In this series, I’ll be looking in-depth to the conditions, tactics, prior-influence, and individual tactics that affect — and ultimately decide — pivotal fights in Overwatch Contenders. In doing so, I hope to help the community better understand and appreciate the tactical and mental side of semi-professional Overwatch, a side that is often overlooked in favor of highlighting mechanical skill. In particular, I want to explore the steps taken by teams that are reflective of preparing for their opponents’ tendencies and strategic habits, to highlight and show appreciation for the coaches and analysts that dedicated so much of their time and energy to advancing the level of play in this wonderful game.

Episode 2: Countercomp Theory

Contenders Korea Season 3, Week 1 (Listed under week 3), Day 4, Match 2, Map 4. StormQuake vs GC Busan WAVE on Route 66.

I believe it is important to enter this map with some context, and some explanation of counter-comps and why the “true counter” to the GOATS composition will, if it is ever perfected, seem counter-intuitive or even bad to some viewers. Firstly, we have to understand the context of this match. Stormquake had been absolutely rolled up until this point, and prior to the match the casting team (Wolf and Achilios of Contenders Korea) are discussing how this match is shaping up to be another clean 4–0, especially considering that StormQuake has been heavily outmatched on the GOATS composition throughout the series by GCBW. On top of that, StormQuake is thought (as heard in pre-map discussion) to be a one-trick pony of sorts. Although other compositions had been seen to deal with GOATS on other maps (such as Pharah-centric attacks on Dorado, or the Sombra/Doomfist defense that had been seen on Hanamura), there seems to be doubt as to the ability of StormQuake to conjure up anything but an inferior attempt at GOATS in the quest to avoid a 4–0.

And then they leave spawn.

A Short Introduction into Countercomp Theory

Now, in order to understand the differing levels of a “counter-composition”, one must be able to think through what is meant by “countering” their opponent. Do you wish to create a compositional strategy that can be played the whole map, and even on multiple maps, or do you want something that is specifically useful on a given map point? Do you want something that snowballs, winning more and more fights, or are you just searching for something to hold your opponents off for just long enough? Is your composition able to re-establish after a lost or scrappy fight, or does it depend on always being entrenched in the same spot (as is typical of bastion bunker comps)? And finally, is your compositional choice dependent upon your opponent being unprepared or confused by your counter, or does the composition stand on its own merit, being able to properly handle an opponent who is prepared for it? All of these are important questions to ask, especially at the pro-level, when each team is likely spending significant time experimenting with counters to GOATS and likely planning with and against such strategies. In my mind, a counter-composition has three key aspects that make it effective and repeatable at the pro level.

1) The composition has a tactical plan for beating the composition that it is supposed to counter. This can be map dependent (as is key here), or it can be a general plan. In the case of Pharah-based compositions, there has to be a plan for how the reduced tank and support line can deal with the aggression of GOATS, and if the Pharah isn’t perfectly effective, how the non-GOATS team can win the ground war (or lose it slowly enough) in such a way that allows them to take or hold a point. There has to be a plan. You can’t be like ranked players and simply say “go bastion, we’ll shoot them and win.” You have to be prepared for both your opponent’s attempt at finding a win condition and their attempts to deny your own.

2) The composition must be enough of a counter to force a style-changing switch. That meaning, a true counter-composition must be effective and repeatable enough that it forces the opposing team off of their composition of choice (in this case GOATS), either to a counter-counter comp, or to something stylistically different enough that it represents a holistically different playstyle (e.g. switching from GOATS to dive GOATS doesn’t count as forcing a switch, but switching from GOATS to true dive does). The old school example of this is that Pharah-based compositions didn’t count as a “counter” to genji/tracer dive, as the dive team could simply switch a dps to widow to deal with the pharah without changing much of the rest of their playstyle. Even if the counter-comp is vulnerable to another playstyle, if it can achieve the purpose of forcing multiple switches then it is effective as a counter-composition. The counter-comp doesn’t necessarily have to be effective against the result of forced switches, but it doesn’t hurt. If a counter-composition ends up being effective against everything, then it becomes the new norm, as seen with GOATS.

