This article series will cover a very important example of two different approaches to interpreting Overwatch: an FPS where mechanical skill dominates and a MOBA where positioning, timing, and strategy lead to victory. Welcome to Part 2! If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.
LuxuryWatch Red characterize the MOBA approach, whereas Barcode is full of some Overwatch heavyweights like Mendokusaii and Clamp. This is a battle to see if mechanical skill can negate strategy or if brains can beat brawn in our beloved game.
The engagements are going to be analyzed to provide insight as to why a push succeeded or failed. This time we’ll be taking a look at King’s Row where LuxuryWatch Red attacks into Barcode’s defense. Youtube videos will be included for the reader's convenience at the start of each engagement discussed. Start and end times are provided as well so one may watch the indicated times and then read the analysis.
Team Compositions
LuxuryWatch Red
Barcode
LWR is sticking with a more traditional composition with the exception of a Winston instead of a Zarya, This is a team specific choice that makes sense, as AwesomeGuy and Nanohana make a deadly dive duo. AwesomeGuy’s skill on Winston also supports this pick. The Reinhardt on defense is absolutely crucial as there isn’t really any cover for the defense to use on first point King’s Row and still contest the point. The shield will allow Pine to safely take shots at the offense as well.
Barcode is going with a very interesting composition with the Hanzo. This composition is based on getting picks. The defense does not have a Mercy, so the offense’s strategy here should be to use picks to weaken the defense. Even if the offense loses a few heros, the Mercy res will bring them back in to secure kills on the remaining defense members. This composition works well if you take first point on the first push before the defense has a chance to build either support ultimate. It also has the surprise element to increase the chances of taking first push. A Roadhog pick could have provided significant danger to Winston’s dive ability, and with the Hanzo choice I think a Roadhog would have made more sense. If you’re going to rely on picks, you can’t do that much if the defense has a Reinhardt shield. You end up relying on the defense to make a positioning mistake that it punished by a Hanzo headshot. Without a Lucio, the offense doesn’t have a way to speed up and engage. Roadhog left clicks can pressure the Reinhardt shield to open up the defense for picks.
First Point
First Engagement: 10:55 - 11:21 [Defense Holds]
We see that AwesomeGuy and Nanohana have no fear. The moment the offense pushes out to behind the statue the Winston Genji combo goes in. Nanohana gets an early pick onto Slasher at 11:03. All of the defense is now pushing up. Aggression is absolutely key here as the offense was quite clearly caught off guard. LWR engaged before Barcode could, and that can really throw attacking teams off. The defense quickly attacking first leaves you little room to do anything in such a vulnerable area. This could be why teams have been favoring speed boosting through the path between the statue and hotel, thereby going straight for the point instead of trying to have a shield war from behind the statue. If the defense pushes up just like LWR has you’re in an unfavorably tight area.
Mendo’s Hanzo manages to take out the threat of AwesomeGuy at 11:06, but a combination of damage from Pine and Nanohana secure another pick onto Steel at 11:08. Barcode has already began to retreat but with the pick on AwesomeGuy the defense has to do the same. It is extremely important to understand that a 1:1 trade highly favors the attacking team. As of now, the attacking team is down two people to the defense’s one Winston. With both slow walking heroes respawning for the attacking team and a mobile Winston for the defense, things are even at the moment. Had LWR not backed off immediately and suffered another loss the offense would have a huge advantage.
Second Engagement: 11:21 - 11:45 [Defense Holds]
The offense doesn’t give the defense a chance to rest however, as they choose to begin pushing up without their other two team members. The defense backs up to the arch and lets the offense take presence on the point. It’s important to note that LegitRC now has resurrection. If the defense has any hope of taking down the offense, they have to delete the Mercy threat and then quickly finish the rest of the team to force the offense to regroup. As Nanohana is at 90% charge for his DragonBlade, the game is to finish charging that and rush in.
Nanohana does indeed open the engagement with DragonBlade. Two crucial picks happen immediately when the reengage from the defense occurs at 11:31. AwesomeGuy leaps in and Nanohana takes out Mendo. Pine takes out LegitRC immediately after. With Mendo’s Hanzo gone, scatter arrow instant-kill is off the table. The next threat is Clamp’s McCree which is the next to fall. Slasher has no chance of having transcendance up from falling early in the first fight, so he is the next to sate the dragon. Pine then lands the finishing shot on Steel.
