Few events in esports have had as much anticipation and buildup to the actual event as The Overwatch League. The permanent franchise-based league announced during Blizzcon 2016 has captured the interest of investors from traditional sports as well as esports organizations. The inaugural week has seen a level of engagement far beyond expectations and many analysts are happy to be proven wrong. The first day saw the peak viewership numbers rise to above 400,000 viewers while maintaining a consistent level of above 150,000 viewers.

As we look back at the first week of the Overwatch League, several players stand out in their performance. The matches were a lot closer than many of us expected, but the Korean teams still maintained their dominance over the other teams. In this article, we take a look at the Top players from week one and how they influenced their team’s results.

Soon

It’s rare to see individual plays which can demoralize an entire team. Soon managed exactly that with his sneaky plays on Numbani against Dallas Fuel. The series was very close to that point, but Soon’s sneaky play resulted in Dallas Fuel losing the objective despite winning the fight. It was a very hasty defense by Dallas fuel which saw them using both their support ultimates in order to have a second point defense on Numbani. It was a costly fight, but they won the fight in the end. They obviously hoped it would end up consuming a lot of time in the Los Angeles Valiant Attack. However as they went to position themselves in anticipation of the next team fight, Soon casually walked up to the payload and pushed it for the distance of the last few meters.

This play is extremely important as it totally demoralized the Dallas Fuel team. It was a big setback for the team who had played several closely contested maps in the series already. Soon’s performance during the Overwatch League has been nothing short of exceptional. The Tracer player has been making plays and creating space for his team while the Valiant roster turns to decimate their opponents. Currently ranked #1 in the Overwatch League, LA Valiant have a long road ahead of them. They have overcome Dallas Fuel, inadvertently one of the top teams in the Overwatch League. But the subsequent weeks will see the Valiants being put to test as they face stronger teams in the form of NYXL, London Spitfire.

DreamKazper

When Boston Uprising announced their roster, a lot of eyebrows were raised. The Boston roster lacked the superstars seen in other rosters and was almost definitely considered to be an underdog. But when

the ‘President of Gaming’ Huks said he wanted to pick a roster which was ‘coachable’ it made a lot more sense. All of these players are extremely talented but have not been on teams which have done well in the past.

Dreamkazper comes into this team after being on the Tempo Storm in the past. Tempo Storm failed to achieve a lot of success during their time together, but Dreamkazper definitely stood out as a standout performer on the team. The player who has consistently ranked extremely high in the Overwatch Matchmaking ladder is an extremely versatile DPS player for Boston Uprising.

Their first match was against NYXL in a replica of a sports rivalry which has become legendary. Boston Uprising looked mediocre in that matchup, although we saw glimpses of a team that has improved tremendously since the preseason. Their next match saw them being placed against Florida Mayhem, a matchup which they won with comfortable ease. Dreamkazper player eight different heroes over the course of four maps. His versatility with the hero pool is what enables Boston to use different tactics efficiently. He is most well known for his Genji plays, but he has an equally high level of play on other heroes such as Widowmaker, Reaper, Hanzo as well as Soldier:76.

We will look forth to watching Boston’s performance in the upcoming weeks. If they keep the same level of performance, they might as well surprise quite a few teams.

Shaz

Shaz has made a name for himself as being one of the best Zenyatta players, if not the very best. It is rare to see support players being called out for exceptional plays on a regular basis. Overwatch is inclined towards showing flashy plays for DPS and maybe tank players. But with a supports role rarely showing up on the kill feed, it is quite common to see them being overlooked.

A zenyatta player who is feared for his right clicks is what aptly describes Shaz. The support player has been known to single-handedly win team fights due to getting kills just before the start of the team fight. His ability to stay alive throughout most of the fights is what sets him apart from his counterparts. He has the highest damage apart from Jjonak who leads the charts when it comes to damage done on Zenyatta.

