The Overwatch World Cup Playoffs Recap

The Overwatch World Cup was a spectacular event that left many people truly surprised at the outcome. Last weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center, the best of the best of each region battled it out for bragging rights and regional pride. The teams played in a two group Group Stage and a single elimination Playoff Stage Best of Five format.

How did Groups go?

Just to refresh everybody's minds the first day we saw the United States and China top their respective groups to the surprise of everyone. The United States was ranked 5th overall and while China was ranked 3rd they shared a group with Canada who was ranked #2 and was eliminated, unable to win more than one game and losing every series they played. #4 France and #1 South Korea made it out behind the US while # 15 Denmark and #11 Netherlands trailed behind China.

Quarterfinals

The Playoff matches were all pretty cut and dry, unfortunately not so much the spectacle they were last year, but still rather fun to watch and really engaging for the audience. Denmark was unable to take a game off of South Korea, which nobody expected but the Netherlands did steal a game away from France which caused a great many people in the crowd to cheer.

The US and China got their Byes and somehow, got their respective group mates in the Semifinals. This made US fans sweat a little bit.

Semifinals

Once again, pretty cut and dry. China lost one game to France without so much as mistiming a Lucio ult, and South Korea took a game off of the US which while scary, wasn’t enough to move on to the Finals. While it's understandable that these are mostly just show matches, the excitement was obviously on a lower level compared to last year, that being said South Korea v USA was the premier match of the tournament.

Finals

The United States bested China 3-0, a great if not underwhelming victory for the region and their pride. The great performance from their team should not be understated however, many didn’t expect them to make it out of their group in first let alone win the tournament.

It is difficult to truly gauge a regional team based on their performance on League teams however, so some leeway has to be given to the ranking system in place. The young wonder in Sinaatra, the Tmobile MVP, really showed up for this tournament and his value to his region and team in San Francisco Shock is at an all time high.