With Stage 1 in the books, which Overwatch League team will take home $200,000 in prize money? It has been an interesting second season in the Overwatch League thus far. The league has had its fair share of both on and off-field drama, with multiple teams suffering from various degrees of scandal. The stage also saw many of the expansion teams soar, with three making it into the stage 1 playoffs. The Shanghai Dragons won a match for the first time, ending the longest streak in the history of North American sports. Several teams also faltered; the London Spitfire and Los Angeles Valiant have gone a combined 3-11, a poor showing for last year’s overall runner up and a semifinalist. The Washington Justice didn’t win a match until week five against fellow bottom feeder Florida Mayhem. The suspense even lasted after the last games were officially played. There were two ties in the playoff bracket; the Toronto Defiant and Philadelphia Fusion for the 3rd seed while the Seoul Dynasty and San Francisco Shock tied for the 6th seed. The Dynasty and Shock decided to settle it on the field of battle with the Shock coming out on top, but the Defiant and Fusion decided for a more old-fashioned route: a coin flip. The Defiant won the toss and will face the Shock in the quarterfinal. Eight teams made the cut for the Overwatch League 2019 Stage 1 playoffs. However, only one team can come away with the top prize of $200,000. Which will walk away victorious on March 24?<doc-sep>This weekend, the second season of the Overwatch League has its first playoff series. Here's what you should know heading in. What: The top eight teams from Stage 1 of the second Overwatch League season will play in a single-elimination tournament for a $500,000 prize pool. The champion will receive $200,000, the runner-up will get $100,000, third and fourth place will each win $50,000, and the fifth through eighth player teams each win $25,000. Stages 2-3 will also have playoff rounds at the end, none of which will count toward the Grand Finals at the end of the regular season. When: Stage 1 playoffs are March 21-24; the semifinals and Stage Final will be played on Saturday and Sunday, airing on ABC. Editor's Picks Google announces new cloud gaming service Stadia The quiet success of the NYXL Looking at Call of Duty, the CWL and geolocation 2 Related With eight new teams and an expanded format, the stage playoffs feel both fresh and familiar. Let's take a look at some of the top storylines to follow in the 2019 Stage 1 playoffs. New York, New York The news about the New York Excelsior in Stage 1 of Season 2 is the same as it was for every stage of Season 1 -- more stage playoffs. New York will make its fifth stage playoff appearance tonight. No other team has more than two. The Excelsior have a 4-2 record in the Stage Playoffs and made the finals in all four of their previous appearances, including winning Stages 2 and 3. This stage, the Excelsior and Titans were the only teams with a perfect 7-0 record. However, New York went 4-0 with a +9 map differential against the other seven playoff teams, twice as many such wins as any other team. Perhaps what is most surprising about the Excelsior's success in Stage 1 is the play of newcomer Jeong "Nenne" Yeon-Gwan. He has participated in every map for the Excelsior and is one of two players in the league to rank among the top five in final blows (1st), eliminations (3rd) and damage (4th) per 10 minutes this season (minimum 1 hour played). Shock and Awe (Dynasty) The Seoul Dynasty and San Francisco Shock will both be making their Stage Playoff debuts this weekend, but they came about it in very different ways. Last season, the Dynasty missed the Stage 1 and 2 playoffs due to the map-differential tiebreaker, before missing the cut by a match in Stage 3 and then completely falling apart in Stage 4. They were commonly believed to be among the premier teams heading into Overwatch League last season, so this is a long time coming for the Dynasty. The Shock, on the other hand, underwhelmed in Stages 1 and 2 last season before missing out on the Stage 3 playoffs due to the map-differential tiebreaker. One of the biggest differences for them in Stage 3 last season was Jay "sinaatra" Won and Matthew "super" Delisi becoming eligible to play (age restriction). While sinaatra was a boost to the team last season, he has really shined in the early going of Season 2. Sinaatra leads the league with 13,394 damage per 10 this season, up from 8,297 in 2018 (10th), and has the three highest single-match DP10 averages. The downside for the Shock and Dynasty is that they both went 0-2 against the other playoff teams. The Mayhem and Dragons are now the only original 12 teams not to qualify for a stage playoff. Successful expansion: Titans, Reign, Defiant The Vancouver Titans, Toronto Defiant and Atlanta Reign represent three of the eight teams in 2019 expansion, which has been one of the best stories of the opening stage. The eight expansion teams are a combined 18-16 against the original 12 teams; Washington Justice accounted for five of those 16 losses. Leading the way for the expansion teams are the Vancouver Titans, who enter the playoffs as the No. 1 overall seed. The Titans had a 24-6 overall map record and a league-high three 4-0 wins. The only map type they lost more than once was escort (4-3). One of the standouts for Titans has been flex tank Choi "JJANU" Hyunwoo; his 22.6 eliminations and 2.45 deaths per 10 minutes are both the best among all tank players and the second best among all players (minimum 30 minutes played). While not as dominant as Vancouver, the Atlanta Reign finished with a 4-3 record and the third-highest map differential of any team (+6). Perhaps the biggest reason for Atlanta's success is the play of DPS player Daniel "dafran" Francesca, who ranks third and sixth, respectively, in final blows (7.5) and damage (10,805) per 10 minutes this season (minimum 1 hour played). It is worth noting that dafran's season low in damage per 10 minutes (9,357) was against the Philadelphia Fusion, Atlanta's first-round opponent. One situation the Reign may want to avoid is the fifth map tiebreaker, where they were 0-2; only the Mayhem and Valiant (three each) had more map five losses this stage. The other expansion team to qualify for the stage playoffs is the Toronto Defiant with a 5-2 record and +5 map differential, with their only losses coming against the Excelsior and Reign. One of the weak points in Toronto's game this stage has been its play on assault maps (2-4-1); it is the only playoff team with a losing record on assault maps (0-2 on Temple of Anubis). Reign enter the playoffs riding a season-high three-match win streak (2-2 in the first four games). Whether it is an expansion team or one of the originals, this may be the last chance to determine which team is the GOAT of the GOATS composition.