Two teams with contrasting styles at OGN's Overwatch APEX League in Seoul, South Korea delivered an extremely close series to open the Friday action on Day 5 of Season 2, while a support player stole the show to close the day's games.
In the first series between Group A's Meta Athena and MVP Infinity, Athena held a 1-0 lead entering a matchup on Numbani. This map showed the big difference in styles between the teams, as MVP stuck to the standard attack/defense strategy while Athena went for aggression and creative strategies. And while MVP were unable to take the final point on attack, they shut out their opponents on defense and evened the series at 1-1.
Meta Athena would regain control of the series with a win on Hanamura, thanks to a clutch team-wide Graviton Surge by Choi "Hoon" Jae-hoon on Zarya. MVP were trying to blitz through the side to attack the objective, but Hoon's Graviton Surge made themselves easy targets for Ha "Sayaplayer" Jeong-woo's Tracer as he left them a parting gift in the form of a Pulse Bomb. The win on this map gave Athena a 2-1 edge in the series.
The next two maps continue to demonstrate how close the matchup really is between these two teams. For the deciding map, a successful defense by Meta Athena after one capture on King's Row followed by two captures of their own sealed the 3-2 series win to move to the top of the group standings.
The second matchup between South Korean teams LW Blue and Lunatic-Hai in Group B came down to a showdown of star players. The first battleground would take place on the new map, Oasis, as Hwang "Fl0w3R" Yeon-oh was an absolute monster on Pharah, hunting down members of LH like a bloodhound, securing the first victory of the series for LWB. If there was anyone on LH to show them that they wouldn't have their way however, it was support player Ryu "ryujehong" Je-hong.
On King's Row, ryujehong reminded the world just how deadly supports could be as he landed a sleep dart on Fl0w3R's McCree at the most important and clutch moment as Ana, stopping him from using what could have been a game changing Deadeye. Lunatic-Hai took King's Row and swept the rest of the series with a decisive win on Temple of Anubis, and made an even bigger statement on Watchpoint: Gibraltar with how much faster they pushed the payload to the end.
Taking the series 3-1, Lunatic-Hai closes out the night going undefeated in the group with their eyes set on the grander prize of winning back the title of the strongest in South Korea. APEX Season 2 will resume on Tuesday February 7 as CONBOX Spirit takes on Kongdoo Uncia, and KU's sister team Kongdoo Panthera faces off with RunAway.