Most of the offense had positioned themselves just right for Pine and Nanohana’s blade to take out targets in a pretty good order of threat level. While Nanohana was making sushi out of Barcode’s entire team, Wonderfuls has found himself on the point. I’m not really sure why Wonderfuls has come onto the point - his hammer swings could have put damage onto Nanohana or at least been a threat. At 11:36 you can see Nanohana’s health fall to 88 momentarily before some healing comes through. I can only assume that Wonderfuls continued to push forward while the rest of his team was decimated behind him. This could have come from a lack of communication from the rest of Barcode and/or a lack of awareness of the angry Japanese war cry. I am leaning heavily on a lack of communication because Wonderfuls uses his Earthshatter anyways at 11:38. I assume he knocks down Starkie from the health bars, but Beom isn’t affected since he has his shield up.
The unexcusable thing here is that Wonderfuls manages to kill LWR’s Lucio and Reinhardt. I can understand the need to follow up with Nanohana to ensure some kills, but with a McCree on LWR’s side it shouldn’t have happened. We can see that both Reinhardts are having a battle from 11:35 till their deaths. A few 360 degree McCree pot shots would have helped Beom win. With around 4 bars of health Wonderfuls manages to secure two kills. It definitely is not worth using the Earthshatter because his entire team died, and he only killed two people. However, those are two deaths LWR didn’t need to have. Pine’s positioning in the hotel I suppose was meant to pincer Barcode as they tried to retreat. However, if Pine had been with Starkie, Arcane, and Beom he could have landed most of his shots and also been able to save Beom. As he was in the hotel, he couldn’t help the supports and Reinhardt still on point. If Wonderfuls had managed to land a huge Earthshatter and kill all three it could have been a very different outcome with attacking spawn advantage.
Third Engagement: 12:00 - 12:25 [Defense Holds]
With two players down, LWR fully implements the concept of not getting picked. They’re backed up behind the archway to regroup. Once regrouped, they simply speed boost onto the point. Pine flashbangs over Wonderfuls' shield and a huge Earthshatter comes out at 12:08. It's key to note Pine’s positioning here. I don’t think Wonderfuls would have had a chance to tilt his shield up as Pine jumped right out from the side of hotel and immediately threw the flashbang. Mendo’s Dragon has been casted, but Beom side steps it and continues playing street sweeper with the rest of Barcode on the ground.
The reason that this works so well and Beom is able to play street sweeper is because Nanohana and AwesomeGuy have engaged Barcode’s backline of supports and McCree. The other 4 members of LWR clean up the Earthshattered enemies while the dive portion distracts and damages those that escaped the Earthshatter. Nanohana takes out Mendo at 12:11 as Beom charge pins Steel.
This is all good and well, but remember that LegitRC still has ultimate. Unfortunately, that’s the other power of LWR’s composition. The Genji - Winston dive pair has immense power of denying Mercy resurrections as they can quickly get to her and kill her while the rest of her team is being destroyed. Nanohana does indeed finish off Barcode’s Mercy at 12:14. Clamp’s heroics do need to be noted here as he takes out both Nanohana and AwesomeGuy before falling to Pine.
Fourth Engagement: 12:35 - 13:25 [Defense Falls]
Mendo switches off of the Hanzo to a Reaper at 12:28. We see that the offense has both support ultimates and a Deadeye. Graviton is somewhat close at 72%. The defense has primal rage and both support ultimates with Earthshatter being the next closest at 67%. The offense should try and charge graviton and fire that with Clamp’s deadeye. The time to charge the Graviton should be enough to break down Beom’s shield. Graviton would bait the transcendence but still get kills because of Deadeye being a hitscan instant kill. Any counter play from LWR could be negated by a resurrection. The key here will be for LegitRC to damage boost Clamp’s Deadeye then stay hidden. Legit has been picked off in almost every engagement and has had ultimate for a while.
LWR engages first as a charge from Beom finds Wonderfuls and Wonderfuls is the first to fall. Clamp is using Deadeye up above and is unable to flashbang Beom to save Wonderfuls. I question the use of the Deadeye up above. You sacrifice the safety of being behind your Reinhardt’s shield for some more LOS. Clamp is immediately deleted with a discord and finishing blow from Nanohana. Sound barrier is cast for LWR to move in and finish off the offense, but the res from LegitRC comes out along with the transcendence from slasher. I really don’t know what to think of these support ultimates. The resurrection was definitely used too early in my opinion. With sound barrier keeping LWR healthy, it would have been better to use the res on more than 2 people or at least after the sound barrier was gone. Transcendance is brought out as well. The timing of these support ultimates don’t make too much sense. With a resurrection available, it's better to have the opponent team invest ultimates to secure kills that you simply negate with a res. With what happens here, Mercy’s ultimate is used just like any other ultimate in a series of trades. Furthermore with transcendence up, the defending team is unlikely to use big ultimates until transcendence is over. This brings the danger of the resurrection window for the first players to fall timing out.
