Overwatch League 2019 Stage 3, Week 4: Surefour's Top Plays, Prize Money

Stage 3, Week 4 started off in glorious fashion. A Nigerian martial artist punched a gigantic, electric gorilla into oncoming traffic during the tiebreaker map between the Chengdu Hunters and San Francisco Shock. And, as YangXiaoLong's Doomfist sent super's Winston into the nether, Week 4 of the Overwatch League's third stage sent various teams along the path toward this stage's $500,000 prize pool and the season playoff's $3.5 million pool.

Between Week 3 and now, Fissure, the Seoul Dynasty's eccentric main-tank and former member of the London Spitfire and Los Angeles Gladiators, announced his retirement. In an act of cosmic balance, the Toronto Defiant then added Mangachu and Logix, bringing two fan-favorite DPS to a league that just lost one of its most colorful characters.

With NBA champion Channing Frye in attendance, Week 4's slate of games was packed with blowouts, tiebreakers and some nasty Widowmaker highlights.

Thursday, June 27

Hangzhou Spark 3-2 Los Angeles Valiant

Paris Eternal 1-3 Seoul Dynasty

San Francisco Shock 2-3 Chengdu Hunters

Friday, June 28

London Spitfire 0-4 Los Angeles Valiant

Toronto Defiant 0-4 Los Angeles Gladiators

Houston Outlaws 3-0 Washington Justice

Saturday, June 29

Dallas Fuel 2-3 New York Excelsior

Boston Uprising 2-3 Philadelphia Fusion

Florida Mayhem 0-4 Hangzhou Spark

Shanghai Dragons 3-1 Guangzhou Charge

Sunday, June 30

Los Angeles Gladiators 0-4 Vancouver Titans

London Spitfire 0-4 San Francisco Shock

Houston Outlaws 3-1 Toronto Defiant

Chengdu Hunters 0-3 Seoul Dynasty

Full scores and standings available at the league's official site.

Thursday: Guxue and the GigaChad

Aside from the Eternal continuing to embrace mediocrity, Thursday was full of evenly matched bar-room brawls as the Spark and Hunters each eked out Map-5 wins over the reputable Valiant and Shock, respectively.

The first match saw the Spark's Guxue dominate as Winston in the 3-2 victory, to the extent that the Fuel's uNKOE had to succinctly chime in on Twitter: "Guxue is a god." Notably, the Spark also tried subbing out their flex-tank Ria for SASIN, who ran mostly Roadhog, leading to one of their two lost maps. Next, the Eternal casually succumbed to the Dynasty's B team, with Highly subbing in admirably for ryujehong.

Thursday's wildest match was between the Shock and Hunters, however, which says a lot considering the evenness of the Spark and Valiant slugfest. The Shock's main-tank super combo'd an insane Reinhardt shatter and charge with Choihyobin's D.Va bomb for a full team kill in the losing effort. Even the supports got in on the action, as Chengdu's Yveltal landed a smooth boop on Ilios for a clean, environmental 2K.

As we've come to expect, GigaChad ameng was "man of the match" with selective aggressiveness that destabilized the Shock all day. Earlier Map-5 loser, Valiant main-tank FCTFCTN had the following to say about ameng's performance: "ameng's rein gameplay this series made me feel less bad for losing. ty @amengowl for boosting my spirits."

Friday: Mangachu vs. Surefour

Friday's matches were much less even but still featured some great highlights and moments. The Valiant's 4-0 demolition of the Spitfire included not one, but two ludicrous IQ displays as KariV slept an invisible Profit and Bdosin shot an invisible Shax.

Despite those absurd reads, the game's greatest highlight was probably the nostalgic return of Genji as the Spitfire's BIRDRING unsheathed a slick nano-blade 3K to the delight of OG fans everywhere.

