Chinese Overwatch fans are familiar with this story by now, but it bears repeating: in January 2023, Overwatch’s Chinese server went offline after a terminated licensing agreement, and China’s Overwatch esports scene has been floundering ever since. Dedicated Overwatch players — established Chinese pros and streamers, for example — could still use a VPN to access Overwatch’s Asia server, but the loss of the easily-accessible Chinese server hugely limited the development of new esports talent.
It was in this environment of competitive stagnation that Chen, a Chinese caster, decided to start the Pro-Chaser Association (PCA). “We haven’t had a Chinese server for almost two years now,” Chen said in between maps of Team Capere vs Intrepidus. “We haven’t had any official tournaments. The gap between us and pro players [from other regions] is steadily widening… A tournament like this gives teams an opportunity to improve their skills, and that’s a good thing.”
The Pro-Chaser Association is an online Chinese Overwatch tournament organized by Chen and sponsored by the tech company MSI. The “Pro-Chaser” name refers to the tournament’s ultimate goal: helping Chinese teams metaphorically “chase” after teams from other regions so they can close the skill gap. Eight teams are participating in the group stage: five were invited based on their results in previous tournaments like the Hammer Cup, while the other three teams fought their way through open qualifiers.
In this column, I’ll be looking back at the week’s PCA matches while hopefully offering bits of insight and analysis along the way.
Circuit Royal Reigns Supreme
Three of the nine matches played this week were 3-1 affairs, and in all three of those matches, the single dropped map was Circuit Royal. According to this infographic, PCA teams (including qualifiers) picked Circuit Royal more than 20% of the time.
But why the obsession with Circuit Royal, and why are so many winning teams losing there?
Circuit Royal is notable among Escort maps for its incredibly long sightlines. It’s the perfect map for a Sigma-Widowmaker poke composition; so perfect, in fact, that Sigma-Widow poke is played on Circuit even during metas that strongly favor dive or rush. Compared to dive and rush comps, Sigma-Widow poke is slower paced and arguably more straightforward. Team coordination becomes less important on a map so characterized by Widowmaker duels, where fights can be won through the sheer power of clicking heads.
Many of the teams participating in the Pro-Chaser Association were formed very recently. To these more inexperienced teams, Circuit Royal is the great equalizer, a place where they can let their individual skill shine. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good Exceed Glory is at focus fire and coordinating dives. When Taimouren pops off on Widow, they can still take a map off Team CC.
Soax: A Polar Bear in Arlington, Texas
When the PCA tournament rosters were first shared to social media, fans quickly noticed an unexpected name in Exceed Glory’s lineup. What was Soax, a German main support player, doing in a Chinese roster for a Chinese tournament?
I messaged Soax seeking an answer to this burning question. His Exceed Glory origin story turned out to be pretty straightforward. The other main support on Exceed Glory, DMS, asked him if he wanted to play in the tournament, and Soax ended up trialing for the team. “Apparently there are not many MS [main supports] in China so they went with me,” he wrote.
Soax has a history of region-hopping — he’s joked about collecting Overwatch esports regions like Infinity Stones — so, in a way, playing for a Chinese team was nothing new.
Because Soax is the only non-Chinese player on Exceed Glory, the team comms in a mix of Mandarin and basic English when he’s in the lineup. Simple comms like “Brig low,” “enemy team has Ana ult” and “push in” are said in English, while more complicated comms are in Chinese. The team provides a translator for Soax during vod reviews. I asked him if the language barrier affected the team’s coordination at all. Soax’s response: “not really.”
This week, Exceed Glory fell to two of the strongest teams in the tournament, Team CC and Oldest Pro. In Week 2, Soax and the rest of Exceed Glory will finally get to face off against teams that aren’t full of Overwatch League veterans: TOP, Intrepidus, and Team XX.
During those matches, Soax will be giving 2020 Paris Eternal-era Fielder a run for his money. Because the matches are hosted on the Korean server, Soax plays on 180 ping.
Stats Corner
After the first day of matches, Chen shared three infographics showing the pick rates of different heroes in PCA qualifiers. I translated (and inexpertly Photoshopped) these charts into English to give us an idea of how the meta has developed in China before the new patch.
Some stray thoughts and observations:
While Winston was the most-played tank in qualifiers, I’d wager that D.va was played more often than Winston during the group stage matches this week.
Every tank hero was played in qualifiers!
Of the DPS heroes, only Junkrat and Torbjörn were not played in qualifiers, though those heroes were later played with limited success on Lijiang Control Center by Jaya of Exceed Glory (who tried Torbjörn before swapping to Pharah) and Jinmu of Oldest Pro (who stuck on Junkrat even as his team lost the round).
Neither Mercy nor Lifeweaver were played in qualifiers, but they were both used very, very briefly by Oldest Pro to support Jimmy’s Widowmaker in the “Widow out of spawn” strat, in which a hitscan player tries for a lucky Widow snipe before returning to the spawn room and switching to a different hero.
Three Stars
Finally, I’ll be spotlighting three players who had excellent performances this week. These features will have a slight bias towards lesser-known players — although players like LiGe, Jinmu, and Kyo are great, I don’t want the list to be dominated by established veterans every week.
(As an aside, the “three stars” format was shamelessly taken from Grav Bag, a dearly beloved column by Emerald Gao that was hosted on the now-defunct Overwatch League website. Rest in peace, Grav Bag — and thanks for letting me steal your format, Em!)
Third Star: Wagyu (Team XX)
In a sea of 3-0 and 3-1 Overwatch, only one match went to five maps this week. Team XX vs TOP was a scrappy, chaotic affair, as XX narrowly prevented a reverse sweep. The final map, New Queen Street, came down to the wire. The teams had lost two players each in back-and-forth skirmishes before the overtime wick started burning, but main support player Wagyu secured victory in the 3v3 with a crucial Brigitte whip shot kill on KIVIS’s Kiriko.
Second Star: Apr1ta (Team Capere)
Apr1ta has gotten the short end of the stick for a long time. He came out of Chinese Contenders in 2022 as China’s most exciting rookie, and was signed to the Chengdu Hunters for a grand total of two months before the team began its budget era by releasing several players and staff. He later spent some time on the Guangzhou Charge, where he was outshone by Jimmy during a heavy hitscan meta.
On Team Capere, however, Apr1ta has reminded us that he’s still a menace on Tracer. Throughout Capere’s matches against Intrepidus and Mad Wind, Apr1ta put tremendous pressure on the enemy backline and was instrumental in finishing off low-health targets.
First Star: Taimouren (Exceed Glory)
Exceed Glory’s flawless record on Circuit Royal is in part thanks to hitscan player Taimouren and his incredible ability to click heads on Widow. (Taimouren’s gamertag means “Taimou person,” a homage to the Finnish Widow player of yesteryear.) At one point, Taimouren got a 4k against Team CC, causing Chen to immediately nominate him for a best-of-the-week PCA compilation. Taimouren is living proof that although Chinese players today lack some experience in tournament settings, there’s still no shortage of raw individual skill.
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