Guangzhou Charge debut surprising new tactic in Overwatch League

The Guangzhou Charge have some next level plays up their sleeves.

The team demonstrated some shockingly effective stall tactics during their recent 4-0 victory over the New York Excelsior, showing how to hold an objective without even killing an enemy. The win comes as a huge boost to the 9th-ranked team, who pulled off a big upset over the league’s No. 2 squad.

After capturing the first point on the opening map, Lijiang Garden, Guangzhou managed to turn a three-on-six fight into an unbelievable stall where they took 60% of the capture point without even killing a single enemy.

Stall tactics in Overwatch League

After losing a skirmish, the Charge were left short-handed on the point, which New York capitalized on by moving in all six players. While one might expect Guangzhou to retreat and regroup, they instead decided to hold the objective by throwing just one player onto the point at a time. Each one was gunned down by the Excelsior, but another player would follow to keep the clock moving.

This allowed them to move the ticker up to 68% despite having their entire team killed twice over. This was no coincidence, either.

The post-game analysis by Josh “Sideshow” Wilkinson shows Guangzhou players calmly waiting outside the point after respawning. From there, they carefully utilized their abilities to maximize the time it took for New York to eliminate them. This masterful display of communication and tactics allowed them to win the map, and kick off a dominant victory.

Managing to successfully execute a stall like this demonstrates that there are more ways to find success in Overwatch than aim alone. It will be interesting to see if this play remains a one-off display, or if other teams will study it and try to replicate it in matches to come.

Stage 4 of the Overwatch League has seen the introduction of the 2-2-2 role lock and teams will have to adapt in order to survive.