The Overwatch Open continues last weekend with more than 120 teams seeking out a spot to advance to the finals. With a prize pool of $300,000 up for grabs. The tournament, co-organised by E-LEAGUE and FaceIt, continues see some top notch action by the top teams and newly emerging contenders of the Overwatch scene.
EnVyUs and Misfis already secured a place for the NA and EU finals respectively after winning last week’s qualifiers. The winners of the four qualifiers will automatically secure a spot in the Regional Finals, with 12 more spots given to teams that managed to be the top 12 in the points leaderboards, gained for placing in the top 32 in each qualifiers.
On the EU side, last week’s runner-up ANOX is looking as strong as ever, but was stopped dead by Rouge in the quarter finals. The two faced each other in the semi-finals in qualifier 1, but the tables are turned now in favour of Rogue.
We almost saw the first ever match against REUNITED and WEUNITED, but unfortunately it did not happen as 2sTroNk won against WEUNITED in the quarters, facing REUNITED which previously defeated Bringos. REUNITED and Rougue advances forward to the finals.
In the wake of the finals, casters ZP and Jorosar talked about REUNITED’s curse of having problems winning in the finals despite a strong showing to make it there. As predicted, REUNITED struggled with a strong showing by Rogue. TVIQ’s Genji of Rouge outclassed REUNITED’s Kyb. Reinforce, Rouge’s main tank, also made some strong plays as Reinhardt, ensuring the payload do not make it to the end. Rouge beats REUNITED in Hollywood and Dorado, but the third round in Ilios saw them losing. It was too little too late for REUNITED to make a comeback as Route 66 saw Rouge clinching a win.
On the NA side, last week runners-up Cloud 9 is a strong favourite to make it through alongside Luminosity Gaming. But the rest of the pact is no slouch. Fnatic makes all the way to the semis this time, taking down Sea Algae and Northern Gaming Red on their way. C9 made their way to face Fnatic in the semis after defeating Team Paragon and Splyce. A convincing 2-0 win sends C9 to the finals.
On the other end of the bracket saw an upset made by Team Liquid. A pretty quiet team for a while due to roster changes, Team Liquid went out guns blazing, shutting down 1Shot and last week’s runners up Team Solo Mid (TSM) to make it to the semis. Luminosity was on point, making making through the brackets at the expense of ohno and Sodipop, and ended Team Liquid’s excellent run in the semis.
The finals between C9 and LG was an unfortunate steamroll. C9 looking really good with both attack and defence. Surefour’s cheeky use of Mei on Numbani defence and the occasional as well as some Tracer uses were proven too much for LG to handle, giving away C9 to make record times on payload maps that were proven way too hard to beat. Seagull was the saving grace for LG as he did put up a few good performances to keep the team alive with his mastery of Genji, but it was just not enough to keep C9 at bay.
Another note: this will be the last time Luminosity will be represented by this team. Seagull and co are now known as Mixup and Luminosity just signed 2sTroNk to represent their lineup now.
With the end of this week’s qualifiers, Cloud 9 will join EnVyUs in the NA regional finals and Rouge joining Misfits in the EU regional finals. Two more automatic qualifier slots for each region is up for grabs in the next two weeks of the qualifiers. The standings in the leaderpoints to determined the remaining 24 teams- 12 for each region- to qualify are as follows.
You can check out the VODs of the previous matches on co-organiser FaceIt’s YouTube channel. Reruns of the stream, as well as streams of upcoming Qualifier matches can also be watched on Astro’s eGG, channel 808. If you prefer to watch it live, check out the Twitch channel for when the next stream starts.