Ninjas in Pyjamas defeat compLexity, but the story of the tournament is going to be the match's many game-breaking glitches.
DreamHack Winter, one of the world’s largest LAN gaming events, added Overwatch to their roster of tournaments this year. Four established teams – Ninjas in Pyjamas, fnatic, compLexity, and Misfits – came through qualifiers held weeks prior to the event. They were joined by four teams that emerged from a bring-your-own-computer tournament held at the event yesterday – LDLC, mousesports, PENTA, and UnWanted.
The marquee matchup for Group A was Ninjas in Pyjamas versus compLexity. Billed as the ‘Battle of the Roadhogs’, it pitted NiP’s hymzi and compLexity’s Harbleu - arguably the two best Roadhog players in the world - against each other.
The game was so nice that we got to see it twice (and then some). Both the first map, Eichenwalde, and the second map, Hollywood, had to be replayed due to server crashes. Eichenwalde needed a full reset. Hollywood crashed four times, often after significant amounts of time had been played. After the fourth crash, the reset and the day’s remaining matches were played off-stream. The cause is still being investigated, but it’s worth pointing out that a Mei Blizzard was in use every time the game crashed.
The whole series was, understandably, rather disjointed. CompLexity looked stronger and stronger after each reset, but NiP never seemed to lose control throughout the series. The Finnish ninjas took Eichenwalde by completing the map with time to spare, then holding coL to distance right before the final point. They completed Hollywood several times during their many, many attempts, including on the fourth run-through where they did so with 3:55 to spare in a savagely lopsided affair. NiP defeated compLexity off stream after the restart to finish out the series with a 2-0 win. This time NiP was able to complete the match only in overtime, but full-held compLexity at the first point.
Blizzard will have to be disappointed that technical troubles derailed the first LAN since the World Cup, where the company presented the game to potential investors in the forthcoming Overwatch League. It’s only been days since the newest patch was released, and this is already the third tournament to encounter issues with the patch. The OGN APEX had to ban Sombra during the quarterfinals due to an unrelated glitch, and the Alienware Monthly Melee EU was bracing for worst due to a third glitch involving Zenyatta, which ended up getting patched right before the tournament began.
Dreamhack will resume tomorrow at 11:00 AM CET/5:00 AM EST/2:00 AM PST. There’s plenty of group stage action left to play, headlined by a battle between Fnatic and misfits in the Group B upper bracket final. You can catch it all at twitch.tv/DreamHackOverwatch.
For more competitive Overwatch news, follow us @GosuOverwatch.
