Here's my thoughts on Week the Second:

I stuck with my watch three random games I approach I talked about during Week One. I watched Boston Uprising v. San Francisco Shock, Shanghai Dragons v. Florida Mayhem, and Philadelphia Fusion v. Los Angeles Gladiators. Overall my favorite match was probably Fusion v. Gladiators. I liked most of the matches I've seen so far, but Uprising v. Shock kind of dragged for me.

My biggest takeaway this week was how some teams stick with the some comps or metas. During the first week, I was pleasantly surprised seeing people pick different heroes and trying new strategies when something didn't work. With the second week, I saw a lot more games that consisted only of Mercy-Zenyatta-Tracer-D.Va-Winston-Widowmaker. It's also kind of a bummer when two identical teams face each other, but this isn't a new problem. Besides the sameness aspect, that comp also feels predictable with those ultimates. Mercy probably has the best ultimate in the game, but Winston, D.Va, and Widowmaker's are more situational. They can augment a battle, but they don't really turn the tide as much as a well timed Earthshatter, Rip Tire, or Barrage. It's fine, especially when the players play well, but some of those ults and heroes don't spice up the matches as much as I would like.

Moving forward, I will probably pick some games in advance and watch those, as opposed to picking games entirely at random. I think for Week 3 I'll watch Seoul Dynasty v. New York Excelsior, Los Angeles Gladiators v. Los Angeles Valiant, and San Francisco Shock v. London Spitfire.

Just a reminder that tonight at 7:00 PM. EST the 4th week of Stage one begins. Here's a link to the full schedule.

Holy shit Seoul actually got swept.

Also Dallas remains a frustrating team to watch because they could and should be so much better than they are right now, but they keep making a bunch of little mistakes that cost them entire rounds.

Really weird that the two final teams fought twice in final day with completely different results. I'm sure that weighed on New york a bit. Really excited to see a few new maps put in the rotation for Stage 2. Kings row is one for sure and I wanna say Hollywood (not too sure on the latter though). Stage 1 kept the pre nerf mercy and junkrat in play, so I could see there being some shifts to the support meta. Junkrat will probably get about as much play though.

There'll be some changes to the team rosters. I know Geguri (the female zarya player who was previously accused of cheating - she's just really good) will join Shanghai and one other tank main will as well. There had been talk about Sinatraa getting on the Spitfire roster once he turned 18. I'd have to check if that lines up with this next stage though. The gap between the Korean teams and everyone else has been getting smaller as of late. This being good news because it's not just a first to lose competition to either Seoul or New York.