3) The counter-composition must have a close or negative achievement difference to beat the comp it is supposed to counter. To put in better words, if a team’s skill, coordination, and tactical execution is rated on a 0–100 scale, a composition designed to counter GOATS must be able to consistently beat GOATS while being played at a similar or lower rating on that scale. If your “GOATS counter” needs to outperform your opponent by 30 points, then you need to be perfect in order to beat a GOATS team performing at 70% of the potential of the comp, and a team that is only 3/4 of the way to perfecting their playing of GOATS is going to beat your comp, making your comp not a true counter. Ideally, you can be a worse team but beat GOATS with a counter-comp, since the execution level needed to win the matchup is less on your end. These numbers are all theoretical and more for the purpose of attempting to explain a theory, rather than any concrete system for assigning scores to execution. There is always room for better play.

Map Locations

Before I begin to break down the beginning of the map, it is important to establish and understand some names of locations to better describe the defensive locations and offensive routes used by both teams on GC Busan WAVE’s point A attack. For this I’ll be using images made for sp0h’s map callouts posted by Captain Planet to overbuff. The important areas are below.

This section of the map will be referred to as “Start”

And this section will be known as “Around Gas” for my purposes.

Analyzing the Defense

Stormquake’s Point A attack is perhaps the best illustration of the strength of the 4dps comp against GOATS, if only because it highlights the value of controlling and shooting from multiple different high ground vantage points, as well as the brilliance of Orisa as “engagement bait.” Let’s start off by looking at the initial composition of StormQuake.

At first glance, this appears to almost be a joke. Solo support, solo tank, and you would think for a moment that you were spectating an incredibly well-casted quickplay match. However, that being said, five of the six characters that are present with this composition have some method of rapid escape from a GOATS composition, those being sprint (soldier), grappling hook (widow), wall climb/leap (hanzo), flight/concussion blast (pharah), and most importantly, mercy’s guardian angel. Although no individual (non-Orisa) member of the composition is capable of taking on GOATS singlehandedly, they all have some way of escaping the pressure of a blitz entirely, and in doing so, the ability of GOATS to aggress on a single target is virtually useless against much of the anti-GOATS composition. We can see this throughout both the attack and the defense of the first point, as the GOATS fail to gain any traction when it comes to eliminating the members of the defense consistently. However, if this comp is designed to handle GOATS, it surely won’t be prepared for the Genji that GCBW leaves spawn with, right?

The headshot right as the doors open tell us that this composition is, in fact, prepared to deal with Genji. As I discussed in my analysis on Gibraltar, a key aspect of Genji’s kit is the dash, but in order for him to properly deal with snipers, he needs to have either the map geometry to get close while avoiding sniper fire, or he needs to have a team composition that is capable of pressuring the snipers in order to allow him to get close. In my opinion, Genji has some of the least compatibility with a GOATS composition of any of the damage heroes in the game.

The next area of the composition that must be discussed is the Orisa, who is often pointed to as a false answer to GOATS in almost all situations. Orisa, who is used to establish defensive hardpoint positions, is very limited in her ability to deal with the tank blitz of GOATS once her position is overrun, and without extremely beneficial map geometry (such as on Horizon) she lacks the ability to set up a position that is both difficult to reach and difficult to avoid for an attacking lineup. So, why is she used on the ground here, in what is possibly the worst possible situation for her? It is my assertion that she is bait.

This is the best shot of the initial setup of StormQuake that I could find in the VOD.

Kaiser sits far forward with this composition, directly on the payload, almost baiting the attack to come after him. Surrounding him are a variety of heroes capable of both sustained poke and incredible burst, any two of whom can place 240 damage into a target at a moment’s notice. Combine with that the sustained poke, the composition has the capability to eliminate a weakened tank, or a support, on a single callout, and the variety of angles they’re shooting from makes it extremely difficult for the tank line to fully protect everyone at all times. An added benefit of the myriad of positions taken by the attackers is that it is very difficult to attack one of them with the full might of your team without telegraphing to the whole defense what you’re doing, and thus giving your target a chance to reposition and their teammates a chance to line up their shots. The DPS are able to quickly escape pressure if need be, and the support (Mercy) can easily fly to an uncontested sniper or the Phara in order to keep herself safe. The soldier, as well, can use his jack-of-all-trades toolkit to sustain his own attacks, and without being an optimal target for the defense to go after, he remains a constant threat to the defense. In theory, GCBW could go after a single sniper with their mobile tankline, but even that has a low chance of success and opens up their support line to be hit from multiple angles by damage from the 4dps of SQ. As such, the attacking team goes after the obvious target of the Orisa, and they get slaughtered in the process.

