Los Angeles Valiant Earn Stage Four OWL Crown Over New York Excelsior

Sydney Olmstead 7 years ago
Los Angeles Valiant
Los Angeles Valiant
Sydney Olmstead 7 years ago

The Overwatch League’s inaugural regular season has officially come to a close, with the Los Angeles Valiant taking down the New York Excelsior in the Stage Four title games.  Valiant stopped what would have been Excelsior’s third straight stage title.

Among the competitors for the Stage Four crown were Excelsior, Valiant, Los Angeles Gladiators and Dallas Fuel. The Gladiators were the top seed in the title games after their impressive 9-1 stage, while Dallas was coming off their best stage of the regular season.

These teams gave us some great Overwatch, with three close series. Gladiators and Fuel both took their semifinal matches to five full maps, but the two division winners ended up going to the finals.

This allowed Valiant to challenge Excelsior, who have been dominating the Overwatch League, for the Stage Four throne. New York had breezed through Stage Four with their No. 1 seed already locked up and their 33-6 record towered over LA’s 27-13 second-place mark.

But Valiant flipped the script on the OWL’s top dogs on Sunday night in a 3-1 series, proving that Excelsior can indeed be taken down.

Los Angeles Valiant

Los Angeles struck quickly, taking the lead in the series on Dorado after preventing New York from even capping the first checkpoint. Valiant also put up a strong defense on Hanamura and kept Excelsior from finishing the map, but New York full held their foes.

After halftime Valiant thrived on Oasis, taking University in a close round thanks to some solid performances from Brady “Agilities” Girardi on Pharah and then on Genji for City Center.

That meant New York needed a win on Blizzard World for a chance at victory, but Valiant held the first point with a perfect defense. In the second half, Los Angeles walked onto the point, landed a couple Roadhog hooks and kept Excelsior away in a short minute.

Los Angeles Valiant definitely proved themselves as one of the best Overwatch teams in the world on Sunday and it will be exciting to see them carry that level of competition into the season playoffs in July.

Los Angeles Valiant

With Stage Four playoffs complete, the season playoff teams are all locked in. Los Angeles Valiant, as Stage Four champions and Pacific Division champions have earned their spot in season playoffs. Atlantic Division champs New York Excelsior will also be moving on.

The four other teams going on to season playoffs are Boston Uprising, Los Angeles Gladiators, London Spitfire and Philadelphia Fusion.

The top two teams that come out of these six will go on to the Overwatch League grand finals on July 27 and 28 in Brooklyn, New York to compete for $1 million.