
London Spitfire are the Overwatch League Stage 1 champions, despite the odds being stacked against them.

Not only were they the lowest seed going into the playoffs after losses against the New York Excelsior and Houston Outlaws in week 5, but they also had to contend with being a British esports team, something which many organisations often fail to overcome.

Joking aside, Mail Esports caught up with Spitfire's head coach Beoum-jun 'Bishop' Lee to find out exactly how they did it.

London Spitfire's head coach Beoum-Jun 'Bishop' Lee helped the team win Stage 1 of the Overwatch League and $100,000

The team won it on Saturday night by beating Houston Outlaws and New York Excelsior, two teams they had previously lost to

'Stage 1 has definitely been quite the experience,' said Bishop. 'I think the team came a long way from the beginning when we had two rosters that hadn't worked together before.

'It was a struggle having them come together and play. In terms of that, I think our team grew the most out of any other team.'

London Spitfire's large 12 man roster is mostly comprised of the former players of two teams: GC Busan and Kongdoo Panthera.

Cloud9 brought both sets of players into the fold when the team was announced in November, and at the time it was unclear who from each team would be selected for the main roster, as both were very successful with excellent players.

As Stage 1 of the Overwatch League progressed, they quickly found the core six.

The team to start most matches was generally Profit, Birdring, Gesture, Fury, Bdosin, and NUS. There were substitutions to be made for certain situations though, and those decisions were made by the coaching staff: Bishop along with Chang-geun 'changgoon' Park and Jeong-min 'Jfeel' Kim.

The London Spitfire coaching staff has a lot of decisions to make because they have one of the biggest rosters in the league

'When it comes down to choosing what roster we're going to use on each map, it's based on scrims,' said Bishop. 'We have an abundance of players, so every week it's constant competition for who's going to be on the main roster.

'If it's a control map and there's going to be a lot of chaos and a lot of fighting, we're going to choose players that have a lot of game sense, that can adjust their style of play on the fly.

'If it's a payload map, we're going to be putting in players that are more comfortable with set plays. That has been the hardest part when it comes to roster substitutions.'

London Spitfire ended Stage 1 with a 7-3 record, having lost to Boston Uprising, New York Excelsior, and Houston Outlaws.

They lost to NYXL and the Outlaws in the final week, but they did pick up enough map wins against New York to keep their differential up and secure their ticket to the playoffs at the expense of Los Angeles Valiant and Seoul Dynasty.

London's opponents in the all important playoff matches would be the same New York and Houston teams that they had already lost to that week.

New York Excelsior were seen as 'the big boss' of the Overwatch League after a 9-1 record, but London got their revenge

New York punched a ticket straight to the final with an impressive 9-1 Stage 1 record, so London had to go the long way, through the Outlaws.

So how did Spitfire turn it around so quickly when the $100,000 first prize was on the line?

'I like to think we get stronger every time we lose,' said Bishop. 'Losing to teams once and having meetings on how we should play better against them really helps us.

'Houston was a prime example of how we changed up how we normally play. I don't think we had too much difficulty beating them.'

It definitely seemed as though throughout the course of the season, London were more comfortable and played better when running an anti-dive composition with Junkrat.

The Stage 1 playoffs on Saturday took place directly after the culmination of the regular season games. All of the playoff teams had played already that day, making for some pretty tired players by the end.

Spitfire played three matches, a total of 14 maps, more than anyone else, so it was surprising how well they managed to perform even towards the end of the day.

Even where the matches were taking place in Los Angeles, it was well after 10pm by the end. For London Spitfire fans watching from the UK, they had to stay up past 6am to see their team take home the prize.

Saturday was a long day for all the teams, but particularly for London Spitfire, who played three matches and 14 maps

While they were able to formulate a plan for Houston and other potential playoff teams beforehand, there wasn't a lot of time in between losing to New York once on Saturday and playing them again later in the final.

'We didn't have long to dismantle the strategy for New York,' said Bishop. 'I think the playoffs are going to be changed to Sundays from now on. I don't think a player or a coach should have to go through that again.

'The players were super exhausted, but they were still focused. I was surprised at how much stamina these guys had. They were well trained in Korea at tournaments like Apex.

'When coaching you make a point to have players giving their all for every game, whether it's the first match of the day or the last. That helps, having the players play at a constant level of skill throughout a long day.'

Beyond winning the first Stage, many will look to London Spitfire's 4-0 dismantling of Stage 1 favourites Seoul Dynasty as a highlight.

Bishop told Mail Esports about how they select players, how they prepare for different teams, and why Oasis is a bogey map

Following the win, there were articles about Bishop's 'master plan' for that match, with substitution sheets being filled out ahead of time. They used 11 of the 12 man roster in the four maps.

'The match versus Seoul was the result of us doing internal scrims,' Bishop told Mail Esports. 'We really focused on how to defend against the composition that they would come out with, and on making sure we were marking Fleta all the time.'

Fleta, Dynasty's star DPS player, is currently regarded by many as the best DPS player in the league, seemingly able to pull out top level performances on any hero.

'We just played every single map in internal scrims, swapping out DPS and supports. We just tried to make it a creative session with different people and different characters.

'A lot of the time rather than going through all three points of a map, we run through a single point and then onto the next one, and I think that helps a lot.'

Having a large roster is a big help when it comes to team practice. With 12 players, you have two full teams who can play against each other.

Each week, London Spitfire is able to make 2 teams from their 12 man roster and have them play in scrims against each other

'For Seoul we had the GC Busan roster versus Kongdoo in scrims, and a lot of the time Closer and HaGoPeun were playing very solid, so we decided to put them out in the game.'

Clearly a lot of preparation was put into the match against Seoul Dynasty, but is the same effort put in for all the teams?

'We have two matches a week, so we'll always prepare for the harder team to beat,' said Bishop. 'We'll focus on that team, and when we get time we'll focus on the other match. We naturally prepare a lot more for the harder teams.'

This perhaps explains the loss to Houston in week five, when they were coming up against the other top team in the league in the NYXL.

The fact that you have to prepare for two teams a week also could be part of the reason behind the Spitfire's surprise loss to Boston Uprising in week three.

'I'll admit that loss was a surprise,' said Bishop. 'Another problem was that I think it was one of the weeks when we had no map overlap.'

Preparing for two matches is one thing, but when the map pool is unkind and gives you seven or eight different maps to prepare for, things become a lot harder.

There's a lot of competition for spots in the main London Spitfire roster, and they'll be looking for success again in Stage 2

Speaking of maps, there was one in particular that London Spitfire really struggled with throughout Stage 1.

Bishop has some theories on why they can't seem to buy a win on the control map Oasis.

'Our problem on Oasis is that our Pharah play is currently weak. I don't know if it's a jinx or anything.

'There are so many viable compositions for the map. I actually think against New York we had a fairly strong grasp, and got to 99% first every time. Unfortunately there was a lot of pressure, they wouldn't crack, they didn't make any mistakes, and they outplayed us.

'Hopefully in the future now that we'll be playing on Nepal, Lijiang Tower etc., we'll be able to show a lot stronger presence.'

If London can sort out their woes on control maps, they'll be an even scarier team to come up against once Stage 2 rolls around.

Their first match of the next stage will be against a familiar foe: the Houston Outlaws. Tune in at 10pm GMT on February 22 and see if London Spitfire can replicate their success and carry on from where they left off in Stage 1.