Week 3 of OWL was nail-biting and tension-filled as it featured the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the final of the Overwatch World First Stage Playoffs – May Melee Tournament.

Dallas Fuel, Chengdu Hunters, Shanghai Dragons, and Florida Mayhem all battled for a chance at the finals. Dallas Fuel and Shanghai Dragons made it to the final, with the Fuels becoming victorious.

The victory was important on several fronts for the Dallas Fuel, mostly that their trophy drought has finally come to an end upon winning their very first tournament in their team’s history.

The Overwatch May Melee Tournament finished in a six map showdown between Dallas Fuel and Shanghai Dragons, with it ending in a 4-2 scoreline. Dallas key man, Eui-Seok “Fearless” Lee made some big plays against his former team, to help the Fuel secure the win.

Dallas has not had it easy as they lost their traditional hitscan specialist DPS Ki-hyo “Xzi” Jung to retirement during the preseason, barely two days before the season. Dallas has triumphed against all odds, wielding a strong team composition not expected of them, and going all the way to break the cycle of misery.

They barely made it through the qualifiers after finishing 2-2 and stumbling through to the knockouts. They went on to put up an amazing single-day performance, trumping San Francisco Shock and the Houston Outlaws with 3-0 sweeps. Blazed through the Chengdu Hunters and took on the Shanghai Dragons in two straight games and defeated them in both matches, all without a dedicated hitscan. They deserve their flowers.

Asides from getting the grand prize of $100,000, Dallas got 3 bonus league points which will guarantee their qualification for this season’s playoffs. The Shanghai Dragons walked away with a $70,000 prize money and two bonus league points. Florida Mayhem finished third place claiming $35,000 in prize money and a bonus league point, while the Chengdu Dragons who placed fourth walked away with $20,000.

It was a remarkable performance from Dallas, who were as long as $5 to win the tournament, with esports bettings sites.

OWL Week 3 Results

Overwatch League (World) – First Stage Playoffs

Sunday, May 9th

First Stage Playoffs Final

02:00 – Dallas Fuel vs. Shanghai Dragons (4 – 2)

Saturday, May 8th

First Stage Playoffs Semi-finals

07:00 – Shanghai Dragons vs. Florida Mayhem (3 – 0)

First Stage Playoffs Quarter-finals

03:30 – Florida Mayhem vs. Chengdu Hunters (3 – 1)

First Stage Playoffs Semi-finals

02:00 – Shanghai Dragons vs. Dallas Fuel (2 – 3)

Friday, May 7th

First Stage Playoffs Quarter-finals

04:30 – Dallas Fuel vs. Chengdu Hunters (3 – 1)

03:00 – Shanghai Dragons vs. Florida Mayhem (3 – 2)

Final

Monday, May 3rd

00:30 – Houston Outlaws vs. Dallas Fuel (0 – 3)

Sunday, May 2nd

23:00 – Washington Justice vs. Florida Mayhem (1 – 3)

Semi-finals

21:15 – Dallas Fuel vs. San Francisco Shock (3 – 0)

20:00 – Toronto Defiant vs. Florida Mayhem (0 – 3)

12:30 – Chengdu Hunters vs. Seoul Dynasty (3 – 1)

10:00 – Shanghai Dragons vs. Philadelphia Fusion (3 – 2)

?Paris Eternal denied us a winning bet with our OWL betting predictions for Friday with a very strong performance in their 3-1 win against Vancouver Titans. They lost their next match 1-3 against Houston Outlaws, but it wasn’t like the Eternal played poorly. They lost the final two maps with minimal margins – 2-3 on Assault (Volskaya Industries) and 3-4 on Hybrid (King’s Row).

Their next opponents are Atlanta Reign, who have yet to win a single match this season. We sided against the Reign in our betting predictions for the first week of play, which proved to be the right choice, and we are very tempted to do it again here.

Atlanta look like the stronger team on paper, but they haven’t played a single match in a week. They’re also struggling with their form, so there is a strong case to be made for the outsiders to at least keep this one close.

?Along with the Titans, Boston Uprising are a strong candidates to end the season as the weakest team in the OWL. They’re 0-2 with a 0-6 map differential after two clean sweep losses against Los Angeles Gladiators and Dallas Fuel.

Washington Justice have the better form line, but they are yet to be properly tested. Their two games thus far have ended in 3-1 victories against the Fuel and the Titans, so we don’t really know at this stage how good the Justice are.

Boston looked lost last week, and unless they find a way to improve, they will struggle to win a match in the May Melee. That said, they have good enough players for us to steer clear from betting on the Justice to win 3-0.

Washington are clearly the better team, but they dropped a map against a Vancouver team that looks just as weak as the Uprising. Boston can steal a map, but we don’t expect much more. Expect a 3-1 victory for the favourites.

?The Vancouver Titans are likely the weakest team in the Overwatch League, but there is a chance the Titans could pick up a win on Friday. We haven’t seen the Paris Eternal in action yet, so there’s a lot of guesswork that goes into figuring out how well they will perform, but it looks as though this team won’t be very successful this season.

