The end is nearing at the Overwatch Winter Premiere as the final group stage begins with the top six teams. The format is the same as the round of eight, and the bottom two teams will be culled from the competition while the top four will advances to the live LAN bracket stage for both the semifinals and the finals. Unlike the round of eight, the round of six will only last three days this week from Tuesday to Thursday night. The final six teams to have made it this far are Immortals, Kungarna, Team Liquid, compLexity, Renegades and Luminosity Gaming. At the end of this week, two will be expelled from the competition.
Starting the day's games would be Immortals vs. Renegades, where it boiled down to a battle of Soldier 76's. On Watchpoint: Gibraltar, both Christopher "GrimReality" Schaefer from Immortals and Christopher "j3sus" Pavloff from Renegades played Soldier 76 and were instrumental in wiping out the opposing team to push the payload past the second point of the map. Both teams were evenly matched during this set, and it was only by the saving grace of GrimReality's Graviton Surge on offense that allowed them to push the payload further than Renegades did. The other hero of the series is David "nomy" Ramirez from Immortals, getting a crucial Earthshatter on the very final point of Eichenwald that allowed them to secure the wind through overtime and take the series over Renegades 2-1.
The interesting story of the games played today is that compLexity is certainly on the rise this week. CompLexity is famous in the Winter Premiere for forcing Sombra to work for them despite the early struggle and learning period. While they were never undefeated throughout the tournament, they were certainly a leading force that dropped to the bottom during the round of eight, specifically the second half of it. They dropped most of their games because of poor team coordination, and misusing their ultimates and overall being figured out in terms of their Sombra strategies.
Today was a different day. They won both of their games 2-1 against both Liquid and Immortals, which could be a very well needed boost of morale that will lead them to safety for the rest of the Group Play stage. From the games played, it's clear that compLexity has learned their mistakes from holding onto Sombra in almost all of their matches, but also that their try-out player Sergei "Winghaven" Torras Aragonés has been an overall positive effect.
They pushed the payload all the way on Dorado while putting a full hold on Team Liquid, as well as holding them to only one payload point on Eichenwald. The tougher opponent, Immortals gave compLexity a fight as GrimReality fought tooth and nail on Soldier 76 and with his herculean might, tore down compLexity on Dorado but it wasn't enough for this fresh compLexity squad as they barely squeaked by on Tower of Lijiang, but showed absolute tenacity on Eichenwald instead.
By executing a full hold on the first point, all compLexity needed was to take the first point to win the map and set, and things could have turned out differently. GrimReality once again made his appearance on Soldier 76 by taking the high ground, but as the frontline for Immortals thinned out, he had to sprint just to stop the capture of the first point. He was taken down right in front of his goal.