So after each Overwatch League team has played 40 games in the regular season, we now move into the playoff stage starting tomorrow to crown the overall champion of the inaugural season. After weeks of downtime in between the final regular season game and tomorrow, we don’t blame you if you lost track of what’s happening, how the playoff stage is going to be played or even who are in it.

So without further ado, here’s a quick recap of it.

Who’s In It

Six teams will qualify for the Playoffs, based on their Regular Season records. The top seed from each Division will receive a first-round bye. The next four teams, regardless of Division, will also advance which leaves us with the following teams (seeds in brackets):

• New York Excelsior (1)
• Los Angeles Valiant (2)
• Boston Uprising (3)
• Los Angeles Gladiators (4)
• London Spitfire (5)
• Philadelphia Fusion (6)

The brackets for the playoffs are as follows:

Each series will be best of 3 matches, with each match being best-of-five maps. The first team to win two matches win the series. The first set of matches kicks off tomorrow with the Philadelphia Fusion taking on the Boston Uprising at 8am Malaysia time followed by London Spitfire vs Los Angeles Gladiators at 10am.

The full schedule for the quarter-final series are as follows:

Predictions

The quarter-finals matches – well actually, all of the playoff matches – are tough to call but if we were to pick the winners for each series, they would be:

Philadelphia over Boston in three (2-1). 

The Fusion are clicking well and have one of the most potent and versatile DPS combinations in the league. Carpe is our pick for league MVP and with a strong supporting cast including the likes of Eqo, Snillo, ShadowBurn and the recently unbanned SADO, the Fusion are the dark horses of the quarter finals.

While the Boston Uprising seem to have regained their footing following a weak start to Stage 4, they still appear vulnerable in several areas and are still very reliant on Gamsu and Striker’s clutch moves to win games.

“But Kenn, the Uprising finished higher in the league!”

Ah yes of course they did but that was thanks to their brilliant run in Stage 3 – a distant memory by now. The Boston Uprising is nowhere near that invincible team and we have a feeling that the Fusion being able to pull off the first upset of the Overwatch League playoffs by winning in two matches even.

Los Angeles Gladiator over London Spitfire in two (2-0)

That’s a bold one isn’t it? But look again at both teams’ recent form and you’d easily agree with me. The Gladiators have been on a roll and save for that disappointing loss to LA Valiant in the Stage 4 playoffs, they had one of the strongest finishes to the regular season with wins over the likes of Outlaws, NYXL, Spitfire and Dynasty.

Everyone’s clicking and popping off at the same time and we find it hard to see the Gladiators going out this early – moreover to the out-of-sorts Spitfire who are a far cry from the team that won Stage 1. Spitfire’s decision to trim down the team roster to only seven players haven’t pan out as expected and they ought to be booking their flights back to Korea for an early holiday.

That’s that for the quarter-finals preview. We’ll be back with more Overwatch League playoffs soon as we delve deeper into it. Til then, keep it locked on to Kakuchopurei.com!