The group stage of the Overwatch World Cup is over, but the OGN Overwatch APEX tournament is still in full swing. After the team ROX Orcas is competing with the first woman in this tournament, the underdogs MVP Space are thrilling their fans with a surprising victory over Lunatic-Hai.
Lunatic-Hai is one of the strongest Overwatch teams in the world – some say it might even be the strongest of all time. The team has already won two of the three APEX tournaments that have taken place so far.
A walk in the park for Lunatic-Hai?
When Lunatic Hai faced off against the not-so-highly-rated Overwatch squad from MVP, MVP Space, pretty much everyone already knew how the match would end before it even started.
After Lunatic-Hai decisively won the first map, Nepal, with a standard dive comp, the suspicion seemed to be confirmed.
And fists and rockets were flying
Until MVP Space finally decided to simply roll over the meta. Instead of countering the dive meta with a turtle strategy, trying to withstand attacks for as long as possible or leaving little room for flanks, the players chose a different tactic: attack instead of defense.
They opted for “PharMercy” and Doomfist against Lunatic-Hai.
Doomfist has only recently made his way into the game and is not yet widespread in the pro scene, as he has simply not found a place yet. Until now. MVP Space did not respond to the flank attacks of the dive meta with an all-round defense, but with a flat fist to the face, sending the attackers right back to where they came from.
Full steam ahead!
The comparison of a captain who does not plan any evasive maneuver upon sighting an iceberg, but just shouts: “Forget it, full speed ahead!“, fits quite well here. And it worked brilliantly.
MVP Space won the second map, Eichenwalde, with a full hold on the first point. Lunatic-Hai has never been stopped this early. After a tie in the third match on Temple of Anubis and a 2 to 2 after the best-of-five, the deciding sixth round was played on Hollywood.
A full hold refers to holding the first point on a map without the attacker making any progress. On escort maps, this usually means that the first checkpoint is not reached, while on assault and hybrid maps, it means that the first third is not captured.
After another tie here, MVP Space was finally able to win the round and thus the match with a second full hold on the first point in overtime.
The dive meta seems to always rely on a successful flank attack, taking out one or two targets, to then finish off the rest with numbers. The matches between these two teams felt rather like an aggressive brawl, where the only goal was to smash as many skulls as possible. Very refreshing and hopefully soon a replacement for the meta.
Not only is the meta changing, but we also expect a new map and a new cinematic at Gamescom!
