Overwatch League Finals Headed to Toronto

With the Spring Stage and Midseason Madness concluded (along with nearly half of the Summer Stage) it’s time to start looking ahead to the Overwatch League postseason, which begins on September 2 at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre: who the favorites are, who could sweep in unannounced with a dark horse bid, how the approach that the various teams use affects their chances at a championship.

June’s Midseason Madness tournament gave us an early look at how these teams will perform with a championship on the line. Here are the favorites from each region.

Leading the Pack: West Playoffs

Anything can happen once the playoffs start, but right now the Atlanta Reign look like heavy favorites.

As with any sport, the ability to adapt to the most recent trends (whether by adopting them with open arms or by figuring out an effective way to counteract them) plays a massive role in success.

DPS Galore

The Reign have done just that this season, with their 12-2 record spearheaded by the efforts of Lee “LIP” Jae-won and Jeong “Stalk3r” Hak-yong, who form the best one-two offensive combo in the league. They took home the crown in the Midseason Madness tournament LIP plays as Sombra, while Stalk3r mains as the ever-popular Tracer. DPS (damage per second) is the name of the game in the current meta, and Sombra and Tracer’s rapid fire offense makes them a nightmare to deal with.

Every team is defined by the sum of its component parts, though, and the Reign doesn’t succeed because of a DPS one-trick pony. They also have one of the best-supporting casts (literally) in the league, with Kwon “Fielder” Joon (who plays as ) and Han “ChiYo” Hyeon-seok working out of the support class.

LIP and Stalk3r and there to make the gutsy moves, completing objectives and wearing down the enemy with reckless abandon and a hail of bullets: Fielder and ChiYo are there to make their lives easier, healing their fellow heroes or providing buffs. It’s said that wars are won thanks to supply chains and logistics, and in many ways, Overwatch is no different: that’s what the support class is there for.

The Reign round out their roster with a pair of tanks, Donghak and Hawk (soaking up and dealing out damage in spades), and they carry a third member of the support class, Vigilante, ready to switch in if necessary to help keep the heat off the damaged duo.

Perhaps the most incredible thing about the Reign is that their team looks entirely different from last season: they picked up Fielder and ChiYo in free agency, signings that could end up as some of the savviest in the history of the Overwatch League if they end up sparking Atlanta to a championship run.

While the Reign are worth keeping an eye on because of their championship potential, they’re also an excellent team to bet on because of the likelihood of winning awards like Regular Season MVP. Any time a player is able to jump on a trend that changes the face of the league, they’re going to be a threat to bring in a case full of hardware at the end of the season. Even if LIP, Stalk3r, and the rest aren’t able to write their names among Overwatch legends by bringing the city of Atlanta its first-ever Overwatch League Championship, they’re still excellent MVP bets.

For fans planning to travel to the Overwatch League Finals just like their favorite teams do (whether that team is the Reign or anybody else) the opportunity to indulge in Ontario online gambling adds an extra layer of excitement to the journey.

East Playoffs: Who Ya Got?

Now we’ll move on to the East region.

Funnily enough, the top team over there is the Dallas Fuel, who were unable to outbid the Reign and return ChiYo and Fielder to The Lone Star State when free agency began at the conclusion of last season.

While those transactions paid off in spades for Atlanta, it’s clear that they haven’t affected Dallas that much, as the Fuel are hanging in there in the quest to bring home a second consecutive league championship.

Part of the reason why Dallas was able to reload despite those painful losses is the emergence of Bliss, a top contender for rookie of the year. The Fuel had big shoes to fill with the cupboard of support class veterans emptied, and Bliss stepped right in to fill that void.

He only just turned 18 in January but is already making waves with preemptive play to back up his teammates that shows how he is wise beyond his years, signaling the beginning of what could be a long career if the league continues as hoped, given the jolt it’s received from the switch to Overwatch 2.