It still seems like an impossibly long stretch of time until Overwatch League Season 2 arrives as teams are slowly beginning to announce their official lineups. In the meantime, Overwatch Contenders Korea Season 3 kicked off this past week, featuring familiar organizations with new lineups and, of course, GOATS. Xander Torres and Emily Rand break down Week 1.

Emily: I don’t know about you, Xander, but after two months of League of Legends all day, every day, I’m glad to be back to watching more than one esport. I love LoL, but I really missed Overwatch, especially the aggressive tank play of some of these South Korean Contenders teams.

Xander: Indeed, things get a bit stuffy covering a single esport for a month or two at a time. I’m glad you love tank play because that’s all we’ll be getting from Overwatch until further notice. Some fans might actually go as far to call the meta boring or “braindead,” but so far teams have actually done a pretty good job about putting their own spin on things to keep the opposition on their toes. There’s a lot of nuance to the tank and support play we’re seeing right now in Contenders.

Emily: Yeah, unlike what I’ve seen in China — the other region I primarily watched this past week — where teams seem to gravitate towards certain comfort picks and styles, South Korea is firmly on the GOATS train for better or for worse. The “better” is that I’d agree we’re seeing a lot of nuance in tank play and positioning. Of course, the player who drew my attention the most was Kim “Mag” Tae-sung on the new RunAway lineup. Mag had some, let’s just say overly-aggressive engages ahead of his team at times, which is why I loved watching him so much. I know people drag on GOATS for being boring, but watching Mag smash his way through Geekstar in the opening series was anything but. He’s channeling his time from LYB and bringing it to a new Runaway squad that has . . . a lot in common with old RunAway. How do they do it? Maybe it’s the Flowervin pep talks?

Xander: Flowervin pep talks are bound to energize any team or player, she’s the queen of Korean Overwatch after all. Mag is one of several players in Contenders Korea proving that the meta doesn’t always have to be slow and I’ll love him for that forever. Anyway, I’m firmly on the RunAway hype train after the team’s dismantling of Geekstar, but we still do have to remember that their opposition wasn’t the strongest. Half of Geekstar actually came over from Pacific team EXL-Esports, who were hardly a heavy hitter. Still, I’ve been effectively romanced by a RunAway team that knows how to push their advantage and win with a bit of style. They even have some Pacific representatives in Lee “LeeJaeGon” Jae-gon and Lee “Schwi” Dong-jae, I can’t help but love them. It was a strong opening week and I can’t wait to see more against a tougher opponent like O2 Ardeont or MVP Space.

Emily: How could you not be romanced by this hold on Numbani Point A, which was basically a two-minute teamfight? Anyway, let’s talk about GOATS a bit more, since it’s definitely earned the reputation of being “boring” and I know you disagree. Who, in your opinion, has pulled out some interesting positioning and fights with these GOATS compositions?

Xander: RunAway tanks perfectly ducked in and out to keep that fight going, it really was incredible. Micro decisions like that are usually what define GOATS, but there’s a lot of rotation-based decisions that really make the difference as well. In general, I think Kongdoo had really key rotations, baiting Gen.G to go one way while surprising them from the other side. It was a big reason why they were able to pull off the upset. They weren’t the better team, but they won the little fights that mattered. In terms of a specific approach or moment, I have to shoutout Contenders Pacific and Hong Kong Attitude for this Gladiators-esque rotation against GE Pantheon. GOATS is all about the mind games and every team has a different color, whether it’s StormQuake’s brick wall, Element Mystic’s continuous spartan assault, or GC Busan Wave’s ground control. Of course, individual players and their playstyles also really come into play. Who were your “players of the week” as Contenders got started in Asia?

Emily: I already talked a bit about Mag, and I know you have a specific player from Meta Athena in mind. For Contenders Korea series from this week, people should definitely go back and watch the Stormquake and Element Mystic match. As for players, I’d like to highlight Son “Ritz” Dong-Hoon for GC Busan Wave. I know people probably think of Kim “Edison” Tae-hoon when they think of this GC Busan Wave team, but I thought Ritz played really well in their match against Meta Athena this week. Again, these GOATS compositions so frequently rely on tank and flex/tank play and Ritz’s D.Va was fantastic. What about you?

Xander: Ritz was the epitome of obnoxious this week. As D.Va, he was the fly that Meta Athena just couldn’t swat away. He had a lot of creative uses of his vertical mobility that really pressured Meta’s tankline. Though, as great as he was, I really need to shine a light on my man Seo “Named” Won-jung who played a wonderfully balanced Lucio. He had plenty of big plays on stream, whether it was booping the opposition into Choi “Hoon” Jae-Hoon’s Self-Destructs or making this incredible backcap to force overtime on Dorado.

More than those plays though, Named was always on top of peeling for his Zarya or Reinhardt and won several fights in this manner as well. He has a mind for the quirky plays, but his baseline play is very much up to par as well so far. Meta Athena were slammed 4-0, but he single handedly made the match all the more compelling. I’ve effectively been converted into a Lucio main and my competitive teammates can blame Named later. Enough about Named and the glory of his Lucio though… I didn’t catch too much China this week, what is there to look out for?

Emily: I still need to catch up on a few of the series, but LGD Gaming versus Flag Gaming was definitely the match of the week in my eyes. Flag Gaming support Tong “Coldest” Xiaodong is at it again on his Zenyatta. A few people picked Flag as one of the teams to watch to see if they would improve going into this season, especially with the addition of Wu “MG” Dongjian who people may know of from the Shanghai Dragons or LGD. Speaking of tank lines, the Flag combination of Den “Over” Sifan and MG was really fun to watch. I hope Flag continues to start them regularly.

Xander: We stan survivors of the 0-40 Shanghai Dragons no matter where they go. Hopefully MG and Flag can keep it up for the rest of Contenders China. Overwatch League has four Chinese teams now and these guys are going to have to work hard if they want to play in the Overwatch League (for Hangzhou Spark).

The Overwatch League is still months away with Opening Day set on February 14th, 2019, also known as Valentines Day. It feels like ages away, but you can continue to fill your hearts here with conversations about Overwatch’s exciting Tier 2 scene and the rising talent it promises for the future.