History will be written Friday and Saturday, as the No. 6 Fusion take on the fifth-seed London Spitfire in the inaugural best-of-three Overwatch League Grand Finals at a sold-out Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The first of its kind and one of the largest esports events ever held that features global, city-based teams, the finals pair the scrappy, giant-killing Fusion (24-16) against the more polished Spitfire (24-16).
Here’s what you should know:
What is this?
This is the inaugural Overwatch League Grand Finals. Since January, 12 teams have gone head-to-head on a weekly basis. After 40 games, six teams made the playoffs and only two remain — the Spitfire and Fusion.
Where is this?
The Grand Finals take place at Barclays Center.
News
How to watch
You can follow all the matches on www.Twitch.tv/OverwatchLeague. On cable, you can find Game 1 on ESPN and Disney XD at 7 p.m. Game 2 will appear on ESPN 3 and Disney XD at 4:30 p.m.
What’s at stake
If pride or a trophy doesn’t do it for you, maybe the $1,000,000 purse will. Even the runner-up pockets $400,000, so there are no real losers here.
How does this work?
It's a best of three series with each game featuring a best-of-five set. All matches are six-vs-six on an array of maps that could either include attack and defend-style objective and a king of the hill objective.
Background on the Spitfire
Made up of top South Korean players from Cloud9 KONGDOO and GC Busan, the skillful but inconsistent Spitfire entered the regular season as near favorites to win the title. However, after easily winning the Stage 1 playoffs, the club began to falter.
They fired their coach midway through Stage 2, and eventually cut four non-starters before limping into the postseason as a No. 5 seed. But from there, the team returned to glory by conquering the Los Angeles Gladiators, 2-1, and Los Angeles Valiant, 2-0.
Background on the Fusion
An afterthought from the beginning, the Fusion missed preseason because of VISA issues and needed time to find its footing. But once the hyper-aggressive and highly skilled underdogs came together, the club began to thrive.
Despite an appearance in the Stage 2 finals, the Fusion stumbled through consistency issues as the season dragged on. They gathered enough wins to reach the sixth and final postseason spot, where they pushed past the struggling No. 3 Boston Uprising, 2-1, before upsetting the heavily favored and top-seeded New York Excelsior, 2-0. The Fusion hold a 3-2 season series lead over the Spitfire, with three consecutive wins.
Spitfire’s play style
If there’s an award for most talent from top to bottom, the Spitfire would win it. But that’s only a portion of what makes this club so dangerous. The Spitfire are known for utilizing that skill with a strong team play component, which gives them an edge over the competition. With Jae-Hui “Gesture” Hong, Jun-Ho “Fury” Kim and Seung-Tae “Bodisin” Choi, this team is as well-rounded as it gets.
Fusion’s play style
It’s all about freestyle aggression for the Fusion, who excel at a DPS-based strategy that relies on their players causing chaos. Once your strategy is in disarray, they pounce and use pure elimination power to overwhelm. In boxing terms, the Fusion are knockout artists, and Jae-Hyeok “Carpe” Lee and Josue “Eqo” Corona are two of the best punchers in the game.
Matchup to watch
While Jun-Young “Profit” Park vs Eqo will be a heavyweight DPS match-up, the game within the game to watch is Widow masters, Ji-Hyeok “Birdring” Kim vs Carpe. If Carpe, an MVP finalist, and OWL all-star, can have his way with Birdring, it should open the door to feast on the remaining Spitfire roster.
Key to victory
This could be a battle of whichever team can remain calm. With both clubs accustomed to playing live in front of 450 people at Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California, the sold-out crowd at Barclays Center could be a jolt. This is a road game and something neither team has experienced. How they deal mentally with that crowd could be a difference-maker.