Pine chimes in and takes out Mendo’s Reaper at 12:59 - Mendo then switches to Tracer. Steel fires Graviton surge and something interesting happens. Starkie uses transcendence and one would think Beom would then get enough healing to survive. However, you can see from Beom’s health bar that it doesn’t seem to be going up while in the transcendence aura. Most likely, Barcode is dishing out more damage than the Zenyatta ultimate can heal. Beom falls to Steel. LWR still shows signs of life however with AwesomeGuy finishing out Clamp and the DragonBlade coming out from Nanohana at 13:07. Steel kills Pine and himself - perhaps from a close range grenade. AwesomeGuy and Nanohana also kill Slasher. Wonderfuls ends AwesomeGuy’s kill streak at 13:15 and the damage is done. The defense has been crippled with only Nanohana dancing around the point to stall for a bit longer. Once the rest of LWR has come back from spawn Nanohana immediately dashes away to regroup with them.
Final Engagement: 13:35 - 14:05
The defense chooses to go right back in on the point. Pine has switched to Tracer. There are several reasons why this makes sense. Where most teams may have chosen to simply let the point go, LWR chose to engage. The key here lies with ultimates. LWR is completely dried up. Defense has a much better chance holding pushes with an ultimate advantage. The fact that the first point has been lost is clear. There are two things that result from engaging the enemy once more. First, you have a chance of baiting or forcing out more ultimates from them. Second, you have a chance to put more charge on your own ultimates. Seeing as Barcode has Earthshatter and is really close with Deadeye, Resurrection, and Pulse Bomb this works nicely.
Earthshatter is cast from Wonderfuls at 13:39 and Beom is the first to fall. Mendo is able to charge his pulse bomb from killing Nanohana, and then immediately uses it. Pine manages to take out LegitRC on his Tracer and Starkie chimes in with a kill on Mendo’s Tracer. Slasher kills AwesomeGuy and saves the extremely low health Wonderfuls from falling. At 13:47 Clamp uses deadeye and fire it at 13:50 to secure a kill on Arcane’s Lucio. We see the camera shift to Pine who grabs a health pack before getting back onto the point just after it finishes capping out. Pine kills Slasher before falling to Mendo. This engagement was all kinds of wins for LWR. Every ultimate that Barcode had besides resurrection was blown to stop LWR’s engagement.
Streets Phase
First Engagement: 14:35 - 15:00 [Defense Holds]
For the first engagement of the Streets phase the defense will have primal rage and transcendence. DragonBlade should charge quickly during the engagement. The offense will have both support ultimates up for the engagement with Pulse Bomb and perhaps Earthshatter built up during the fight.
Immediately we see Mendo’s Tracer going for the flank play but Pine spots him out on the McCree. LWR continues moving forward to meet the 5 remaining players of Barcode. Previously, both Mendo and Clamp were pushing up. Since Mendo went for a flank, Clamp was caught alone and quickly killed by LWR. As the main force is now only 4 players strong LWR has a great opportunity to engage. At 14:45 Nanohana easily kills LegitRC’s Mercy who is in a corner potentially positioned to revive teammates during the engagement. Unfortunately, aggression has paid off for LWR and they’ve engaged Barcode far back enough to delete LegitRC. Barcode backs off behind the arch and LWR takes position by the bar at the second corner of streets phase. Note that Mendo is not flanking anymore and is by the elevated stairway engaging AwesomeGuy at 14:57.
Second Engagement: 15:10 - 15:45 [Defense Holds]
Graviton comes out at 15:16 and the Pulse Bomb begins to tick. Arcane saves his teammates in the Graviton with his sound barrier. As usual, AwesomeGuy and Nanohana have already dived the backline of Barcode. Clamp kills AwesomeGuy’s Winston as Nanohana draws DragonBlade. This forces out Slasher’s transcendence. Interestingly Starkie uses his transcendence as well. Notice that sound barrier is still up and active. Pine and Arcane are okay regarding their health, so I’m not sure why this was used so quickly. Waiting a couple seconds until sound barrier was fully dissipated would maximize utility out of both support ultimates. It would also give LWR an advantage to fight with transcendence still up after Barcode’s goes down.
