immortality field by the Dragons. A few seconds later, with Javelin Spin on cooldown for Orisa, there’s no way that the Mei ultimate cannot find its mark squarely past the chokepoint, allowing Llandrillo the space to move in.

This momentum continues through an excellently executed Sojourn railgun shot onto MythicalMini, allowing their push to continue all the way up to a respectable position at the first payload checkpoint. Failing to account for the Orisa-Mei combo, however, the team are quickly overwhelmed as Vvoxxz delivers a team-breaking Terra Surge into the middle of their comp, backed up with a Blizzard which forces Llandrillo away from the point and into the second half.

Map 2 – Owls Attack, Kings Row:

GCS Owls – Zarya, Lucio, Genji, Sojourn, Ana

Llandrillo Dragons – Rein, Ana, Mei, Sojourn, Baptiste

An amazing attempt on defense really leaves the game in the Owls’ hands for this half. If they can punch through the typical Kings Row alleyway lockup, it can leave them in a great position. GCS pull off a fantastic play to break the initial stalemate, with Genji deflecting a fire charge through the entire team. Baptiste – in a panic – throws out the immortality field early, leaving a window for an incredible nanoblade from GCS. After a high-up dive from the top of the Kings Row monument, Genji ends up squarely positioned into the backline – wreaking havoc, MythicalMini manages to pick the Sojourn and Baptiste before the immortality field can come out, before bullying the nanoboosted Reinhardt on the side of Llandrillo Dragons into a panic-charge to contest the point.

With this, GCS have the momentum of 3 ultimates still available, and a massive amount of space gets taken through the threat of that. One scuffed teamfight later, and GCS have all-but-taken the round – locking it away with a tense quad-kill dragonblade by MythicalMini, taking as much advantage out of the swap from Baptiste to Moira as he possibly can.

Map 3 – Oasis, Control:

GCS Owls – Winston, Lucio, Genji, Sombra, Moira

Llandrillo Dragons – D.Va, Moira, Soldier 76, Genji, Zenyatta

GCS look to run an incredibly aggressive composition in this round, matching Wrath’s Genji pick with their own MythicalMini. Motor’s D.Va looks to highly impact GCS’ Winston and hopefully make quick work of their diving front line, giving Llandrillo’s healing some protection – though it doesn’t just work out that way. Some well-timed EMPs from Golden shut down a number of Dragonblade counter-dives, and the sheer power of K4MI’s Moira pick on a chokepoint-heavy map like Oasis made it incredibly difficult for the side of LD to make consistent pushes work when the Coalescences beam is empowering the backline.A quick swap to a better-protected Baptiste seems to be what Llandrillo need to claw back the game in the second round of the King of the Hill gamemode, making good point into retaking the objective and even managing to pull off a clutch grab of Vvoxxz’s Graviton Surge using Motor’s well-timed Defence Matrix, but GCS manage to take it back at 99% – clawing their tooth-and-nail onto the point and managing to recover the ground they needed through a combo of Moira and Lucio ults, bringing the game back around and winning in overtime.

RESULT – GCS OWLS 3 – 0 LLANDRILLO DRAGONS

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GAME 2 – Belfast Met Buffalos vs KC Mystix:

Belfast Met Buffalos:

MrMoss – D.Va
Chewy – Lucio
NotKirk – Soldier 76
Tana – Moira
Sidixus – Genji

KC Mystix:

Tonga – Lucio
KetchupGamer – Moira
Quartzorc – Junkrat
XLeviathanX – Reinhardt
XWispaX – Soldier 76

Map 1 –  New Queen Street, Push:

The game opens with two fast pushes, both backed up by some fast Lucio rollouts, but Belfast are ultimately late to the draw as the Rein charge gets KC there sooner than their opponent’s D.Va. A moment later, a brave Rein push catches out the Belfast’s Genji, with Leviathan striking him down for first blood. This decisive play leaves the gate open for Quartzorc to bombard the vulnerable Soldier, shutting down Belfast’s DPS and leaving them unable to crack the Rein shield as the robot trundles on.

Another misplay on the side of Belfast (with an unfortunate D.Va booster sending her squarely into Reinhardt’s hammer) leaves MrMoss sans-mech, and subsequently a well-placed fire charge takes him out of the game. At point one, the game begins to spiral out of control – a stalwart attempt from the side of Belfast to defend goes awry, with the Soldier 76 and Moira ultimates being shut down by an impeccably timed earthshatter by Leviathan, followed by a sound barrier rush to clear them out. Sidixus and MrMoss continue to bravely fight to the last hitpoint, but after being cornered into a side room by Leviathan and the ever-elusive KetchupGamer, they both go down.

