Hello and welcome (back) to The OverSeer, the place where you can read a ton of stuff about the Overwatch League, including but not limited to roster reviews, match predictions, and power rankings. In my previous post, I shared my thoughts about the Florida Mayhem's 2020 roster , and in this one, I'll be talking about the Washington Justice.





ranked the Justice 15th in my end-of-season power rankings for 2019 , and this year, this team is starting off with a relatively smaller roster to try and make things work for them. Have they made good moves in the off-season thus far? Let's take a look at whom they've got on each role and find out.









TANK

The Justice's frontline is going to be comprised of ELLIVOTE, LullSiSH, and rOar.

Two out of these 3 players are main tanks, and I want to talk about rOar first. This guy played for the LA Gladiators last season, and he was an okay main tank. He had a few good moments, but all-in-all, he's not one to pop off or be a fearsome presence on the battlefield. In 2019, we saw him playing all 4 main tanks at some point or the other, but the only one I thought he was noticeably good on was Winston (thanks to the OWL Replay Viewer). Co-main tanking with him is LullSiSH, a Swedish player who was signed to the team last year but couldn't compete because of VISA issues. He has a pretty good track record in Contenders with the Angry Titans, and seems like a mechanically-skilled main tank to me. I also saw him playing Orisa at the 2019 World Cup, which he seemed quite comfortable on, and he's also had good runs during the Goats Meta, which would imply he can play at least a couple of main tanks from Reinhardt, Winston and Wrecking Ball well. I think he's a better main tank than rOar, so we should expect to see him being fielded most of the time in the season. That said though, there are a ton of better main tanks already in the League, so on a relative basis, I still don't think he's going to stand out among the competition.

Washington's sole off-tank is ELLIVOTE, who's good friends with and has been playing alongside LullSiSH for many years. ELLIVOTE has been on Angry Titans too, and has naturally had a good track record alongside LullSiSH. In addition to that, he's also played for Team Envy in recent times and has had a couple of great runs with them too. Based on my experience watching ELLIVOTE in the World Cup as well as on his stream, his Sigma is quite good, and the community seems to agree that he's a fantastic D.Va as well, and since I haven't watched him play a lot when D.Va was meta, I'm going to show faith in the community and take that in my stride. In the Overwatch League, ELLIVOTE's synergy with LullSiSH will be a great plus point for the Washington Justice, but ultimately, you've got to wonder how good this duo will be relative to the other tank duos in the League.

In conclusion, I'd say that the Justice, objectively speaking, have a good tank line, but since there are a ton of well-established, playmaking, earth-shattering tank players on many other teams in the League, I just don't think this particular trio will stand out to the crowd much. I'm hesitant to say they will be a bottom-5 tank line, but they're just not comparatively appealing to me since I know what the other teams' frontlines are likely to bring to the table. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how they perform, but for now, that's what I think.





DPS

Washington currently has the trio of Corey, Stratus, and TTuba as its DPS lineup.

Out of the three, Corey is the only hitscan player, and he's probably the best player on this team, just as he was last year. His Hanzo play is unparalleled, and combined with his amazing ability to pick off targets on Widowmaker, it makes him one of the best sniper players in the League. He's also a very deadly Reaper, so enemy backlines had better watch out for him if he's on the flank. A complete contrast to his assassin-like in-game self, Corey in real life is just a nice guy with a friendly attitude and a cheerfully positive outlook, which makes him not just a great teammate to have while playing, but also someone to draw inspiration from outside the game. I don't think anyone can argue with me when I say he's one of the best DPS players in the Overwatch League, and the Justice are very lucky to have him. Accompanying him as a flex DPS since the 2019 season is Stratus, who shares Corey's positive attitude and adds a touch of swag to the mix. He too, is a very good DPS player, and showed us some really smooth Mei play in Stage 4 of Season 2. He also boasts a wide hero pool full of projectile heroes and flankers, and should prove to be a great supplement to Corey once again in 2020.

The latest addition to the Justice's DPS line is TTuba, a Korean flex DPS player whose hero pool makes him look like a miniature Stratus. TTuba also plays projectile and flanker heroes, which makes me wonder why he's been signed, and that too for 2 seasons by this team. My guess is he's been brought in as a Genji specialist, since his main wave of success in Contenders was when it was a Genji Meta. Dive and Nanoblade were all too popular back then, and that's when TTuba seems to have shone and won accolades, so he'll probably be benched until we hit a Genji Meta once again. I may be totally wrong here, but I'm just speculating since I haven't seen TTuba play in Contenders and don't really know what his best heroes are (Liquipedia says Genji, Pharah, Doomfist). So yeah, this Korean flex DPS is a question mark for me, so to be fair, I'm going to assume he's an average player.

To sum things up, the Justice's DPS line is looking pretty solid. They've got the hitscan and sniper God Corey, a flexible damage dealer in Stratus, and presumably a flanker specialist in TTuba. I like it. Washington's damage line looks better than most others in the League at the moment, and that itself should help them climb up the rankings more than they did last year.





SUPPORT

The Justice's backline consists of ArK on main support and AimGod on flex support.

ArK joined Washington in Stage 2 (I think) last year, and he was a great addition to the team from both: the playing as well as the mentality perspective. He has always been a positive player, and that helped him gel with the Justice's PMA atmosphere, as well as act as a link between the Korean and the Western players due to his ability to speak both Korean and English. He is also a solid main support player, and had a great run with the NYXL in Season 1. Famous for his incredibly low death rates in-game, having him on the roster is a great move, and I think Washington are only going to benefit from that.

On flex support, the Justice have recruited AimGod, formerly of the Boston Uprising, and he is a truly amazing Zenyatta player in my experience. I didn't watch him play much in Season 1, but in the beginning of Season 2, before he started having friction with his teammates and got benched, I was really sold on his ability to focus down targets and just land more shots than a lot of other flex supports.

All-in-all, the Justice have got a very strong backline, and I could honestly see them being a Top 5 support duo if they play up to my expectations. This might be a controversial opinion, so I'm going to brace myself for critiques on it, but I truly believe in the value ArK and AimGod will bring to Washington's roster.





THE RAW LOOK VS. REALITY

After taking a look at the 8 players the Justice have got for 2020, I'm convinced they will do better than they did last year, and honestly speaking, it would be really hard not to. On paper, this roster has a relatively-below-average tank line, a very good DPS line, and an excellent support line, which leads me to believe they could make the Play-Ins if they play consistently enough, and I think that's their best-case scenario. I don't see them being a Top 8 team and fighting their way directly into the Playoffs under any circumstances, but the Play-Ins (#9-#12) are another story, and Top 12, like I said, seems achievable for Washington in 2020. If they face problems though, such as not adapting to different playstyles, or having attitude issues (they do have AimGod), they might stumble and not even make Top 12. I think a wise decision for them would be to have a backup flex support to mitigate some risk of having AimGod clash with his new teammates, and to also maybe add a Korean off-tank in case rOar needs to be fielded and would like someone who understands exactly what he's saying in-game to supplement him on the role. Lest I drift off-topic and things go out of hand, I'll just summarise this by saying that the Washington Justice are somewhere around the Play-In calibre, and whether or not they get into that single-elimination tournament depends on factors like the meta, team synergy, and player morale, so don't expect great things from this squad, but expect them to have a less disastrous season than they did in 2019.



