Stage 1 in its entirety is behind us now, and the complete playoff picture has been chiseled into stone tablets and held aloft outside of the Blizzard Arena. But if you happened to miss the action from the final week of Overwatch League’s first leg, we're here for you. We'll break down the final standings, the Washington Justice triumph, and even some cheeky threats from Vancouver's Bumber. This is your Week 5 recap. 

Thanks to a much shorter stage schedule mixing with an almost twice as large team list, single stages in the 2019 Overwatch League contain a mere 7 games. This leads to situations, like this weekend, where plenty of playoff seed positions could have been, and were, shuffled. 

Heading into the weekend, the bottom eight teams in the league had been officially eliminated, yet only three of the top seeds had earned a guaranteed postseason berth. The 7-0 NYXL sat just atop the 6-0 Vancouver Titans, holding down the first seed for the time being, while the Toronto Defiant had also clinched in third place with a 5-2 record and a +5 map differential. A lot of red showed up on the league standings (shown below), and the rest was pretty wide open.

With only two days of play in the final week -- normally there are four days, but plenty of teams had already played their 7 games and given a bye-week -- some squads had their last game of the stage ahead of them, while a couple of teams still had two matches to play. We took a look forward to Week 5 before, but it's time to take a peek back at the week that was. 

Saturday

Still looking for their first win in the Overwatch League, the very strong Washington Justice took on the also eliminated Paris Eternal in the week’s first game. Paris opened strong, easily taking Busan from the Justice. But after map 2 ended in a hard-fought tie, and the Justice stormed back on map 3 to even the entire series, it all came down to map 4, Escort on Durado. In the end, Paris pushed through to all three points and managed to hold the Justice to only two, winning the head-to-head. 

Clinging to faint hopes, the London Spitfire took to the stage against another team on the outside looking in, the Seoul Dynasty. However, the defending Overwatch League champions in the Spitfire only secured a single map and dropped out of Stage 1 playoff contention losing 3-0-1 to the Dynasty. With the win, the Dynasty squeaked ahead above the elimination line for the time being, and the rest would be out of their hands. 

Match of the Day - Right on the cusp of postseason invitations, the Boston Uprising had the formidable Dallas Fuel sat across from them on Saturday. After falling down 2-0 in maps fairly quickly, the Uprising engineered a beautifully entertaining reverse sweep, winning the match outright in the end after a stellar performance on Nepal by shot-caller Fusions. 

With a win the Atlanta Reign would be in firm control over their playoff chances, but thanks to a Chengdu Hunters team that doesn’t know what the term ‘meta’ means, they fell to the unconventional strategies in a tough loss to a full 5-game series. While the Hunters began the day eliminated, the Reign (even with the loss) still have the smallest of hopes to advance to the Stage 1 playoffs. But most of their shot landed in the control of others now. 

Sunday

The final day of the final week began with the Paris Eternal looking to play potential playoff spoiler to the overpowered, yet underperforming, Philadelphia Fusion. Though thanks to some absolutely terrible efforts on Horizon Lunar Colony and Rialto, they dropped the matchup 3-1, and head into the playoff break with a whole ton of time on their hands, and a heavy amount of questions to answer. 

Match of the Day - It may have been destiny or just the much-deserved payoff for a heaping pile of great efforts without wins, but regardless of why it happened the Washington Justice were gifted the chance to finally notch a win in the Overwatch League against the unimpressive Florida Mayhem. Ado and the Justice did not squander this opportunity (though it came way too close in the end), taking the head-to-head in a 5-map match, much to the elation of the Overwatch world. The Justice head into the break narrowly escaping a goose egg in the win column, and their future looks bright. 

Even after their loss the day before, everything else had fallen into place. Now, all the Atlanta Reign had to do was win their head-to-head match against the powerful fraggers from the Houston Outlaws and they would be gifted with a golden ticket to the playoffs. Win they did, and the excitement from their final map (Escort on Rialto) would have sealed it as our match of the day had it not been for Ado and the Justice. 

To wrap up the Overwatch League Stage 1 regular season, the Vancouver Titans looked to remain undefeated, taking on the Guangzhou Charge. With a win, the Charge would swap places with the Boston Uprising, earning their first berth in the OWL postseason. On the other side of the arena, the Titans had a chance to leapfrog over the New York Excelsior for first place in the league if they managed to win, and by a map differential of 2 or more. The Titans went on to sweep the Charge, only looking shaky in the opening map. 

Playoff Picture.

We will be going deeper into what the Overwatch League Stage 1 Playoffs will look like later this week, but for now, we can get an overview of who’s in and who’s out. 

With their win in the final regular season match of Stage 1, the Vancouver Titans take a ton of momentum into the playoffs as the #1 seed. Without a doubt, they are the team to fear, and main-tank Bumper knows it.  

Look out @Mano_OWL, Bumper is coming. #OWL2019 pic.twitter.com/6GuHf277j3

— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) March 18, 2019

Other teams that look like they could make a long run in the playoff tournament are the Philadelphia Fusion, and the expansion Toronto Defiant. Of course, the NYXL (even without the recently traded ArK) should be a tough team to beat, after entering the competition undefeated.

On the flipside, squads like the Atlanta Reign and their fan-favorite Dafran, the San Francisco Shock, and Seoul Dynasty have a lot to prove if they are going to ever be considered heavy favorites as the playoff tournament progresses. 

Round 1 matches get underway this Thursday, and with $500,000 on the line, we can’t wait to tune-in.