After a month-long hiatus, the Pro-Chaser Association has made its triumphant return. Season 2 of the PCA features new players, new teams, and an expanded prize pool. The broadcast graphics are sleeker, and the official PCA Bilibili page now offers charming “team mic” videos reminiscent of Overwatch League’s Comms Check series. Both the tech company MSI and the mobile game Marvel Snap are sponsoring this tournament, meaning that the PCA somehow now has more sponsors than every OWCS region aside from Korea. It’s a bright new day for Chinese Overwatch!
…that’s what I would have written, at least, if I still had to introduce the Pro-Chaser Association during Week 1 of its Group Stage. That week, I was busy subtitling a documentary video for the Chinese Overwatch team Once Again (who, incidentally, are not participating in this tournament). Once I had emerged from the subtitling trenches, I found that Week 1 had come and gone in a flurry of 3-0 score lines. Fortunately, Week 2 gave us some closer matches, including two that went to five maps. It also heralded the return of reigning champion Team CC, who were unable to play in Week 1 due to offline obligations.
As an aside, I highly recommend that you watch the Once Again documentary if you have the chance. Creating the documentary was a true labor of love from everyone involved, and I’m honored to have been a part of it.
The Crying Cat Is a Good Thing, Actually
Perhaps the biggest team glow-up from Season 1 comes from Capere CAT. Formerly known as Team Capere, Capere CAT rebranded during the offseason to pay homage to Team Cat, a Chinese Contenders team from a bygone era. Capere tacked on a “CAT” to their team name and ditched their previous logo (“Capere” written in a bold font) in favor of Team Cat’s iconic crying cat logo.
Capere CAT’s changes aren’t merely cosmetic. With the addition of veteran players Lengsa, Molly, and Becky, all of whom played under coach NoHill on the Los Angeles Valiant in 2022, Capere CAT has transformed from a strong contender to an absolute juggernaut. The team has maintained a perfect map record throughout Weeks 1 and 2 of the Group Stage; even their match against Team XX, a team that consistently defeated them in the previous season, was a clean Capere CAT 3-0.
Next week, Capere CAT will finally face off against their two biggest rivals in this tournament, Raymomo Fishball and Team CC. Will the magic DPS duo of Becky and Apr1ta crush the upper echelon of PCA teams, or will victory elude Capere CAT the same way it did last season?
Raymomo Fishballin’
After a second-place finish last season, the popular streamer team Oldest Pro disbanded. Their main support player Mew (aka Xerneas/Yveltal) had been scooped up by Once Again, and Oldest Pro was unable to find a high-level main support to replace him. The dream of watching former Chengdu Hunters players goof around in scrims seemed to be well and truly dead — but then Raymomo Fishball, a team with several players from the Pacific region that had advanced to the Group Stage through Open Qualifiers, added three out of the four remaining Oldest Pro members to their roster.
(Kyo, the odd man out, could not join his former Oldest Pro teammates due to roster requirements; a team that advances through Open Qualifiers cannot sign an entirely new roster for the Group Stage. One of my friends joked that Oldest Pro’s roster shenanigans were all an elaborate ploy to kick Kyo off the team.)
As a team, Raymomo Fishball are not as dominant as Oldest Pro was during Season 1. Raymomo Fishball scrims less frequently, and they communicate in English for the sake of their star DPS player Sgy, formerly of 99 DIVINE, who is from Singapore. This language barrier sometimes leads to communication issues, especially since Jinmu has very poor English. Nevertheless, like Oldest Pro, Raymomo Fishball are definitely entertaining to watch. Just check out this Cassidy Deadeye flank from Jimmy.
Stats Corner
The official PCA Bilibili page shared some interesting statistics on support ult usage in Week 1. The inimitable WhiteClouddd (aka 白驴驴与绿驴驴与云), who put together these stats, was kind enough to share the templates with me so I could translate them into English.
These charts rank support players based on “teamfight efficiency,” which is calculated by dividing the eliminations a team earns in teamfights by the team’s number of deaths. A team that gets a lot of kills and suffers few losses — basically, a team that wins a lot of teamfights — would have a higher teamfight efficiency stat. By looking specifically at teamfights in which support players used their ultimates, you can measure and rank how impactful these support ultimates really were.
A more philosophical person might ask, “Can something as nebulous as ‘player impact’ really be measured quantitatively?” To which I would say, “Maybe not, but this sure is a neat attempt.”
Note that the rankings do not include any Team CC players, because Team CC was unable to compete during Week 1.
Two important takeaways from these stats: the world loves to run Brig and Juno together, and the data pool for double support ults is noticeably smaller. Overlaying your support ultimates usually isn’t a good sign, especially in the current meta. No wonder, then, that the double support ults ranking includes a duo that layered Orbital Ray with Transcendence and lost more teamfights than they won.
Three Stars
For our first Three Stars of the season, I wanted to highlight three notable DPS players from this past week, including two you’ve probably never heard of before.
Third Star: Bobo (Boys Help Boys)
Boys Help Boys ended Week 1 with three 0-3 losses, only to pick up their first map win in Week 2 against — of all teams — Team CC. Bobo’s Venture made a huge impact in that one map of New Junk City, allowing Boys Help Boys to control the tempo of the map and nab a 3-0 score in Flashpoint rounds.
Second Star: Pity (Young Blood)
This week, Young Blood successfully accomplished their unique mission of making both their matches as long as possible. After preventing a reverse sweep from Levi’s Squad, Young Blood played yet another five-map series against Raymomo Fishball. Although they didn’t win, this rookie team showed that they have what it takes to go toe-to-toe with Overwatch veterans. Hitscan player Pity was frequently in the killfeed during these matches, putting up highlight-reel plays on Sojourn, Ashe and Widowmaker.
First Star: Becky (Capere CAT)
Becky mafia, rejoice: your GOAT is back, and he doesn’t have to play with a 33-year-old Ana one-trick anymore. Instead, he and Apr1ta make a formidable DPS duo — possibly the strongest in the tournament. While Becky is largely known for his Echo, he’s achieved great results so far on Pharah and Venture. That perfect map record does not lie.
Thank you for the recap lionel