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Bruins Overwatch Clutch Victory from USC at PACG LAN

Vincent Tay
Apr 11, 2018
3 min read

UCLA were victorious against University of Southern California in their PACG rivalry match last Saturday. The Bruins forced a 5 map series tie breaker and won with a final score of 3-2.

Overwatch A Team played USC live at a LAN event on USC’s campus with a crowd of about 100 UCLA and USC fans. Members of the Los Angeles Gladiators, including Benjamin “BigGoose” Isohanni, João “Hydration” Telles, Luis “iRemiix” Figueroa, and head coach David “dpei” Pei, also were in the audience and showed their support for both teams.

“Coming into the match, I wasn’t sure what to expect as our PACG score record as well as individual skill ratings were close,” said UCLA Overwatch Team A captain, William “Tsang” Tsang. The Trojans proved to be a worthy opponent as almost every single map between the two teams went to tie breaker rounds.

The Bruins had a strong defense on the first map, Numbani, but USC finally broke it with coordinated dives and forced the teams to play a tiebreaker map on Ilios Ruins. Brad “raxa” Jiang’s trademark Widowmaker was able to corner the Trojans and create enough space for the rest of the team to win the tiebreaker convincingly.

USC’s DPS player, Immortal, proved to be a potent threat on multiple maps. USC was able to win the second map, Hanamura, on the back of Immortal’s stellar Soldier 76 play. With DingPai on Widowmaker, the duo gave USC control of Hanamura high ground and won the map.

The third map, Lijiang Tower, demonstrated that both teams were evenly matched on the three control points. UCLA and USC had no significant advantage on any point because they each kept stealing control back from one another. Alexander “sireku” Gonzalez’s Graviton Surges were matched simultaneously by USC’s Nemesis, giving no team a complete edge in team fights. The Trojans managed to take a second map against UCLA with both teams reaching 99% on the capture meter.

Jiang played more Tracer than usual during the rivalry match, though his star performances were on

Widowmaker, McCree and Hanzo. The Bruins put Jiang on Tracer to attempt to improve their dive execution, as they had been practicing the team composition in scrims. Tsang said, “I think it was a step in the right direction but with Brigitte being allowed in the playoffs and her being a counter to dive, we’ll have to adapt quickly. If all else fails, we will fall back on our comfort picks.”

UCLA followed this philosophy on map four, Route 66, which had wide unobstructed sightlines, perfect for

Jiang’s famed Widowmaker. However, USC displayed their incredible flexibility, running Sombra and Soldier 76 as their DPS duo and prevented UCLA from completing the third point.

On defense UCLA put Jiang on Bastion, a risky pick, but UCLA’s William “Tsang” Tsang on Mercy and Noah “AnotherDax” Malloy on Moira were able to output massive amounts of healing to keep Jiang alive and ultimately halt USC’s push before the first point.

“Brad (raxa) made the call to play a Bastion and Orisa composition when we didn’t cap 3 points on Route 66 defense. We hadn’t practice it at all in scrims but I think we were all desperate at that point,” said Tsang. “It paid off for us and USC failed to adapt quickly enough, allowing us to full hold them.”

With the score tied 2-2, the match would go to a fifth map on Ilios. Jiang’s Widowmaker once again dominated Ilios Ruins but Immortal responded with a phenomenal Doomfist performance on Ilios Lighthouse. Like Lijiang Tower, the map was brought a the third round on Ilios Well.

Faced with Immortal’s Soldier 76 again, the team decided to put Jiang on Hanzo so he could kill USC’s supports and drive the team back from the point. UCLA won after snatching the series win away from USC who had built 93% control on the last point.

The future looks bright for UCLA’s Overwatch squad with the meta shifting away from dive compositions. Tsang said going forward, “expect some Brigitte in the near future as I think the deathball meta suits our comfort picks better as compared to dive.”