Nolan “Paintbrush” Edwards' 2020 was a whirlwind. Torching his sleep schedule so he could watch the Overwatch League Grand Finals play out was only a minor bump for the Dallas Fuel’s rookie.
He learned a lot about himself and how to analyze and understand Overwatch during his season that began with the Los Angeles Gladiators, traveling to Korea, and ending with a playoff loss at home as a leader for the Fuel
Edwards joined The Dallas Morning News to watch the Shanghai Dragon’s 3-0 win over the Philadelphia Fusion Thursday morning.
He discussed what he’s learned in his first season of OWL play, how he watches league matches and what people can look for in the Grand Finals.
A heavy bias
The APAC region only had seven of the 20 OWL teams compete with each other in 2020. The breakout of COVID-19 canceled OWL’s big globalization plans of traveling and homestands each weekend. The result was teams returning home so players could compete online comfortably and safely.
That also separated the metas between North America and Asia. Because of that, even Edwards was unsure of what to expect from the Seoul Dynasty and the Dragons. He was far more familiar with the San Francisco Shock and Philadelphia Fusion, as those two were opponents of his throughout the season.
“I haven’t followed APAC very closely so it’s hard for me to predict those teams,” Edwards said. “So I am heavily biased towards Shock and Fusion.”
That being said, Edwards still understood what was happening, or rather what was going to unfold, far better than a casual fan that didn’t get to tune in for APAC games during the regular season.
San Francisco was dominant in the maps it won over Seoul — that match began at 6 a.m. CT. Seoul mounted a comeback and forced a fifth map, which was a bit of a surprise to Edwards, but he understood what happened.
Edwards and a couple of his fellow OWL player companions watched that match and saw how the Shock’s superstar sniper, Lee “ANS” Seonchang was pressured.
San Francisco, known for its clutch play in desperate times, made the appropriate adjustments in the fifth map to move on to the playoff semifinals.
Adjusting mid-match was something the Fuel struggled with in 2020. Now that their season has ended, Paintbrush has recognized the flaws in his own game and worked on changing them.
What to look for
Edwards is a true competitor. He’s not having fun playing Overwatch unless he’s improving and doing all he can to win. He brought that mindset to the Fuel when they were in a time of need.
He delivered with his effort and leadership, though he admitted it took him some time to widen his hero pool. He wasn’t comfortable naming a “best” support player in the world, though he did like the support line of San Francisco and Philadelphia. Especially San Francisco’s Park “Viol2t” Minki’s Baptiste.
Edwards wasn’t content with his own Baptiste, but his main concern after the Fuel’s season concluded was his healing on Lucio.
It was actually the analysis of his season by The News that brought that to his attention. Edwards was a league-low in healing per 10 minutes on Lucio among qualifying players.
“I don’t know why this happened,” Edwards told himself, “but we need to fix this now.”
He worked on it, watched his own gameplay and deduced that pacing was a factor. The Fuel’s fights ended quickly, with Dallas either having its way or getting rolled.
This also helped him understand support battles between two teams. He looked for that in the Philadelphia and Shanghai match.
Edwards liked comparing the value either team got out of their healers and recognized that Shanghai was able to play with more controlled aggressiveness because of how the support line supported its tanks.
He also couldn’t help but strategize what the Fuel might do if they were playing in the Grand Finals.
Not easy
Edwards knew a miraculous title run by the Fuel after interim head coach Kim “Yong” Yong-Jin took charge in August was unlikely, but he still imagined how the Fuel may have prepared if it were them playing Shanghai.
Preparing for an APAC team wouldn’t have been impossible, but there would be no prior experience within the last year to search for tendencies. Edwards said. At best, North America players may have played against a few APAC players that decided to try ranked play on North America servers. Other than that, it’s up to video review.
“You often run into times where you scrimmed against a team recently. But you have vods so you will realistically be able to prepare against someone like Shanghai,” Edwards said. “I don’t think it’s as scary as people might think, but there would be things you wouldn’t expect.”
Edwards said the Fuel would have watched plenty of tape on Shanghai to come up with a game plan and a counter, but that prepared feeling could completely change during the match.
“It would not have been easy,” Edwards said.
The Fuel’s support player was looking forward to seeing how the Shanghai and San Francisco match would play out Friday morning. He also felt the Fusion may not be out of it with a chance at a loser’s bracket run, but so far the Dragons and Dynasty were impressive.
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