The Overwatch League 2020 season has officially begun.
With the first day of matches now done, teams head into day 2 hoping to secure victory in the first season where teams will be travelling worldwide to compete in matches, with the exception of China which has had their matches cancel in fears of spreading the Coronavirus.
The league began with one last introduction from former caster Chris Puckett who announced his departure from the league after moving to New York City in pursuit of other career ventures. Luckily, the first set of matches were held in the Hammerstein Ballroom is New York so Puckett swung by to introduce the first two teams that were going head to head: Paris Eternal and Toronto Defiant.
Defiant managed to grab the first victory over Eternal after a heated game, broadcasted to YouTube Gaming; the new home of the Overwatch League after a deal between Blizzard and Google. The move was met with criticism from fans, particularly those who found that their ‘lifetime Overwatch League Twitch ticket’ was now invalid. Others were upset over the lack of token earning. If you didn’t know already, fans could earn tokens for watching league matches and spend them on league skins in Overwatch but due to the lack of the Twitch drop system, this feature has now been removed. Blizzard have promised they will be looking for ways to implement rewards “in the future”.
The next match was against London Spitfire and hosts New York Excelsior, who managed to dominate over Spitfire after an unsuccessful first round. Hotba’s D.Va ults and Nenne’s Tracer/McCree plays were huge, winning Excelsior the round with a respectable 3-1.
The next set of matches took place in Dallas where LA Gladiators failed to secure a victory over Vancouver Titans. The city got revenge (from a different team that carries the Los Angeles name) courtesy of LA Valiant who secured a firm 3-1 victory over hosts Dallas Fuel.
Today, matches will again take place in both New York City and Dallas with London Spitfire hoping to win against Paris Eternal and Boston Uprising taking on hosts New York Excelsior. Later on in the day we’ll be seeing the LA Valiants taking on the Vancouver Titants, followed by 2019 champions San Francisco Shock taking on hosts Dallas Fuel.
You can catch every match live or on demand over at the official Overwatch League YouTube channel.