Infamous Torbjorn maestro Mangachu finally got his OWL debut in a start against the Gladiators, but the in-game disrespect came swiftly and mercilessly. Fellow Canadian Surefour got one of Mangachu's patented hammer kills as Torbjorn and tossed in some of what the casters call "tactical crouching" for good measure.

For icing on the cake, the Gladiators' Decay made mincemeat of the Defiant with a rare appearance on Widowmaker. The hitscan prodigy had seven elims and one death as the French sniper, with 50 percent scoped accuracy and a nutty flurry of shots to close out Dorado.

In a warmer moment, sleepy, the Justice's flex-support, took to Twitter to explain why he was able to cope with an 0-3 loss to the Outlaws and his former teammate Danteh: "i got a big danteh hug after so the match was worth it ggs cowboys."

Saturday: The Return of Mr. Good Aim

Saturday was marked by a return to competitiveness and the return of one of Overwatch's most notorious players ever: Taimou. After getting relegated to the bench for most of this and last season, Mr. Good Aim made his return to the big stage for the Fuel and nearly led them, as Sombra, to an upset win over the Excelsior.

The Eternal's main-tank, BenBest, was just as into the return as the rest of us. He concisely summated "Taimou is back" on Twitter.

Later, the Fusion beat the Uprising in another tight match—needing five maps to get the job done. The Spark, on the other hand, didn't need much time at all to finish off the Mayhem. In a 4-0 drubbing, Hangzhou welcomed the debuts of Florida's GARGOYLE and DPI by setting the record for fastest completion on Eichenwalde ever: four minutes, 12 seconds.

The Dragons ended Saturday with some quality dinks, as diem popped off on Widowmaker to close out the evening in a 3-1 victory over the Charge.

Sunday: Thank You Mr. Logix

Vancouver's trio of BUMPER, Haksal, and Stitch haven't lost on Numbani since December 2017. And Sunday was no exception. Vancouver even successfully threw out a quad-DPS comp in its 4-0 sweep of the Gladiators.

Oh, and flex-support Twilight landed a beautiful, midair sleep dart on Hydration's Pharah. Less beautifully, the Spitfire tried benching their superstar DPS Profit for Guard. Once again, they got swept—ending the week at 0-8.

Next, the Defiant started both of this week's additions, Logix and Mangachu, in a Bastion-filled loss against the Outlaws. Despite the loss, Logix leaned into the "Thank you Mr. Logix" memes by popping off heavily. The Belgian hitscan dynamo last played in the OWL in June 2018, before being relegated to the XL2 Academy and Montreal Rebellion in Contenders, but hasn't lost his touch. A smooth 4K on Widowmaker was the exclamation point on a great return in the losing effort.

The week's action ended with an eventful 3-0 match between the Dynasty and Hunters—so evenly contested at times that, with a 5-5 draw, the teams set the record for most points ever scored on Paris. Potentially bolstered by the playing time consistency for main-tank Marve1, Seoul pulled off the win.

Looking Forward: Playoff Locks and a Torbjorn 1v1

Now, the Valiant, Spark, Titans, Shock, Outlaws and Dynasty have all clinched their spots in the Stage 3 playoffs. Next week, in Atlanta, the final two teams will be decided. After that, we have Stage 4, its rumored 2-2-2 role lock and the last chance for teams to earn eligibility for the final season playoffs.

While Sombra-GOATS with Ana and multi-DPS flexibility seem to be the defining meta for this stage, the good folks over at Reddit have made sure we'll still get our Torbjorn fix. At next week's Atlanta Homestand, recently retired fan favorite dafran was scheduled to 1v1 OWL caster Bren on Widowmaker. Now, after Reddit mobilized and got a petition going, Blizzard has confirmed that Bren will 1v1 Reign DPS babybay instead and that dafran will have a Torbjorn, hammer-only 1v1 against the notorious, recent debutant Mangachu.

The Overwatch League's Senior Product Director, Jon Spector, expressed his excitement and support to the OWL's fans on Reddit: "You did it, Reddit. This should be pretty amazing—we're all really excited."