In the first true fight of the map, GCBW goes after Kaiser, and although they get him, there is simply too much damage coming in to be mitigated by both their healing, and the defensive utility of the tanks. Within seconds after the fight has begun, GCBW have lost their zenyatta and brigitte, and even as their winston angles after the next target (the widow taking pot shots), the dva flees in an attempt to save her dying mech. There is simply too much damage coming in to last long, and although the offense has rolled over the Orisa, in doing so they placed themselves in a predictable position and fed over ult charge to the defense.

The teams midway though the first fight. Proper would earn and use a barrage before this fight ended.

The offense falls apart despite (or perhaps because of) their accomplishment of a very linear objective, which in turn exposed them to an extreme level of incoming damage that almost no amount of healing could hope to mitigate. Meanwhile, all the members of SQ except Kaiser remain at full health even with a single healer, testament to the ability of the players to kite and avoid full-scale pressure from a GOATS composition. The confusion of GCBW at the end of the fight (when they get burned down by Proper) is evidence of the chaotic strength of the multitude of attack angles that StormQuake has.

The next fight is much of the same, but here we see another benefit of so many dps players against GOATS: solo frag ultimates. Whereas GOATS operates on a very strict schedule of ultimate usage, where each ult has a response from the opposing team and the interplay is understood, if not constantly calculated, the 4dps composition builds ults quickly and has no rules about using them. If you see the chance to get a kill, do it. Both the first fight usage of barrage and the second fight usage of Dragonstrike are evident of the willingness to spend easily-earned DPS ultimates to disrupt and hobble the collaborative synergy that is key to making GOATS work. Lastro avoids a dive from the opposing winston up and across “ramp”, and throws his dragonstrike in the general area of the cart, where he knows there will be opposing players. Even if he hadn’t gotten kills, the disruption and splitting from such an ultimate would have made it absurdly easy for his teammates to identify a vulnerable member and blow them up with an enormous amount of burst damage. This ult is also helped by the fact that SQ’s widowmaker has infrasight up from the huge amount damage they are able to do to a GOATS composition. A key aspect of this fight is that it was fought four versus six for much of the playtime, since the Orisa and Soldier for StormQuake had died in the previous fight. Because the 4dps composition is less dependent upon shared synergies when compared to GOATS or Dive, it is able to find success even when missing members. After some cleanup, we are now on the third fight of the map with essentially no effective advancement of the payload. Following that, Ion (the main tank for GCBW) is blown up almost immediately after showing his face to the defense. He switches to Rein in a poor attempt at finding a solution to the obscene amount of damage hitting his team. Then he switches back to Winston as one of his teammates finally, mercifully, realizes that there is next to zero value gained from having a Zarya that can’t get in range to shoot anything, no matter how high her energy is. There is 2:05 left on the clock when GCBW make their first true exodus from spawn with this composition and add a widowmaker. Halfway to a full hold for StormQuake, a team that has shown throughout the day that they are worse at GOATS than GC Busan WAVE, despite StormQuake as a team being built to have GOATS as their best composition.

In order to not mince words, let us put it this way: StormQuake is objectively the worse team, and they are stomping.

Look at the ultimate charge for SQ, and remember that they’ve used Barrage and Dragonstrike once each

The tide only begins to turn when GC Busan commits fully to a switch to dive composition. Having the ability to more concisely chase down targets and negate the mobility of the dps heroes allows the dive composition and playstyle to challenge and ultimately overcome the strong kiting abilities of the 4dps composition. That being said, simply switching compositions is not a surefire way for GC Busan to overcome StormQuake’s defense. A specific target order and strong space control are needed to take the first point and ultimately force the switch out of StormQuake. That switch, which should have been executed fully with the widowmaker, was not completed until after the loss of yet another fight. It is in these situations that the relative lack of discipline is visible from even the top Overwatch teams. They force sub-optimal compositions even beyond the point where said compositions are viable, to the detriment of their overall time bank. Part of that is GCB not being entirely sure how to deal with the 4dps, and part of it is most certainly their belief that GOATS beats everything, all the time.

The next fight is a scrappy one, but importantly just having the widowmaker around allows GCB to create and control far more space than they had previously. Although GC Busan is able to secure multiple kills, their lack of mobility overall still hurts their ability to win the fight. Crucially, most of their offensive value comes off of flanks and individual playmaking rather than the deathball group attacks that are favored by GOATS. It is perhaps this realization that prompts the switch to classic dive, which at this point just involves switching the brigitte for a genji and committing fully to the dive playstyle of utilizing mobility to chase down targets.

