The May Melee Finals represent one of the most interesting strategical clashes in recent Overwatch history. Never before have we had such drastically differing views on what heroes make up the meta. The game state right now is really quite fluid with nearly any style of composition having some form of viability. The question then is if the meta isn’t fixed then is there another way for us to understand how teams might play this weekend?
Maps! Heck Yeah!
Maps are one of the constants in this tournament cycle as we have a fixed map pool that teams have played on throughout the May Melee Qualifiers.
Since the meta is open it then becomes the map metas that are important. Take Watchpoint Gibraltar and Havana for example.
If we take this into account then maybe the secret to understanding this meta is through what compositions are getting run on what maps and how that meshes with a teams individual style.What’s even more interesting is now that we are into the Finals of the May Melee, each game will now be based around losers map pick meaning that after a team looses a map they can decide what map they want to play next.
So let’s take a look at the 4 teams competing this weekend and try to understand what types of compositions they like to play and what maps they might try to target this weekend.
Dallas Fuel:
What do they play?
When you have Eui-Seok “Fearless” Lee as your Main Tank you play Winston. The Fuel deserve a tremendous amount of credit for finding a play style that works for them after losing hitscan specialist Ki-hyo “Xzi” Jung. To put this into context, every team except for Dallas have one of Ashe or McCree at a playrate that is above 20%. League wide the play rate for McCree is the second most out of any Damage hero. Neither of those heroes appear here. Dallas are fully committed to a style of play that revolves around enabling Fearless and dive style compositions. They do have some compositions which revolve around Reinhardt but it’s unclear how confident they feel on those compositions or how heavily they will look to commit to maps where they can play them.
What does their record on specific maps look like?
So how strong are they on their favoured compositions?
Winston Comps are what they love. So what maps suit them best in this map pool?
Fearless has a well known history on Watchpoint Gibraltar. His performances there for the Dragons and for the Fuel so far should rightly give the Fuel confidence if they decide to go to this map. What’s more is that taking other teams to Gibraltar will mean that they’ll in all likelihood be forced into a Winston mirror because……
Winston is the only tank that gets played on Gibraltar. Apart from Watchpoint Gibraltar the Fuel might look towards other maps that heavily favour Winston based compositions such as Volskaya Industries & Ilios. The real question for the Fuel is going to come on Hybrid maps such as Kings Row and Eichenwalde where Reinhardt based compositions are the more dominant ones. Blizzard World is still available to them but that map has been split between a variety of compositions.
Blizzard World is a bit difficult to get a read on due to the variety but the Fuel might feel encouraged by their 2–0 record and the general success that Winston based comps have enjoyed on Blizzard World so far.
Florida Mayhem:
What Do They Play:
Say hello to the only “honest” team left in the competition. Screw your Hamster and Monkey compositions. The Mayhem are here to showcase some good ole fashioned Reinhardt gameplay. In all seriousness the Mayhem have maybe shown some of the best all round play when it comes from jumping from composition to composition. Not being terrible on any single composition really speaks to how well the Mayhem coaches have worked and how good Main Tank Min-seok “OGE” Son is on all of the Main Tank heroes.
What does their record on specific maps look like?
So how strong are they on certain compositions?
The Mayhem seem like an all round solid team, so what should be their strategy when it comes to picking maps?
Reinhardt Reinhardt Reinhardt. The Mayhem’s strength on Reinhardt compositions is definitely something that they should exploit especially if other teams in the competition are less inclined towards them. Kings Row and Eichenwalde are two that immediately spring to mind.
Alongside these two maps the Mayhem can lean heavily on multiple Control maps which favour Reinhardt heavy compositions like Lijiang Tower, Nepal and Oasis. Having that kind of strength on Control maps could be invaluable. Not only can it allow you to get an early map win since Control is always the first game mode played but it’s also the game mode that occurs the most due to the map rotation. In series where it’s first to 3 Control can be the deciding map type and in series where it’s the first to 4 you are guaranteed to play Control twice unless someone get’s swept.
Chengdu Hunters:
What Do They Play?
What a bunch of lunatics. I say that lovingly because the Hunters are just vibing and playing the way they want. Just to give you an idea of how much Chengdu differ from the rest of the league, here’s the play rates for the entire league:
Chengdu’s style of play is very clearly designed to poke and frustrate other teams and disrupt their style of play. The problem is that we don’t really have any idea about how the Hunters will do once they get asked to play a style that isn’t this poke style composition? Will they struggle like they did against the Fusion or will the rest of the competition spend the tournament pulling out their hair trying to deal with the Hunters?
What does their record on specific maps look like?
So how strong are they on certain compositions?
So what maps favour the Hunters wacky style?
In all honesty the Hunters could take their weird play style and try to make it work anywhere. The map which has best matched their playstyle is Busan where Wrecking Ball compositions are the most common. Outside of Busan the Hunters might look at a map like Dorado to try and flummox teams with their unique Orisa & Wrecking Ball composition. Due to Chengdu’s unorthodox strategies perhaps it might be better to look at maps which they’ll avoid. Havana is a perfect example where they’ll be pushed towards more Reinhardt centric compositions which could hurt them. Same for Hanamura where Reinhardt rules the roost and Wrecking Ball & Winston compositions can really struggle to work through Hanamura’s tight choke points.
Shanghai Dragons:
What Do They Play?
The Dragons are perhaps the most scary team in the entire tournament for a few reasons. One is that this team is only just starting to figure things out. Their performances over the last 2 weeks of qualifiers showed a team who don’t have everything figured out compositionally but have some of the most talented and clutch players in the entire game. Min-chul “IZaYaKI” Kim has a different gear which he can shift into at times and the mere existence of Byung-sun “Fleta” Kim, Jae-won “LIP” Lee & Min-seong “diem” Bae should strike fear into any team. The real question about their team is can they figure out their compositional quirks such as prefering a Mercy & Zenyatta to Brigitte & Ana in their Winston compositions. Compared to other teams that run more efficient Winston compositions a inefficiency like that could be exploited.
What does their record on specific maps look like?
So how strong are they on certain compositions?
So what maps suit a team that doesn’t know what it wants to run?
Since the Dragons lost 3–0 to the Hunters that opening week they’ve been slowly shifting their style more and more towards Winston based compositions. The problem is that they haven’t really refined or specialized in any particular composition but can still play a variety of styles. Considering this the Dragons might look towards focussing on other teams weaknesses and picking maps based around that. The Dragons strength on Control is promising but looking at the data it’s honestly very difficult to predict what they might favour. In the Semi-Final against the Fusion both of their map choices were towards maps that centered around Reinhardt compositions but they lost both of those map picks. The Dragons late surge into form hasn’t really provided any clarity about this team aside from when they really need teamfight wins, they can usually pull them out like rabbits from a hat.
In the end each team has their strengths but how they interact and work around the others teams strengths will ultimately decide this weekend. Each team has an idea about what compositions and strategies it wants to run and for the first time this weekend we will get to see if they are right or wrong. Even if a teams composition isn’t the best they could still win due to insane individual performances that somehow lead to a victory because that’s how open this tournament it. In the end all the prognostication and predicting that will be done about these games could be for naught because we’re in uncharted territory.