Juno Invasion - Pro-Chaser Association Playoffs Week 1 Recap

Team XX vs TOP began with an unexpected substitution. AAAA had been playing tank for TOP all tournament long, so it was only natural to assume that he would continue to play tank in TOP’s playoffs run. Then, at the beginning of the match, the broadcast’s roster graphic was suddenly updated. TOP’s tank player AAAA had been replaced by Yanglau, a substitute tank player who had spent the entire group stage on the bench.

The casters were surprised by this roster switch, but they learned soon afterward that it couldn’t be helped. AAAA lives in Hainan, an island province in China that was recently struck by Super Typhoon Yagi. He couldn’t play in his team’s first playoff match because the typhoon had caused a power outage.

Despite the unfortunate circumstances, TOP performed admirably. They even managed to overtake Team XX’s 100-meter lead on Runasapi, rallying back to win the map. The match ended in a 1-4 loss for TOP, but the team looked much improved compared to their performances in Week 1. Even with a last-minute substitution, TOP had taken a map and demonstrated a relatively solid grasp of the new meta.

Speaking of the new meta… 

Death, Taxes, and a New Playoffs Meta

The PCA abides by the same rulebook as OWCS Asia; as a result, the new hero Juno only became available to PCA teams this week for playoffs.

For a moment, I thought we could dodge the curse of the playoffs patch, which has plagued Overwatch esports tournaments for years. Like many people, I didn’t expect Juno to be good. Juno could put up big healing numbers, sure, but her utility seemed limited. I saw her as the sequel to the chronically non-meta support hero Lifeweaver. In my Week 2 PCA recap, I even wrote, and I quote: “In any case, it’s unlikely that Juno will make a significant impact on the PCA playoffs meta.”

Ha, ha, ha.

Soon after Juno became available for tournament play in OWCS Korea, teams quickly realized that Juno could further enable the already-strong D.Va. Juno’s Hyper Ring grants additional speed to D.Va’s Boosters, allowing for incredibly fast and aggressive dives. Currently, OWCS teams around the world have been running Juno comps at every opportunity.

The PCA is no different. Every PCA team this week played Juno for multiple maps. Juno was most frequently run with D.Va, but I also saw Juno alongside Ramattra and Junker Queen.

With a new playoffs meta comes growing pains. Notably, Team CC has been slow to adjust to the Juno meta, perhaps due to their lack of a coach. While they ran Juno on some maps in their match against Team XX, they often fell back on comps they played previously during the group stage. They even brought former Chengdu Hunters tank player GA9A into the lineup to play Winston for a dive comp that was meta back when the Overwatch League still existed: Ashe, Tracer, Winston, Ana, Brigitte.

Despite their meta struggles, Team CC won 4-2 against Team XX. The question of whether they’ll figure out Juno in time for their rematch against Oldest Pro remains up in the air. 

And Now, on a Less Serious Note

After Oldest Pro’s 4-2 victory against Team Capere, Oldest Pro players Jinmu, Kyo, and Lateyoung stayed behind to watch the Team CC vs Team XX match with their coach, Chen. During the resulting co-stream, the Oldest Pro players spent a significant amount of time roasting their friend and former Chengdu Hunters teammate Kaneki, who now plays DPS for Team CC.

Argon (Team XX) had a tremendous Mei performance on Circuit Royal, sometimes winning whole teamfights through a single well-placed Ice Wall. Kaneki was also playing Mei, but he charged his Blizzard ultimate much more slowly than Argon did, and he often had to hold his ults as Argon’s Blizzards ended teamfights in Team XX’s favor. At one point, Kaneki’s hard-earned ult was negated by PEPPI’s D.Va. Jinmu, Kyo, Lateyoung, and Chen watched as Kaneki got diffed by Argon over and over again.

“Jinmu is a real Kaneki hater,” Lateyoung said, as Jinmu continued to laugh at Kaneki’s misfortune.

Jinmu’s gamer tag is the Chinese localization of Kaneki Ken, a character in the anime Tokyo Ghoul. Kaneki entered the Overwatch League back in 2020 as the second Chinese pro player to be named after Kaneki Ken; now, Jinmu jokingly holds a grudge over Kaneki for stealing his name.

Finally, to add insult to injury, the broadcast displayed a truly devastating Argon vs Kaneki stat card. I get it, Kaneki. We’ve all been there.

Argon vs Kaneki as Mei on Circuit Royal.

Stats Corner

This week’s stat charts focus on first elimination rates among teams and players. Every PCA team secures the first pick in a teamfight roughly half the time, give or take around seven percent. The first elimination rate of these teams generally corresponds to their standing in the group stage, except for Intrepidus, which got the first pick a solid 50% of the time but failed to win a single match. 

First elimination rates, ranked by teams.

Ranking first elimination rates by players gives us a smorgasbord of DPS players, plus two tank players in LiGe and Lateyoung. Most of these players hail from teams in the upper half of the standings, though kudos must be given to Lilko from Intrepidus, who made it onto this list despite playing for a winless team that did not advance into the playoffs.

First Elimination Rate in Teamfights

Three Stars

Once again, it’s time to feature a few players who went above and beyond expectations this week. 

Third Star: Pineapple (Team CC)

Tracer can be a difficult hero to play right now, when highly evasive or anti-dive heroes like Juno, Brigitte, Pharah and Mei are so prevalent. Pineapple, however, makes it look easy. He put up a veritable highlight reel on Eichenwalde against Team XX. In fact, his exploits on Tracer actually did get assembled into a short highlight reel, and his performance was awarded the number one spot in an official video of the Top 5 PCA plays this week.

Second Star: D (Oldest Pro)

D, who formerly went by the names Yveltal and Xerneas, has been a massive boon to Oldest Pro during the new Juno meta. His Brigitte play was crucial to keeping his teammates alive through their aggressive dives. As a main support player mostly known for playing Mercy and Brig, D also demonstrated his flexibility with an unexpectedly good Ana. Watch as he saves his teammates twice by landing two predictive flick-shot sleep darts on D.Va. 

First Star: PEPPI (Team XX)

PEPPI, who played off-tank during the Overwatch 1 days, is clearly having a blast in the current D.Va-Juno meta. He frequently lights up the kill feed, flying into the enemy’s backline and eliminating squishy heroes like nobody’s business. PEPPI also showed off his great Junker Queen play against TOP, causing tournament organizer Chen to jokingly apologize for taking PEPPI away from competing in OWCS Japan. “It’s my fault, it’s my fault,” Chen said during his co-stream of Team XX vs TOP. “I took PEPPI from Japan and had him play in China.”

Honorable Mention: Insane (Team XX)  

Typically, Insane is a hitscan player, but he often switches off hitscan staples like Ashe to play his true signature hero, Venture. He plays Venture even on highly vertical maps where Venture is not usually played. He plays Venture even against team comps that are too mobile and too airborne to reliably damage with Burrow and Drill Dash. The Venture pick calls out to him like the Green Goblin mask. Insane is by far the best Venture player in the tournament and I would be remiss not to mention him.