The San Francisco Shock Sweep The Vancouver Titans To Win Overwatch League Grand Finals 2019

The Overwatch League Finals didn’t feel like they would be so one sided when both teams sat down to settle the championship on Sunday. The Vancouver Titans weren’t just the No. 1 overall seed, they were a dominant No. 1. They spent all year a class above the rest and even managed to survive a major meta change in the middle of the season that forced Vancouver to move away from the popular GOATS meta to a forced 2-2-2. Funny enough, their desire to stick to a meta may be what eventually cost them the finals.

The Shock came in no slouches themselves. This was a team that, when it got hot, could blow the doors off of anybody in the league. During the grand finals, they snagged the record for most map wins in a row while also holding second place at the same time. Both earned this season. The Shock were good, but were they as good as the most consistent team in the league? That was the storyline going into an exciting Grand Finals.

Then the Shock went in, brought out a Bastion, threw out a couple of shields, exploited Vancouver’s stubbornness to change too much, and really just walked all over Vancouver start to finish. Even when the Titans made mini-runs it never at any point felt like the Shock weren’t in control on every map. For example, the Titans might have had the best highlight of the entire series with this amazing quadruple meteor strike.

It’s a brilliant play really. Doomfist goes into the sky, Orisa pulls everybody in with the halt as he crashes down, easy money. Unfortunately for Vancouver, it couldn’t finish the map off well and lost 2-0. The entire series was defined by moments like this. Vancouver wins a team fight, makes an organized push, dominates for a brief moment, only to not adjust well and lose the overall goal. The biggest offense of this was Eichenwalde.

The Shock brought out something different. An attack Bastion on the first point with a Sigma and Orisa for shield coverage. While this Bastion torched through the Titans for the entirety of the Shock’s attack there was never a composition change beyond healers. Mei, Reaper, Orisa and Sigma is the current meta right now and it’s an effective one, but the Shock countered that with a Bastion to shred the shields. It worked.

Alright, that’s fine, the Titans came back in their own attack push and dominated pretty thoroughly with the same composition. The difference being the Shock did not run a Bastion on defense. When it came time to attack again, they brought the Bastion back out and even brought in Pharah-Mercy combo. The Titans never at any point brought out a hitscan to counter the Pharah. They just let her fly above them and shoot to her heart’s content. It was a slaughter.

As the series continued, the Shock continued to show more adjustments than Vancouver was willing to make. Right down to the final push on Watchpoint: Gibraltar. With the Titans attacking and desperately trying to force another round, at the final point, the Shock’s Bastion once again tore through the Titans. The composition Vancouver ran out? The same DPS and tanks from Eichenwalde. They couldn’t get the job done and the Shock left champions.

It’ll be interesting to see what this all means for the overall meta of the game. The Titans were great all season, but they just didn’t seem to know how to handle what the Shock were bringing. None of this talk of compositions is to take away from what San Francisco achieved. The Shock outplayed the Titans. That’s the bottom line and they deserved their title, but does their abundance of Bastion and Mei mean a new Bastion meta is coming? It feels likely. With the number of shields everybody is going up against at the moment it would make sense to see a hero like Bastion, that thrives with and against barriers, to get a lot more play.