At 15:24, Wonderfuls goes down to Beom. Wonderfuls does have Earthshatter and Slasher is using his transcendence. It’s not really okay that Zenyatta ultimate is up and one of your tanks dies unless they were debuffed or you were being fully out-damaged. From the camera angle I’m inclined to believe that Wonderfuls just wasn’t inside Zenyatta's ultimate. At 15:32 Beom falls from a flashbang over his shield and fan the hammer combo from Clamp. Its very difficult to prepare for that when the McCree uses cover to sneak up on you as Clamp did. Pine at 15:36 easily 3 shots Slasher’s Zenyatta right after Starkie finishes off Clamp. This flank from Pine is relatively safe as no one on Barcode can easily contest Pine on this ledge. It's direct access to Barcode’s backline and an easy kill on Zenyatta. Pine jumps off the ledge and throws a flashbang on the weakened Steel to take a few shots before he can grab the health pack. Pine manages to kill Steel at 15:43 just as Mendo kills Pine in return. With all of LWR seemingly dead, Mendo and the returned Wonderfuls are able to push the cart forward.
Third Engagement: 15:45 - 16:45 [Defense Stalls]
Mendo begins to crouch behind the cart to push it safely but notices its contested. When he stands up to see who it is a giant gorilla face and lightning meet his gaze. Mendo throws his Pulse Bomb towards AwesomeGuy immediately and blinks away from the payload. The Pulse Bomb does not connect however and AwesomeGuy tickles Wonderfuls with damage. Somehow through juking the Reinhardt hammer and jumping straight up when Mendo comes back to attack, AwesomeGuy remains incredibly healthy. This is due in part by Starkie in the back keeping a harmony orb on AwesomeGuy. AwesomeGuy continues to juke damage and use his abilities on cooldown to jump straight up in the air and block damage with his shield - all while contesting the payload. He buys enough time for the rest of LWR to rejoin the fight at 16:12. Pine immediately kills Mendo’s Tracer as Mendo tries to push in to LWR.
Wonderfuls whiffs an Earthshatter at 16:15. I believe he was trying to land it as Beom’s shield was slightly tilted in another direction, but this isn’t reliable and certainly isn’t worth blowing a major ultimate for. Unfortunately, AwesomeGuy jumps in with very little health and Clamp immediately shoots him down. I don’t think that AwesomeGuy needed to sacrifice his life and could have waited to heal up a bit more. I say this because LWR uses the classic Deadeye + Charge the enemy Reinhardt combination. The Deadeye secures two kills onto Clamp’s McCree and Wonderfuls’ Reinhardt. With 46 seconds to go, this forces out the resurrection from LegitRC. This is a huge mistake. Immediately after the resurrection, Beom finishes off Slasher. Nanohana kills LegitRC right after the resurrection goes off as well. This means that the revived heroes have no source of healing. We see transcendence come out from Starkie so LWR can easily finish off the revived members of Barcode. Mendokusaii goes straight for Pine after being revived and manages to take him out before Starkie can heal him with the transcendence aura. Mendo kills Starkie as soon as he exits the transcendence animation as well but both Clamp and Steel have fallen. Mendo and Wonderfuls manage to kill Nanohana, and Wonderfuls lands the finishing blow on Arcane’s lucio as well. He even charge pins Beom to finish him off as well before falling to AwesomeGuy. This is stellar play from Wonderfuls. He manages to finish off three members of LWR before falling himself.
Final Engagement: 16:45 - 17:20 [Defense Falls]
LegitRC is now on a Lucio. Unfortunately for Barcode, AwesomeGuy simply goes back into his ridiculously effective stall mode on the payload. He uses Primal Rage’s low cooldown on jumps to simply jump up and down and keep the cart contested. He also manages to stay alive, get a harmony orb, and then jump back in with Nanohana using DragonBlade. Meanwhile, Barcode has landed a Graviton + Pulse Bomb combination that takes out both Starkie and Arcane. While Pine does kill LegitRC’s Lucio, Mendo gets another kill onto Beom. AwesomeGuy and Nanohana finish off Slasher as Wonderfuls kills Nanohana. Pine kills Steel’s Zarya and Mendo responds by killing Pine. Clamp finishes off the big stall problem known as AwesomeGuy to allow Barcode to push the cart into the checkpoint. In a sense, this is no fault of LWR's. Barcode landed a beautiful Pulse Bomb and Graviton combination that resulted in the core team of LWR being destroyed. The dive portion of LWR was now facing a majority of the healthy Barcode team and did not have a chance at winning that engagement.