Jjonak

The best Zenyatta player in the world currently has seen some insane statistics from Week 1 of Overwatch league. In what is definitely an alternate DPS for NYXL, Jjonak has been influential in his performance against their opponents. He is one of the few Zenyattas who can actually make a significant impact on the teams’ performance. While doing damage, he also has impeccable timing with his Transcendences to save his team.

Featuring almost 40000 damage done as a Zenyatta over the course of two matches is really insane. The NYXL team has seen several individual plays and Jjonak is definitely one of them.

Pine

The Ilios Specialist showed us why teams should learn to play around him. His Mcree on Ilios was exceptional and we saw multiple highlights around the players’ aim. Pine has been involved in the TF2 community before. Along with Fl0wer, he has been noticed for his exceptional hitscan plays.

Check out the following Clips which show the impact that Pine had on Ilios.

However, he was only played on two occasions, both of them being Ilios. That might prove to be a map specific performance from the NYXL player. He is the second player from NYXL to be featured in this series and it is not without reason. We did see his Widowmaker as well in an epic battle with his counterpart in Linkzr. He came out on top in most of these duels which set the pace for the rest of the map.

Effect

Effect is most well known for his Tracer but he has actually played a lot more of Widowmaker in Week 1. The DPS player for Dallas fuel, one of the stronger teams in Overwatch League has altered his playstyle and hero composition to suit the needs of the team. Effect’s tracer is lethal, but he requires an exceptional level of coordination amongst the tank players on the team. With several new players being brought into the organization, the team has been facing some problem with regards to their performance in Week 1.

Effect has been extremely on widowmaker constantly able to challenge the best in the world in Fleta. Ofcourse Seoul Dynasty’s team synergy and coordination resulted in them taking the win, but Effect’s shots were stuff highlights are made of.

Ryujehong

Ryujehong is known as the world’s best Ana and it is not without reason. The Seoul Dynasty captain has been known to be exceptional with his aim as well as doing a lot of damage as an Ana player. With Ana receiving buffs to her rifle damage, it is not surprising to see Seoul Dynasty using Ana with regularity in Week 1. His play saving his mercy from the Junkrat ultimate is the highlight of his play in Week 1.

His contribution to the team comes as much more than in the game. He is the team leader and they remain a roster with the best coordination in the league. The Seoul team has been the team to beat for quite some time in Overwatch and Ryujehong forms the core of the team.

He plays a lot Zenyatta right now due to the current meta being unfavorable for Ana players. His positioning on Zenyatta is always with an intention to help out his Mercy player in Tobi. The impact of Ryujehong on Seoul Dynasty is huge and his place in this list is due to his amazing skills as well as the impact on the team’s mentality.

Fleta

He is definitely the best player during the first week of Overwatch League. The DPS player for Seoul Dynasty is extremely versatile and has a big range of playable heroes. The Seoul Dynasty star has played fifteen heroes in the two matches during Week 1. With 141 kills over two maps, he had a big impact on Seoul Dynasty’s matches.

. @ow_fleta ‘s 38% Pharah rocket direct hit rate in 07:25 playtime on Numbani is the highest I’ve ever seen sustained. We’ve been considering anything over 20% to be good, and @Mangachu_ had around 25% in the world cup. Tl;dr kid popped off — Ben Trautman (@CaptainPlanetOW) January 11, 2018

His performance and his impact on the game can only be judged in the way the camera was constantly positioned on him for the majority of their matches. Fleta accounted for the most camera time on Seoul Dynasty. On certain maps as Numbani against NYXL, Fleta and Ryujehong accounted for more camera time than the entire NYXL team.

. @ow_fleta ‘s 38% Pharah rocket direct hit rate in 07:25 playtime on Numbani is the highest I’ve ever seen sustained. We’ve been considering anything over 20% to be good, and @Mangachu_ had around 25% in the world cup. Tl;dr kid popped off — Ben Trautman (@CaptainPlanetOW) January 11, 2018

For now, Fleta remains the best player in the Overwatch League. He will continue to hold that spot if he continues in his current performance.

Let us know what you think about the list of players in this article. Which players do you think should be added to this list? Let us know in comments below