Chengdu Hunters sweep Dragons to improve to 2-0

Sunday's Eastern Region Overwatch League action saw sweeps by the Seoul Dynasty, Philadelphia Fusion and Chengdu Hunters.

In the biggest upset of the season so far, the Chengdu Hunters (2-0) took a perfect 3-0 sweep over the Shanghai Dragons (1-1). The Hunters, who have historically been known asa quirky team that would occasionally break out of their bottom-of-the-table standing to swim in the middle of the pack, took down the Dragons, a team that was projected to dominate the Eastern region.

The secret to Chengdu's success was a pair of rookies in their lineup: main tank Qiu "GA9A" Jiaxin and flex support Zhou "Mmonk" Xiang. GA9A was an absolute menace throughout the series across multiple hero picks, consistently bullying the Dragons and putting them on the back foot. Meanwhile, Mmonk made several fight-winning plays as Ana and Zenyatta, outdueling his counterpart in Dragons support Min-chul "IZaYaKI" Kim.

The Hunters started the series with a clean 2-0 win on Oasis in Game 1. After that, the Dragons seemed to be rocked, allowing Chengdu to dominate Game 2 on Eichenwalde for a 1-0 full-hold to go up 2-0 heading into the break. While Shanghai fought hard in Game 3 on Watchpoint: Gibraltar, the Hunters stayed strong in overtime, taking the map 4-3 to secure the series sweep. With the win, Chengdu moves into a tie for first in the region and sends a resounding message to the rest of the league that the Hunters might be for real this year.

In other Sunday action, the Philadelphia Fusion (2-0) took a 3-0 win over the Los Angeles Valiant (0-2). The Valiant looked like they had some fight in them in Game 1 on Busan, taking the first round on Downtown by focusing all their collective effort into shutting down Fusion DPS and ace Jae-Hyeok "Carpe" Lee.

That seemed to anger Carpe, as he woke up to dominate the next two rounds and win the map 2-1 for Philadelphia. From there, try as Los Angeles might, they couldn't stop Carpe and crew from setting the tone for the rest of the series. The Fusion took Eichenwalde 3-2 and Watchpoint: Gibraltar 3-2 to pick up the series win.

The Seoul Dynasty (1-1) picked up their first win of the season in a 3-0 sweep of the Guangzhou Charge (0-2). Despite the Charge's promising young DPS, Guangzhou showed plenty of signs of struggle throughout the series. An unwillingness to commit to fights hamstrung them from the start, allowing Seoul to control the games with little discomfort.

The Dynasty started things off with a 2-0 Game 1 win on Busan, led in part by main tank Jaehui "Gesture" Hong. After that, the Charge started to play a bit better, but it wasn't enough to overcome Seoul. The Dynasty took Game 2 on King's Row 4-3, then wrapped up the series sweep by winning 3-2 on Havana.

Week 1 of the Overwatch League concludes on Sunday with three Western Region matches:

Houston Outlaws vs San Francisco Shock

Florida Mayhem vs Vancouver Titans

Toronto Defiant vs Atlanta Reign

Overwatch League standings, with win-loss record and map differential:

T1. Philadelphia Fusion (East), 2-0, 5

T1. Chengdu Hunters (East), 2-0, 5

T3. Florida Mayhem (West), 1-0, 2

T3. Toronto Defiant (West), 1-0, 2

T3. San Francisco Shock (West), 1-0, 2

T6. Houston Outlaws (West), 1-0, 1

T7. Seoul Dynasty (East), 1-1, 1

T7. Dallas Fuel (West), 1-1, 1

9. Shanghai Dragons (East), 1-1, even

T10. Boston Uprising (West), 0-0, even

T10. Paris Eternal (West), 0-0, even

T10. New York Excelsior (East), 0-0, even

T10. London Spitfire (West), 0-0, even

T10. Hangzhou Spark (East), 0-0, even

T10. Washington Justice (West), 0-0, even

T16. Atlanta Reign (West), 0-1, -2

T16. Vancouver Titans (West), 0-1, -2

18. Los Angeles Gladiators (West), 0-2, -4

19. Los Angeles Valiant (East), 0-2, -5

20. Guangzhou Charge (East), 0-2, -6

--Field Level Media