Dani?l “Daan” Vincentius Paulus Scheltema is the only player on the Eternal roster that we have high expectations for. Rookies make up a significant portion of this squad, so while Paris might have a high ceiling, they likely won’t reach their full potential for a while yet.

Even though we believe the Eternal are slightly stronger, betting at these odds on a team that has yet to play a single match makes no sense. Vancouver should be competitive enough to win at least two maps.

?The last two years were a little rough for the London Spitfire, yet we can’t help but be optimistic about this team heading into the 2021 OWL season. They have a lot of upside, but it’s hard to say whether the Brits will reach their potential this year.

Most of London’s roster is the British Hurricane squad from Overwatch Contenders, but that’s hardly a bad thing. It’s no secret the Cloud9-owned team are putting a lot of resources into developing young talent, and they’re doing a great job. Whether they can compete in at the highest level, however, remains to be seen.

The Los Angeles Gladiators were regarded as one of the strongest OWL teams ahead of this season, but they have so far failed to live up to the hype. Losses to the San Francisco Shock and the Dallas Fuel leave them in a precarious position heading into their third fixture of the May Melee.

While we believe the Gladiators have a lot more to show, we can’t agree with their short price in the OWL betting markets. The Spitfire’s roster might be inexperienced, but this squad lost only one out of 15 Contenders tournaments in 2020, so they’re clearly good enough to compete with the top dogs.

?When we talk about teams that aren’t built for success, the first one that should come to mind are the 2019 OWL finalists, the Vancouver Titans. There aren’t many things that would get you excited about this team besides Min-gi “Teru” Kim, Abtin “ShRedLock” Shirvani, and Nathan “frdwnr” Goebel, who still need to prove they’re better than everyone expects them to be.

The Titans’ first opponents of the 2021 season are the Toronto Defiant. They seem capable of great things this year, but a lot will come down to the performances of Su-min “SADO” Kim, Hee-su “Heesu” Jeong, and Jung-won “Lastro” Mun.

The problem with the Defiant is that while they have the talent, most of their star players aren’t exactly reliable, and fielding three rookies won’t help their consistency either – especially early in the season. Despite their relative lack of quality, the Titans should be capable of winning one map; however, until they prove otherwise, we wouldn’t expect much more from them.

?This might seem like a hot take, but we view the Florida Mayhem as one of the top five teams in the league. They might not have the high ceiling of some other squads, but their flexibility and stability are two big reasons why we trust the Mayhem to shine. That said, Florida’s success will greatly depend on Min-seok “OGE” Son and whether he can perform as well as he did in the early days of his OWL esports career.

The Atlanta Reign’s biggest strength is their stacked DPS position with Kai “Kai” Collins, Se-hyun “Pelican” Oh, and Tae-hoon “Edison” Kim, who will be the driving force behind how far this team can go. The problem is that the Reign don’t look too solid in other positions, which will be a huge roadblock for them this season.

Even though there are a few ‘what ifs’ with the Mayhem, we don’t believe they should be considered as an underdog against Atlanta. The latter are definitely capable of a few upset wins if their DPS players perform well, but due to weaknesses elsewhere, it’s hard to take the Reign’s side as slender favourites with Overwatch betting sites.

?After years of mediocre results, the Houston Outlaws put their foot down and completely restructured their roster for the 2021 season by signing some of the best talent from the Overwatch Contenders competition. Perhaps the most notable signings of the offseason were tank Cho “JJANGGU” Myung-heum and off-tank Shin “PIGGY” Min-jun, who joined the Texan outfit with a built-in synergy from their time together at Talon Esports.

The Dallas Fuel have hit the reset button as well, keeping only Kim “Doha” Dong-Ha from their 2020 roster. The new lineup looks adaptable to a possible meta shift due to the flexibility of their players, but much of their long-term success will come down to coach Hee-won “RUSH” Yun.

The Fuel should improve as the season goes on, but due to all the roster and coaching staff changes, they will likely be in for a slow start. We prefer the Outlaws at this price.

?It may seem weird seeing the Los Angeles Gladiators priced this short considering how uninspiring they were last season, but they made all the right roster changes during the offseason and now field a very capable side that can make some noise during the 2021 Overwatch League campaign.

If their performance at the SteelSeries Invitational is any kind of indicator, the addition of Kim “MuZe” Young-hun, Jin-seo “Shu” Kim, Grant “moth” Espe, and Min-seok “skewed” Kim could take LA to their best season yet. They are still weaker than the San Francisco Shock, but the gap is not nearly as big as it might seem at first glance.

It’s important to note that the Shock haven’t played a single official match since they won the 2020 OWL Grand Finals in October, whereas the Gladiators already have two games under their belt from the SteelSeries Invitational. We wouldn’t bet on LA to finish the season higher than San Fran, but they definitely can surprise the ring-rusty champions in the season opener.