This weekend, the 3rd season of Overwatch League will be resuming online after being postponed. Blizzard did the right choice in postponing the event and moving it to an online setting to ensure the health and safety of all fans, players, and staff.
Overwatch League Changes
If you’re new to Overwatch League, the league itself is usually split into 2 groups of 10, An Atlantic Conference and a Pacific Conference, which include two 5-team divisions in each conference. Due to COVID-19 spreading earlier in both China and Korea, than in any other cities that the Overwatch League has, it was only natural that the Pacific Conference was postponed first, hence why there are less matches in that Conference. Now as a result of the teams flying back home, it was only fair that due to latency issues, the league be split into three groups. The teams will be split into three groups follows:
6 Teams on West Coast:
- Los Angeles Gladiators
- Los Angeles Valiant
- San Francisco Shock
- Seoul Dynasty
- Vancouver Titans
- Dallas Fuel
10 teams on East Coast:
- Atlanta Reign
- Boston Uprising
- Florida Mayhem
- Houston Outlaws
- London Spitfire
- Philadelphia Fusion
- New York Excelsior
- Paris Eternal
- Toronto Defiant
- Washington Justice
And 4 teams in China:
- Chengdu Hunters
- Guangzhou Charge
- Hangzhou Spark
- Shanghai Dragons
This means that this season will definitely be a bit weird for now, especially when having some teams in certain groups with much fewer teams playing multiple games against the same teams to make sure that everyone is competing with an equal number of matches overall.
Schedule
The schedule for this week’s matches are as follows:
Saturday, 28th March
- Guangzhou Charge vs Shanghai Dragons
- Chengdu Hunters vs Hangzhou Spark
- Toronto Defiant vs Boston Uprising
- Paris Eternal vs London Spitfire
- New York Excelsior vs Atlanta Reign
- Florida Mayhem vs Washington Justice
- San Francisco Shock vs Los Angeles Gladiators
- Seoul Dynasty vs Dallas Fuel
Sunday, 29th March
- Chengdu Hunters vs Shanghai Dragons
- Hangzhou Spark vs Guangzhou Charge
- New York Excelsior vs Boston Uprising
- Toronto Defiant vs London Spitfire
- Florida Mayhem vs Atlanta Reign
- Los Angeles Valiant vs San Francisco Shock
- Vancouver Titans vs Dallas Fuel
- Seoul Dynasty vs Los Angeles Gladiators
The fully revised schedule for the 2020 Season of Overwatch League can be found on the Overwatch league website here:
Standings and Team Performance
In terms of Standings, we have New York Excelsior leading the Atlantic Conference with 5 wins and 1 loss winning 16 maps and losing 5 which is a pretty good start to the season for them. In terms of scores they are tied with Philadelphia Fusion with the only difference that Fusion has won 17 maps but lost 7, which means that they are 1 map short off first place. Paris Eternal is close behind the 2 dominating teams with a score of 4-2, winning 13 maps and losing 10. They have had a mediocre season so far but are expected to come back stronger as the season plays out.
In regards to the Pacific Conference, where there are less matches played, we have Vancouver Titans in the lead with 2 wins and 0 losses, San Francisco Shock with 1 win 0 losses, and in 3rd, Los Angeles Valiant with a win and a loss. Hard to predict as of right now, which is the best performing team in the pacific conference, having very few matches played and the introduction of the hero pools.
Due to some teams remaining undefeated, the overall league standings are inaccurate, but are subject to change after this week of Overwatch League.
- 1. Vancouver Titans – 2-0
- 2. San Francisco Shock – 1-0
- 3. New York Excelsior – 5-1
- 4. Philadelphia Fusion – 5-1
- 5. Paris Eternal – 4-2
Full standings below:
Watch the Overwatch League 2020 stream on esportsguide.com
You can also watch overwatch league live stream via our very own website. Providing an extensive list of the biggest esports together with streams for each esports match live today or upcoming matches.
Predictions
In relation to predictions, it is likely that San Francisco Shock will have an outstanding performance for the rest of the season, following their very recent victory at the 2nd season of Overwatch League. Another team to keep your eye on is indubitably New York Excelsior, as they have been dominating the Atlantic Conference for the past few weeks of Overwatch League.
One important thing to bear in mind heading into this week’s matches is that the hero bans that have been picked out for this week are: Sombra, Soldier:76, Winston, and Lúcio.
This week will for sure be an exciting week of Overwatch, having 16 matches played this weekend, so you should definitely tune in.