<doc-sep>This article is brought to you by StatBanana, the best Overwatch strategy tool. Unusual situations sometimes require unusual solutions. After two teams tied for both third and sixth place in the Overwatch League stage one playoff standings, a tiebreaker was needed to decide the playoff bracket seeding. One set of teams has stuck straight with the rule book to decide their fate. The other set has opted for a quicker, but more obscure way of handling things: a coin flip. San Francisco Shock and Seoul Dynasty will play an off-stream match tomorrow at 4pm CT to decide which team will take the sixth and seventh seeds, OWL revealed via Twitter. This will be a standard first-to-three match in accordance with Overwatch League rules. Philadelphia Fusion and Toronto Defiant will be taking the more unorthodox approach to find out who gets the third and fourth seeds. Tomorrow at 2PM PT @SeoulDynasty plays @SFShock in a non-broadcast standard match to determine 6th/7th seeds in the Stage 1 Playoffs. Immediately after, @TorontoDefiant and @Fusion will settle 3rd/4th seeds via a mutually agreed-upon coin flip. #OWL2019 — Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) March 18, 2019 Many fans are expressing concern about the different solutions. Only a summary of the Overwatch League official rules is publicly available and coin tosses are nowhere to be found. The important thing is that the coin flip, however unorthodox, was mutually agreed upon by both teams. There is reasoning for this if we look at what is potentially lost by either of these two sets of teams. Shock and Dynasty likely opted to take the standard match because more is at stake for them in the playoff bracket. The loser of their match will be the seventh seed and will have to face the second seed, the New York Excelsior, in the quarterfinals. NYXL have not lost a game this stage and will likely be a more difficult opponent than the winner of Philadelphia vs. Dallas, who the winner of Seoul vs. San Francisco will play. Related: Which teams made it to the Overwatch League stage one playoffs? The difference between the sixth and seventh seeds is massive, and it’s understandable why neither San Francisco nor Seoul would want to put the match on a coin toss. Facing NYXL may be an insurmountable challenge for them, while the loser of the Fusion vs. Defiant coin flip will take on Atlanta Reign in the first round of the playoffs. While Atlanta are statistically a more difficult team to face than San Francisco or Seoul, it’s not enough of a difference that it would be catastrophic for either team to face them. Philadelphia and Toronto are also likely considering their time commitment. They would rather not play an entire match to find out who they’re up against, and instead, they can find out their opponent quickly and start developing strategies. No matter the reasoning behind the choices, a bracket will be decided after the off-stream match is over and the coin has been flipped, which will likely be around 5:30pm CT. The only match currently set in stone is the first match of the quarterfinals, which will be the first-seeded Vancouver Titans against the eighth seed, the Boston Uprising. Quarterfinals begin March 21 at 8PM CT.<doc-sep>
The quarterfinals begin on March 21. Here are the eight teams that will be competing. This article is brought to you by StatBanana, the best Overwatch strategy tool. The first five-week stage of the Overwatch League’s second season has come to a close. Next week, the playoffs begin. Eight teams have managed to fight their way into the playoff bracket, leaving 12 of their competitors in the dust. Here are the teams that are left to fight for glory and a good bit of prize money. The two leaders of the bracket are the New York Excelsior and the Vancouver Titans, both of whom didn’t lose a single one of their seven games during stage one. In the final match today, the Vancouver Titans pulled ahead in map count (individual maps won throughout the stage) to take the first seed away from the New York Excelsior. Stage one standings before playoffs.|Screengrab via Blizzard Entertainment This puts them in an extremely advantageous position for playoffs. They’ll face the eighth-place team, the Boston Uprising, in the first quarterfinal match. For the Uprising, they’ve unfortunately left the frying pan and gone straight into the fire. They barely eked out a playoff spot and now they’ll be sent to face an undefeated team. Some teams had to wait until the final hour to learn their fates. The Atlanta Reign played the Houston Outlaws today in a do-or-die match after they lost to the Chengdu Hunters on March 16. With a 3-1 scoreline, the Reign made it into playoffs in fifth place. The Philadelphia Fusion also secured their playoff spot during today’s first match as they defeated the Paris Eternal. The playoff bracket is not yet complete, however. The Philadelphia Fusion and Toronto Defiant tied for third place, while the San Francisco Shock and Seoul Dynasty tied for sixth place. Due to the presence of two ties, the bracket will be completed at a later date, possibly involving the play of singular maps to decide seeding. Quarterfinals of the stage one playoffs begin on Thursday, March 21 at 8pm CT, where the first two matches of the bracket will be played. These quarterfinals continue at the same time on March 22. On March 23, the real fun begins—the semifinal games will be aired on ABC and begin at 2pm CT. The stage one final matches will also be aired on ABC on March 24. Teams are competing for a grand prize of $200,000 and a runner-up prize of $100,000.