Thought dump is a regular series where I post my unedited thoughts and musings about Overwatch that don’t merit a real article.

In case you’re somehow in the dark, LW Red defeated Conbox 3–2 this morning and Lunatic-Hai triumphed over X6 3–1. Both series were crazy close, especially LW Red vs Conbox. But my favorite thing about today’s matches was how obvious the impact of the coaches were.

Architect played out of his damn mind today. He was so close to hard carrying Conbox to victory, but his DPS partner let him down. Asher, the Tracer of Conbox, got outplayed again-and-again by Nenne. Leading Asher to be the first pick in far too many fights.

Nenne’s dominance in the Tracer matchup honestly stopped LW Red from getting rolled in the first half of the series. He doesn’t step up, and this series is probably a 3–0 in Conbox’s favor. Luckily for him, coach WizardHyeong stepped in.

After map three, Conbox were on match point, 2–1. LW Red used their tactical pause, and completely turned the series around. They erupted onto Dorado with a new focus, survive Architect’s dive, then kill him. Junkrat/76 formed a nigh impossible combo for him to break, and he suddenly found himself being the fist pick.

He had a small return to form on Eichenwalde, a map that as much, much, closer. But nobody else on Conbox proved capable to picking up the slack, and LW Red was able to scrape out the win. If their coach didn’t talk to them, and re-focus them, I’d bet Conbox takes the series.

For Lunatic-Hai, Nepal looked like a proper return to form. It would be the only map of the night that wasn’t close, and they took it in a confident 2–0.

Now it was X6-Gaming’s turn for their coach to make an impact. He came in and used their tactical pause to walk them over what was an obviously practiced strategy to defend Numbani A.

Not to toot my own horn, but I broke down that defense in a video. So I won’t cover it again here. TL:DW, it was impressive.

From then on, Luantic-Hai needed some hero plays to clinch out the series. Ryujehong saved them on Temple of Anubis, where then Whoru had multiple Dragonblades to find critical kills on Route 66.

LW Red vs Conbox was far closer. That series literally could have been a 3–0 if a couple Pulse Bombs went differently. It was that tense.

Lunatic-Hai vs X6 wasn’t that close, but it certainly could have gone a full five maps. Unlike the first series, however, I still walk away confident that Luantic-Hai is the better team. In my eyes LW Red and Conbox are essentially equal.

Moving forward, I think I favor NC Foxes over LW Red. And as long as Lunatic-Hai runs Gido/Whoru again I favor them over GC Busan. I think GC’s victory was a one off, and I didn’t see them maintaining the same level against RunAway.

Neither match is clear, however. I’m excited for both.