SF Shock Defeat Fusion and Advance to the OWL Stage 1 Finals

Earlier in the day, the Vancouver Titans walked all over the Seoul Dynasty to earn their spot in the Stage 1 Playoff finals in their first-ever season. Luckily for spectators, we now know they will be going up against the San Francisco Shock in that matchup. 

A team that is the closest to resemble the playstyle of the Titans, the Shock rolled through their second-round opponents in the Philadelphia Fusion, winning the head-to-head 4-0.

Youth in Revolt

A few moments of lackluster performance under immense pressure may have had some analysts write-off the young-guns of the San Francisco Shock. But now, they head into the finals riding a high wave on the back of stellar play from those exact same youth. The Shock's sweep over the higher-seeded Toronto Defiant yesterday proved their prowess in this meta. 

Having just barely aged into the Overwatch League, Shock’s main-tank Super is only 18 years old and looks capable of competing alongside superstar tanks like Vancouver’s Bumper (who he will face in the finals). The Shock’s aggressive Reinhardt-centric GOATS composition truly favors the cocky nature of Super’s play. Fan-favorite DPS player Sinatraa (who is only 19 years old) has been absolutely slaying as Zarya in this meta, pulling off major team fight wins with those graviton surge ultimates. 

With most of their starting lineup under the age of 20, the San Francisco Shock has a lot of fast-talking, and high-confidence players. As of this point, their youth has paid off. But, with minimal experience at large-stage LAN events, the Shock runs the risk of getting sloppy or rattled. We will have to see if the biggest match of their 2019 season gets to be too much for them, tomorrow. 

Hyper Fusion

In their second-round matchup, the Shock faced off against the 4th-seeded Philadelphia Fusion. According to the analyst desk, this tight head-to-head would most likely wind up in favor of the Fusion, which obviously didn’t happen. But how did the Shock pull off a very convincing victory over a team that looked better on paper? 

It all came down to the speed of the young Shock team, which quickly put the Fusion on their heels and caused one mistake after another. The flustered Fusion nearly fought back a few times on different maps, but just couldn’t snatch up a single victory in today's first-to-four. 

Though it is unlikely that the Philadelphia Fusion look back at their Stage 1 performance and think they need to make changes, it can’t feel good to lose a deciding matchup that you were favored to win going in. Their run to the semi-finals was a formidable one, and they should be very happy with almost every performance.

A Super Bumping Finals

It’s the point we’ve all been waiting for. The eight qualifying teams have been whittled down to just two, and this Sunday, March 24th, at 12:00 PM PST we will witness them go head-to-head on the Blizzard Arena mainstage. Catch it live on the Overwatch League Twitch channel.

The most beautiful part of this San Francisco Shock versus Vancouver Titans finals will be the head-to-head battle between two very aggressive Reinhardt main-tanks in Bumper and Super. On paper, the edge would have to go to Bumper, who has received some epic support from his Titans squadmates. Though, as we’ve seen for most of this stage so far, the matchups on paper don’t always play out how one might predict.

OVERWATCH LEAGUE STAGE 1 FINALS... TOMORROW @ 12PM@SFShock vs @VancouverTitans #RideTheWave #AttackOnTitans pic.twitter.com/wSD7dsnNsl

— San Francisco Shock⚡ (@SFShock) March 23, 2019

The winner of tomorrow’s matchup will waltz into the break before Stage 2 starts with the most bragging rights, and a $200,000 performance bonus.