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The Los Angeles Gladiators have defied some team controversy earlier in the day to start their playoff campaign with a scintillating 3-0 victory over the London Spitfire in the Overwatch League quarterfinals.
The Gladiators dropped a bombshell before the match, however, announcing star tank recruit – and former London player – Chan-hyung “Fissure” Baek had been benched for Game 1 in a vague message that suggested he hadn’t been practising ‘effectively’.
— Los Angeles Gladiators (@LAGladiators) July 12, 2018
That put an enormous amount of pressure on substitute Luis “iRemiix” Galarza Figueroa, with the Overwatch League’s commentary team all shifting their picks to London following the surprise substitution.
It was a new line-up and a new meta for the playoffs and, while we knew we were going to see a lot more Hanzo, the Shimada sniper was something of a non-factor on the first map Junkertown. The Gladiators elected not to use him on their defensive effort, while London’s Joon-yeong “Profit” Park looked rusty with him.
It was the Spitfire attacking first and, while they made steady progress on the first two points, the Gladiators did a good job to keep the payload at a stunted pace. LA’s stall on Point B was particularly impressive, before they recovered very strongly at the death to stop London from taking all three points.
With the Gladiators running three tanks, Ji-hyuk “birdring” Kim’s decision to run Genji was an interesting one, and a pretty ineffective Dragonblade perhaps made it the wrong one.
With a lot of pressure on iRemiix, the second-choice Tank held his own on Orisa quite nicely. He helped the Gladiators defend well at first, but he was crucial in helping Los Angeles run the classic pirate ship comp on attack.
The Gladiators showed they’d lost none of their red-hot Stage 4 form, with their Bastion-Orisa-Reinhardt combo slicing through the Spitfire defence like a hot knife through butter. They got themselves to Point C quite easily, with some last-minute London resistance stifled by sublime Widowmaker play from Lane “Surefour” Roberts.
Moving onto Lijiang Tower, it was the Spitfire who came out breathing fire on Garden with a disciplined and lethal first push capturing the point and helping them get all the way to 99%.
Los Angeles managed to flip it at the death and run their percentage up to 99 as well but, in a lone highlight for Spitfire, they were able to recover and win the point after some masterful Winston play from Jan-hee “Gesture” Hong.
The all-star tank player managed to chase Jonas “Shaz” Suovaara’s Zenyatta away from the team – denying them crucial healing, before popping his barrier projector at just the right moment to absorb some damage from Joao “Hydration” Pedro Goes Telles’ Pharah ultimate.
But, from there, it was all LA.
A lethal Zarya/Pharah combo on Control Centre set up a strong early capture for the Gladiators and, while they temporarily lost the point after a flurry of London ultimates, a clutch Earthshatter from iRemiix’s Reinhardt swung it back in their favour.
They went on to win the second point 100-68, before dominating the Spitfire on Night Market with excellent McCree play by Surefour to go 2-0 up in the series.
That brought us to King’s Row, with the in-universe home team needing a win to keep the best-of-five alive.
The Gladiators gave London a surprising amount of space – and time – on the point and, while they were able to push back some strong forays, they found themselves constantly being dictated by the attacker’s actions.
The Spitfire took Point A in reasonable time and looked to be headed for a quick Point B take too, before another incredible defensive effort from LA stopped them in their tracks.
Gesture’s decision to stick with Orisa for as long as he did was questioned by the commentary team and, although he did eventually move over to Reinhardt, it was too little too late.
Fantastic ultimate usage by the Gladiators kept the Spitfire just metres away from claiming a second point, setting up a strong chance of a sweep on their turn to attack.
It was the start of Los Angeles’ attack, however, where the biggest talking point of the match took place.
Surefour went with Brigitte initially but, to the crowd’s bemusement, simply stood still in the spawn room while the rest of his team advanced.
But the inaction turned out be an incredible piece of trickery. With London preoccupied with the aggressive LA push, Surefour switched to Widowmaker, grappled up to the now unchecked sniping spot and proceeded to pick off two defenders in a match-altering piece of play.
The Gladiators were able to easily take Point A from there and, despite some desperate late defending, take Point B with ease and wrap up a dominant 3-0 victory.
They’ll only need one more win to wrap up a semi-final date with either New York or the LA Valiant and, with a player of Fissure’s calibre still on the bench, you’d have to back them to get the job done.
Game 2 and 3 (if necessary) will take place at 6am (AEST) and 8am, respectively, on Sunday, July 15.