The cinderella story is real. Misfits, against all odds, have now claimed the $100,000 USD prize for winning the Overwatch Open by defeating the North American champions EnVyUs. The major upset happened in the Grand Finals, televised on American TV channel TBS (and Astro’s eGG) in a best of five match, taking the game 3-1. It was devastating for EnVyUs, highly regarded as the top team of North America and one of the best in the world, to lose again to another Europe team, and on the same map. (EnVy lost to Rogue in Lijiang Tower, ending their 57 game win streak at the ESL Atlantic Showdown).
While Misfits have been long regarded as one of the better teams in Europe alongside Rogue and REUNITED, Misfits have lately faced some difficulties due to not having a full roster to play in the finals. With DPS player Zaprey retiring and Skipjack, one of the best tanks in the game, had to withdraw travelling to Atlanta due to family matters, they had to bring in stand ins in the form of support player Hidan of NoNameYet and Ryb as tank, formerly of OWKings. Even as stand-ins, it was shown throughout their games that these two can mesh well with the likes of Zebbosai, Kryw, Soon and Nevix, who is now on DPS duties. They both proved they can step up with the rest of the team, with Hidan nailing it with Zenyatta kills and coordinated Ana boosts while Ryb doing work as the aggressive tank in either Reinhardt or Winston.
The star of the show had to be Soon, whose Reaper plays have been the main highlight of the show. Though EnVyUs managed to halt Soon’s sneaky Reaper and Tracer plays in the Grand Finals, it was not enough to stop these bands of Misfits to go big and take home the big prize, and further cement the idea that EU is definitely the stronger region for Overwatch.
There has been great matches and interesting upsets, like EU powerhouse REUNITED losing two of its matches in the groups, placing last, and a ton of great production value provided by ELEAGUE and FACEIT, co-organisers of the Overwatch Open. Stay tuned for more news as we summarise the great action that happened throughout the week.
The list of the Overwatch Open standings are as below:
1st ($100,000): Misfits
2nd ($32,000): Team EnVyUs
3-4th ($24,000): Rogue, Fnatic
5-8th ($12,000): FaZe Clan, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Cloud9, NRG eSports,
9-12th ($6,000): Team Dignitas, Luminosity Gaming, Method, Team Liquid
13-16th ($6,000): REUNITED, ANOX, Splyce, Immortals