The strength of dive (both as a composition and a playstyle) against 4dps is immediately apparent, when GCB uses a multiple-angle engage backed up by a lucio sound barrier to overwhelm the defense. Even though individual targets can still kite to some degree, the increased mobility and freedom of the dive composition allows them to pressure, and ultimately kill, multiple targets simultaneously, and switch targets if they stop getting value. This is particularly apparent with the death of Lastro, as he is pressured out of his position by a Winston, and successfully kites to win that individual battle. However, GCB now has a Genji who is able to acquire the target and finish off his fellow Shimada. A couple of movement-enabled follow up kills and GCB have finally broken through the defense, or at least, the first segment of it.

Here you can see the Genji mid-jump after dashing through the SQ players on the payload.

As a consequence of the lost fight, StormQuake switches to Tracer, which I call a “mid-switch”, or a hero chosen before a full compositional swap in order to stall long enough to get full value out of their currently gained ultimates and possibly win another defensive fight. Tracer, despite virtually disappearing from the metagame in recent months, is still very strong against compositions without Brigitte, and as we see in other matches on 66 (Fusion Uni v Mayhem Academy for starters) her ability to stall out a point and clutch wins is not to be underestimated. Here, she replaces the Hanzo, who, while being very good against GOATS compositions, is far less valuable against traditional dive.

GC Busan take an easy fight, and they seem to be off to the races in terms of winning the map. This is a point at which StormQuake display a lack of discipline that would be rectified in their other matches later in the season, as they should have switched to a GOATS composition the moment that they lose the recontest fight at the end of point A. This is where they make a mistake that Overwatch players have made since the beginning of time; overvaluing their ultimates. As good as ultimates are in this game, they are far less valuable than having the ideal (or even a functional) composition to counter your opponent. Point B, despite the tremendous amount of high ground, is very favored to GOATS, and it is only when that switch comes through that Stormquake are able to stabilize and hold.

The Rest of the Map and Switch Momentum (Defense)

Even though they lose the fight and point B very quickly, it is important to note that StormQuake take a massive lead in the ultimate charge for the inevitable GOATS v GOATS battles that define Route 66 point C. Having a lead allows you to ration your ults to win fights decisively and maintain a lead in the ultimates that you don’t use by winning the fights and generating charge off of the cleanup and healing back to full post-fight. This is often seen on Control Point maps as the major factor in why the first take team wins with all compositions, but in GOATS it is extremely important to the point of being the clearest indicator of long-term success between two teams. You want to have your ults up first, and that is where the brilliance of 4dps comes into play. Even when, not if, when you lose a fight and either lose your defense or stop your snowball, you will have lost that fight to dive, which allows you to switch to GOATS (or in this case scuffed GOATS with a soldier), and subsequently win a decisive fight that gives you massive ult charge. Even if you lose the first fight, your opponent would be smart to switch to GOATS to match you in order to guarantee their own long-term success, and they’ll be a massive amount behind in generating ult tempo. Let’s take a look at the two teams following the last recontest fight on point B and the first fight of C, a pair of fights that StormQuake lost.

Keep in mind, Kaiser had already built and used his first shatter.

Even though they have a trance, they were on the Zenyatta before. They are far behind.

The soldier is an interesting pick, but I think that his value came mostly from his ability to quickly re-enter the fights and help stabilize them, as well as his ability to remain out of reach for most of GC Busan’s composition. I could talk about the value of dps substitutes for either zarya or d.va in pseudo-GOATS compositions, but I think that conversation is best had in the context of the Element Mystic Doomfist composition we see them use later in the season. For now, all that needs to be noted is that Soldier 76 is able to put down great damage into clustered enemies while remaining relatively independent in terms of healing, which allows the supports to focus their efforts on the reinhardt and zarya, which in turn gives those heroes more survivability against an opposing GOATS comp that is forced to focus almost all of their attention on killing the two mentioned tanks. The following fights are a GOATS v GOATS slugfest in which Kaiser puts on masterclass in finding good shatter angles and Amy show his worth as an excellent peel Lucio in protecting Faze when it is needed. StormQuake hold before C, and we move on to StormQuake’s attack.

