Blank’s undefeated streak has finally come to an end, dropping matches to AHQ and Flash Wolves in week 5. The tournament and its 100k first place prize now looks like it can be taken home by any of the top 3. By the end of this week the Pacific Championship will have reached its halfway point, with two rounds being completed. Machi and Hong Kong Attitude will need to secure multiple upsets if they wish to turn things around and steal one of the three playoff spots available, although at this point that looks highly unlikely.

Fighting for Seeding:

1. Blank Esports 10W-2L:

Blank join the rest of the competition after a rough week, losing to their Taiwanese rivals in consecutive matches. Similar issues to Flash Wolves in week 5 have begun to become evident. To facilitate their dive compositions last week Trill moved from the tank role to projectile DPS, mainly Genji, with Aetar and ieatuup on Soldier 76 and Tracer respectively. This moves Kiki to the main-tank position on Winston. Unfortunately this lineup does not feature Aetar on Genji, the hero he has looked most impactful with in previous weeks. AHQ and Flash Wolves have adapted to this aggressive play-style with smarter play from their tanks when being dived and more aggressive tracer play from DizZy and BaconJack.

On the other hand Blank’s 2/2/2 compositions (with a Winston and D.va as tanks) also looked less reliable, missing the game changing Genji play from either Aetar or Trill. Blank also experimented with moving Aetar to Pharah, instead of Trill, on control maps and the first point of Numbani. This was fairly effective against AHQ on Illios but otherwise failed to bring the team much success. Reinheart was noticeably absent from Blank’s week 5 lineups. If they continue to struggle with three DPS dive the team could move Trill back to Reinheart and try run the lineup that brought them success early on in the tournament.

Hybrid maps are an identifiable weakness for the team in their current state, on top of their already know deficiencies on Assault. Blank were full held on King’s Row twice and Numbani once in their matches against AHQ and Flash Wolves. Their defense was also lackluster, with awkward positioning costing the team opportunities to hold against pushes.

Blank has two easy matches against the Japanese teams this week before they face AHQ again. Their contest against AHQ will be one of the most interesting bouts of the week, be sure to pay close attention to the line-ups Blank runs against the team that broke their winning streak.

2. AHQ Esports 10W-2L:

AHQ will have an opportunity to take the number one spot this week in their match-up against Blank. While tempting to move them to the top of the rankings this week, it makes sense to wait until their rematch with the Aussies to show whether Blank had a bad week or if they really have dropped below AHQ’s level. Nevertheless, AHQ’s success should be congratulated, after earning wins against Blank and Machi in week five. The most noticeable change in AHQ’s play has been from their tanks EricEn and LazyTitan. Their protection of the teams supports and DPS players has been key in providing the space for Dizzy and c0wman to thrive in.

Personally, c0wman is my MVP of the tournament so far. His ability to provide impact play across a wide range of heroes, such as Tracer, Genji and Roadhog, has been key to AHQ’s recent success. This allows DizZy to stay on the role he is most comfortable with and showcase his own star play. The flexibility that c0wman provides has helped AHQ ‘s hero pool look to be the most stable in the tournament, after their initial struggles in the opening weeks of play.

3. Flash Wolves 9W-3L:

The Wolves bounced back from their previous troubles in a big way in week 6, impressing with a clean sweep of Blank Esports. Flash Wolves took advantage of Blank’s weakness on Assault maps and King’s Row, but most impressively were able to pull out a 3–1 victory against Blank on Nepal. The teams hero pool issues still haven’t gone away, with their lack of a star Genji player remaining a weakness. Their 2/2/2 however might be the best in the league, helping to nullify the teams lack of flexibility.

Baconjack was perhaps the most important factor in their week 5 dominance of Blank. Teams had previously looked to have no answer for ieatuup’s aggressive play-style on tracer, consistently dropping players early in fights to the Australian DPS star. Baconjack took it upon himself to match this aggressiveness and was surprisingly able to provide more for his team than his Aussie rival. When Baconjack is at his best Flash Wolves are able to focus on protecting Zonda on his trademark Soldier 76, allowing him to translate his star power into tangible results in-game.

Flash Wolves should earn two wins this week, with matches against Hong Kong Attitude and SunSister. The team may use these two matches to experiment with their lineups, as to patch the hero pool issue that still remains.

Running out of Time:

4. Machi Esports 6W-7L:

Machi had an impressive 3–1 victory against HKA last week, the other team hoping to steal a playoff spot, but were unable to challenge Blank or AHQ. The teams slow start in the Pacific Championship has placed them in an unfortunate position in the win/loss column and will prevent them from taking the third seed bar a miracle. However, M17 can still have an impact on the higher ranked teams and will gain confidence going into other tournaments (or possibly Season 2 of the Pacific Championship) with victories over the rest of the competition. The team’s play indicates that they may be one star DPS player away from being able to compete with top-tier teams in their region, with the struggling Rai moving to the bench earlier in the tournament.

Machi should take two victories this week without dropping more than a map or two, as they face the lowly FireBall twice.

5. Hong Kong Attitude 7W-5L:

Hong Kong Attitude may boast a better win/loss record than Machi but they certainly don’t have much momentum behind them at this point in the tournament. The team faces Flash Wolves, AHQ and Blank in the next two weeks of play and does not look to be in good enough form to pull out an upset victory. Losing their match to Machi has hamstrung their playoff push, widening the distance between HKA and Flash Wolves. Multiple upset victories will be needed to challenge the top 3 teams and HKA just doesn’t look ready to take on this challenge.

Plummeting:

6. FireBall 5W-7L:

FireBall nearly lost to SunSister last week, pulling out a reverse sweep against the win-less team. Dropping three maps to the Japanese teams across two matches was uninspiring, despite the two wins. Flash Wolves manhandled the Thai team in a 3–0 loss, despite the Wolves experimenting with their weak three DPS lineups during the walloping. With only one victory outside of the Japanese teams and time running out in the competition, FireBall are all but eliminated from the playoffs.

Two matches against Machi Esports will be FireBall’s best chance at a victory this week but don’t expect much from the struggling squad.

Practically Eliminated:

7. DeToNator.GOLD 1W-11L:

DeToNator claimed a small victory in their single map victory against FireBall last week, their first against a non-Japanese team. However, the story remains the same as DeToNator remain outclassed.

8. SunSister 0W-11L:

XQ lead SunSister to a 2–0 lead over FireBall last week before the team collapsed. I’d pick SunSister to win when the Japanese teams face off in this weeks play but don’t expect high-tier Overwatch to be showcased when they play.

Week 6 kicks off today and will be broadcast in English on FullCircle, a schedule for the tournament can be found here.

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