Season four’s Overwatch League began this weekend with new players, some fantastic upsets and a perfect Reinhardt Earthshatter game winner, played by Houston Outlaws player Myung-heum “Jjanggu” Cho.
Two-time Overwatch League champions, the San Francisco Shock played no Houston Overlaws Overwatch roster on Sunday. Traditionally, this is a one-sided match. The last two games between these teams, San Francisco defeated Houston 3-0. But 2021 is a new year, and the new lists, new coaches and a returning veteran have made the Outlaws one of the most interesting teams of the new season. Yes, I’m serious.
Outlaws and Shock were tied 2-2 on Havana, the sixth and final map of the game (an early draw forced teams to play beyond the required five maps). Havana is a escort map that asks teams to push a payload as far as possible within the time limit. Before the map began, it seemed that the Shock was about to end one of their famous rounds. After going down 0-2 at the beginning of the match, they let go back to the score and, after Houston’s attack on Havana, it seemed that the Shock would have ended this match. To win, all they had to do was push the payload a little further than the Outlaws – an easy task, as their defense stopped Houston’s payload at 85 yards, or just before the first point on Havana. It’s a short distance – if Shock had won one or two decisive team fights, it would have been for Houston and he would have come close to finishing for Houston.
Then came the most perfect Earthshatter of God.
Jjanggu’s landshatter is the definition of perfection in terms of cunning, the number of players caught and the overall impact. Look at how Jjanggu slipped into position, sneaking around to flank the Shock, while their attention was focused exclusively on the rest of the outlaws. His timing was impeccable, as Outlaws’ budding colleagues and tank partner Min-jun “Piggy” Shin set off D.Va’s Self-Destruction at the same time, Jsanggu’s Earthshatter lands. Together, Earthshatter and Self-Destruct combined at the perfect time to incapacitate and then kill, destroying the chance of shock to victory. In an instant, everyone on the Shock died. The overtime wick has been turned off, and the Houston Outlaws have planted their flag as a team to follow in 2021.
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This is the kind of Earthshatter that gives me goosebumps. Of all the great pieces to watch in the competition Overwatch, is nothing more satisfying than a good Earthshatter. A long time ago, when the Overwatch League was still the Apex Tournament and everything was good and nothing was bad, Sang-hoon “Kaiser” Ryu, the main tank of the RunAway team, made a reputation for these broken wrecks.
Later, Vancouver Titan’s Sang-beom “Bumper” park (and Kaiser’s former RunAway teammate) brought his “side-by-side” signature to the League in all its devastating glory.
Now Jjanngu can take his place among such holy companions and add “Hammer Down!” to the culminating role of the gods.