London Spitfire crush another Los Angeles team, take the series lead over Valiant

You can call London Spitfire the LA killers.

Days after London shocked the Los Angeles Gladiators in the Overwatch League quarterfinals by winning six straight maps to come back and advance in the playoffs, Spitfire preyed on another Los Angeles team.

The Los Angeles Valiant were the second-ranked team in the regular season and the stage four title holders. They were supposed to beat a London team whose hallmark has been inconsistency. But Spitfire carried their momentum from their win over Gladiators into tonight’s games—and after a 3-1-1 win, they’re now one match away from the OWL finals.

London Spitfire have always had the talent to win the entire league, but they’ve struggled to utilize it throughout most of the season. Perhaps this current meta, where their superstar DPS duo of Park “Profit” Jun-young and Kim “Birdring” Ji-hyeok can wreak havoc with superb individual play on Hanzo and Widowmaker, is perfect for them. Maybe they’ve figured out the key to unlocking their potential.

Whatever the case, they sure know how to beat up on LA teams.

Today’s match was a close one, though. Spitfire jumped out to a 2-0 lead, but both matches were hard-fought. The third and fourth games were even closer—Valiant bounced back with a gritty win on King’s Row, and then the teams went down to the wire in a tie on Hanamura. The ultimate map, Dorado, showed the key difference between the two teams today: Profit and Birdring outplayed the snipers on the other side of the field, Brady “Agilities” Girardi and Terence “SoOn” Tarlier. Profit, in particular, had a great match as Hanzo, dishing out a ridiculous amount of damage over the course of the series.

DPS players often get more credit than they deserve considering they’re the names you usually see in the killfeed, even if their tanks and supports are the ones that set them up. But in the current double-sniper meta, where Hanzo and Widowmaker are both capable of scoring kills themselves and often in direct battles against their counterparts, it’s the DPS players driving the match.

Many expected SoOn to hold an advantage over Birdring after his excellence in Valiant’s stage four title run, but today, Birdring was the stronger sniper.

That’s a scary prospect for the rest of the playoff contenders considering that London have always had the strongest lineup (on paper) in the league. If they continue playing like they did last weekend against Gladiators and today against Valiant, they’re going to be the first OWL champs.