The rebound push is, again, shut down by the side of KC Mystix, who drive a RIP-tire straight into D.Va’s mech, cutting down their frontline and giving the angle for Wispa to secure a double kill with his Tactical Visor. It seems entirely over for the side of Belfast, if not for some slick plays by NotKirk that manage to get the point reset. His Genji backline dive cuts down Moira, Junkrat, and Lucio – twice over, no less – before taking out Wispa and Leviathan as his dragonblade enters cooldown to secure a quintuple-kill. These crazy Genji plays manage to keep his team in overtime for an incredible amount of time – buying his team enough time to push the point from 0 metres to 35 – but the Moira coalescence and a flurry of melee attacks can’t be deflected by his blade, and he’s shut down, giving the round to KC Mystix.

Map 2 – Mystix attack, Kings Row:

Belfast Met Buffalos – Lucio, Moira, Genji, Hanzo, Reinhardt
KC Mystix – Lucio, Moira, Junkrat, Soldier 76, Orisa

The initial tank fight over the monument chokepoint ends with a DPS trade, with Soldier 76 being sniped by a long-range Hanzo headshot and Genji, in exchange, being punched out by Lucio. Off of this, however, KC Mystix are able to propel their momentum forward, with Orisa’s upfront tankiness being capable of handling the sustained teamfight long enough to clear the point and pick out the healers. Belfast are made to scramble back to the point as swiftly as possible, but with Reinhardt being blocked out by a well-placed Junkrat trap, the point is captured expeditiously and the payload gets moving a short distance.

Only a short distance, however – as the next teamfight kicks off almost immediately after. Tonga drops a five-man sound barrier across the team, but it’s not capable of holding back the tide, as NotKirk dives out a low-health Orisa before dragonblading Junkrat in his last moments. The threat of two additional ults being off-cooldown isn’t enough to bide away Mystix’s push, however, and after rallying through the alleyway chokepoints of the earlier payload push, a huge teamfight ensues at the entrance to the next checkpoint, but somehow ends with no deaths – despite a team-wide Hanzo ultimate, a damage-blocking Lucio ult, a zoning Orisa ult and a Rein shatter all clearing one-another out. As Mystix scramble to reset from the failed push, they don’t account for the now-up Genji ult, which leaves NotKirk capable of slicing down the backline and sending them back to spawn.

This buys enough time for Mystix to clear the checkpoint, but not to reach the end – after a few more short scuffles in the narrow corridors between checkpoints A and B, the round ends with KC at 59.40 metres shoved.

Map 2 – Buffalos Attack, King Row:

Belfast Met Buffalos – Lucio, Moira, Genji, Reaper, Reinhardt
KC Mystix – Ana, Moira, Junkrat, Soldier 76, Sigma

Mystix’s hold over the initial choke is absolutely shattered by the diving damage that Belfast have, allowing them to section off Sigma as he focuses down the Rein shield with Junkrat and quickly uses the distraction to clear out the backline. The Reaper, Genji, and Lucio work perfectly for this alongside a Moira, who’s orbs are entirely uncontested, the composition flourishing as they nail their backline with a sudden dragonblade quad-kill.

Buffalos use this sudden burst in momentum to get the payload entirely up to the checkpoint without a single stop – essentially banking on Genji achieving uncontested backline dives in order to find short bursts that allow them to walk down the newly-swapped Zarya and Soldier 76 with nothing healing or defending them from his constant bursts. These final fights end up following that exact fight composition – the Genji leaps in alongside Reaper, supported by some well-played Lucio surfs and long-range Moira orbs, before sniping out the backline support and carries and dashing back out.

Unfortunately, following a stream crash, the gameplay of the last few seconds can’t be covered, but the game ends with a Buffalos win, bringing the score to 1-1 and drawing the game further in.

On the next map, KC Mystix were able to snatch back another point to bring the score to 2-1, but unfortunately the match had to end here. Due to some scheduling issues, KC had to forfeit their lead on stream – giving Belfast the win temporarily until the match could be rescheduled.

After playing the final map again off-stream, KC still held strong, and were able to secure the final point needed to give them a 3-1 win in the series

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Whilst the Student Champs are on a short break for half term, we will be returning to our weekly streams from Wednesday 9th November – starting with League of Legends. Want to watch the action? Make sure you follow the British Esports Twitch channel for updates.