Analyzing the Attack

Many of the same things that can be said about their defense also apply to StormQuake’s attack. The 4dps composition is slippery, mobile, and does a massive amount of damage to any target that they decide needs to die. One thing that I would like to note is the difference in body language between the two teams. While GC Busan is relaxed, they also show a level of confusion, as if they’re not worried (they had already won the series), but are still unnerved by the strategies they had just faced. StormQuake, on the other side, are nervous at first, but there is a moment where they seem to relax and smile, as if they had just communicated that their strategy had worked, and they were going to do it again and win the map. It is at this moment that I believe StormQuake realized that they were a good team that was only going to get better as the season went on, to the point where I think that if the two teams played today StormQuake would win the series. Moving on…

The first fight is the clearest indicator of the strength of the composition on offense. I’ve gone back and forth as to if the comp is stronger attacking or defending, but it can’t be overstated just how much space the composition buys just coming out of spawn, purely because the defense doesn’t know how or more importantly where, to fight it. In Overwatch, the biggest strength of any strategy is the ability to control where fights take place in order to get the most advantage out of your heroes, and against 4dps, everywhere that GOATS could choose to take a fight is a bad idea, short of a point hidden in a corner with a ten foot ceiling, which only exists in a couple of maps in the game. Here, GC Busan choose to fight inside of “Gas”, which gets them a couple of kills but is ultimately just target practice for the Pharah and Hanzo of StormQuake. With the unwillingness of GC Busan to engage in the open onto the cart, Kaiser switches to Hammond both to re-enter the fight quickly, and also to issue an ultimatum: if you won’t take the fight to me, I’ll take the fight to you. After a chaotic and scrappy fight, the Gas defensive position is broken and the cart continues rolling forward.

For their recontest, GC Busan go back onto the dive composition that won them point A on offense, and swiftly dislodges StormQuake, holding point A and preventing the undefeated take. Again, we see Lastro switch off of the Hanzo onto Tracer for a better matchup against dive, and we also see Kaiser switch back onto Orisa. Orisa in this case has the best matchup against dive of any solo tank, as she forces the enemy to engage on a set position through her excellent shield uptime, and fortify lengthens the time to kill to the point where her allies can eliminate or at least heavily damage the divers. In the subsequent, hugely chaotic fight, we see the value of having multiple highly-independent damage sources like tracer and soldier, as GC Busan are swiftly cleaned up and StormQuake take point A with little resistance. Although dive is an excellent answer to break a 4dps defense, it is far less effective at stopping the offense of such a composition.

Athough StormQuake are able to get halfway through B with their composition (and the obscene pressure generated by Lastro’s tracer), eventually they do fall to GC Busan’s dive defense in another chaotic, scrappy fight that is more a product of individual skill and target calling than any set strategy or tactic. But again, the pure pressure of a 4dps offense is tough to hold off, and in a replay of point A, StormQuake blitz their way through GC Busan through sheer dps power and frag potential. Lastro is again the key, chasing down weak targets and finishing off GC Busan players who find themselves stranded far from their healers in an attempt to chase down enemy players.

Here we see the final piece in the offensive plan, in that StormQuake, after two decisive takes with 4dps, switch to GOATS immediately after capturing point B. They even switch Faze off of soldier and onto D.va, Again, StormQuake turn a pair of fights (one of them a loss, essentially an eco-push) into a huge ult advantage going into the GOATS-favored point C. By the time GC Busan cleanly lose a fight and switch to a pseudo-GOATS composition themselves, StormQuake have a massive ult advantage and snowball their way to a map victory. GC Busan also make the same mistake I mentioned earlier, in that they value the Genji blade paired with nanoboost above the sustain from switching to a full GOATS composition.The blade gets virtually no value, and GC Busan are outsustained and rolled. Despite being the better team overall throughout the day. StormQuake is able to capitalize on their weaknesses and take a map that would prove important to SQ’s playoff positioning at the end of the season, but arguably even more important to their mental attitude following what would otherwise have been a clean 4–0.

Moral of the story: the GOATS meta is a rock-paper-scissors meta where people don’t want to accept that paper beats rock, because they’re too scared of losing to scissors. In more concrete terms, if you dismiss an anti-GOATS composition as a meme because it loses to dive, you’re not looking for a countercomp. You’re trying to find the new always-pick meta composition, and in the continually evolution of Overwatch such a composition is going to get harder and harder to find.