The key thing to note here is that AwesomeGuy has drained enough time from Barcode to make the match go into overtime before the second point is even capped. 1:30 is added to the clock when the second point is captured, but it is a tall order for Barcode. Barcode has to finish the map and not lose an engagement, or they will risk overtime coming into play again. We often see that when AwesomeGuy and Nanohana engage the enemy backline, Barcode destroys the remaining four members of LWR quickly enough to lose only 1-2 members to the LWR dive pair. After killing the rest of LWR, Barcode can assist their backline in killing off LWR’s divers.
Underground/Factory Phase
First Engagement: 17:40 - 18:31 [Defense Holds]
With a speed boost from Arcane, Beom lands a huge Earthshatter at 17:45. Slasher attempts to save his teammates with a transcendence but Beom secures a kill on to Clamp. Wonderfuls responds with his own huge Earthshatter at 17:52 and finishes both Starkie and Arcane. Steel kills Nanohana’s Genji and Wonderfuls again chimes in by finishing off Beom. AwesomeGuy, however, is continuing his skillful Primal Rage stall tactics. Once his team has begun to spawn in, he immediately leaps out to join them for another engagement. While many Winstons will simply contest to their last breath, it is important to note the value LWR places on staying alive.
AwesomeGuy and Nanohana immediately dive onto Steel’s Winston and finish him. A beautiful charge from Beom onto Wonderfuls allows Nanohana to finish Wonderfuls with long range shurikens. Beom immediately pivots and Earthshatters Slasher, LegitRC, and Clamp. Nanohana is then able to easily shuriken sweep the rest of Barcode to the respawn loading screen.
Second Engagement: 18:31 - 19:05 [Defense Holds]
Barcode only has sound barrier to work with against both of LWR's support ultimates and DragonBlade from Nanohana. It is apparent that they don’t have enough time on the clock or ultimates to win an engagement and reach the payload. The smart move for LWR is to sound barrier into DragonBlade and then use transcendence for heavy aggresion to secure quick, decisive clean up kills.
AwesomeGuy leaps in to the heart of Barcode as Steel leaps for the payload. LWR moves forward to help AwesomeGuy finish the members of Barcode. Arcane and Beom get the final blows onto Clamp and Wonderfuls respectfully. Sound barrier for LWR and Barcode both activate at 18:47. The difference is that Barcode has already lost two players and therefore their Lucio ultimate is late. Instead of using DragonBlade and diving onto the rest of Barcode, Nanohana instead makes the interesting choice to attack Steel’s Winston. With sound barrier protecting Nanohana this makes sense. Winston is a great counter to a DragonBlade equipped Genji. The idea should be to weaken Steel and then dash away or activate DragonBlade as soon as the sound barrier is gone. Furthermore, Nanohana shouldn’t use DragonBlade while sound barrier is still up for Barcode.
Beom and Arcane get the finishing blows on Slasher and Steel, and we then see them returning to the cart at 18:52. Nanohana now pulls DragonBlade to do quick clean up kills and ensure the cart cannot be stalled out by LegitRC’s Lucio or Mendo’s Tracer. Nanohana secures a kill onto LegitRC and Pine finishes off Mendo. The overtime ends with LWR winning the map. This shows key patience from Nanohana in holding out on using his ultimate.
Conclusion
This half of King's Row was once again a clear example of different approaches to the game. LuxuryWatch Red continued to stop offensive pushes with coordination and clean execution. Barcode would win a push off of key plays from one of their members. Notably, Mendokusaii had huge kill streaks to put the team on his back and help the payload gain ground. I believe that where King's Row is concerned it's easy to see that LWR's approach of playing things out meticulously is superior to relying on just mechanical skill. Their players play according to the utility of each hero. We see Nanohana and AwesomeGuy bring out the full potential of the Winston-Genji dive combination, and we see AwesomeGuy fully utilize Winston's ability to stall payloads. Positioning and knowing when to flank were key trademarks of LWR as well as they were able to support the plays each of their teammates made. When they lost pushes it was due to being out-played with mechanics or losing by a disadvantage. The ability to support teammates with their plays is crucial to a game like Overwatch. Barcode is stacked with talented players, however kill streaks from Mendo, great shots from Clamp, and Hammerhardt action from Wonderfuls can only help win engagements. It is strategy and coordination that allows a team to win the map. We often saw the killfeed littered with one or two members from Barcode gaining tons of the kill credit. For LWR, they would often have almost everyone chiming in - including Arcane's Lucio and Starkie's Zenyatta.
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