Los Angeles Valiant vs San Francisco Shock

For our second match of the first day of OWL preseason, we have a clash between the Los Angeles Valiant and San Francisco Shock. Unfortunately for SF Shock, they had to fill in the empty spot left by Philadelphia Fusion so they will have to play two series back to back. Depending on how their first series develops, they might enter the second one with either renewed vigor or in a defeated state of mind. At the same time, any stage jitters that might exist would be gone by then so it's a double-edged sword.

For those who weren't following the Overwatch scene, the Los Angeles Valiant is a rebranded Immortals. They kept the exact same roster so they should have a fair amount of cohesion. That in itself is a fairly big advantage over a lot of other teams, however their skill ceiling is hard to gauge realistically - much like the majority of OWL teams with so many teams changing rosters, picking new talent up, etc.

Sadly for Immortals, they didn't look that hot the last time we saw them play. They ended their Overwatch Contenders Season 1 ranked sixth (out of eight teams competing) with a very unimpressive 2W-5L record, and an even worse map record of 13W-18L. It's hard predicting their current strength seeing how they retained the old roster and

They are still valued fairly highly due to their strong OW Contenders Season Zero form. Regardless, they're still a strong middle-of-the-pack team that can surprise a lot of people, but so can San Francisco Shock. Essentially, it should all come down to experience and team cohesion at least at the very beginning of the preseason. With Immortals losing their spot in the League of Legends franchising process, you can expect them to invest fully in their Overwatch endeavour.

Betting on this match is somewhat risky, so you shouldn't invest a lot.