Overwatch Winter Premiere finals power rankings

Four teams remain in the Overwatch Winter Premiere. After weeks of online play, Luminosity, Immortals, compLexity Gaming, and Kungarna are headed to the LAN finals to be played live at PAX South this week.

The online stages of the Premiere were filled with inconsistent play and questionable decision-making, but these four squads managed to come together well enough to make a push for the finals.

But who will reign victorious after the weekend is over? Here’s where we think they stand.

4. Luminosity

Luminosity’s place at the bottom of this list is less a commentary on the skill of the team and more a circumstance of differences in play style. Against a lineup of teams less aggressive than Immortals, Kungara, and compLexity, they’d be just fine – something that’s clear when they’ve beaten up on the weaker teams at the Premiere.

Unfortunately for them, they are against those three teams.

compLexity plays a relatively low-scoring game, relying on their ability to hold early points to make up for their own lack of high point averages. They’re very good at stalling out games at early points, forcing matches to go the distance.

It shows in their hero choices. Holding on strong to the four tank/two support meta, they’re the only team without a strong Soldier: 76 player, the DPS hero that looks to be defining the Overwatch meta for the beginning of 2017. As a result, they’ve been struggling to find good hitscan options to bring down some of the more mobile heroes and tank killers that teams are playing against them.

In the end, Luminosity has a simple-sounding job: Shore up their defenses. If they’re going to continue to slow play their offense, they need to find a way to shut down the onslaught of the other three teams here. If they don’t, their light will be snuffed out as soon as they set foot on the PAX stage.

The Overwatch Winter Premiere finals kick off on Friday.

3. compLexity Gaming

Sombra’s release has been a boon for compLexity Gaming. The only team in the final four of the Winter Premiere to commit to strategies centered around Overwatch’s newest hero, they’ve found an effective use of her unique abilities on their offensive pushes.

With DPS player Jake “torkTJO” Lepoff on the hero, they’ll shove up to within range of the point and let their star player run free. Once he’s in the back line, he drops her EMP, destroying any chance of defense from the opposing side. From there, without Reinhardt’s shield and the like to stop them, taking the point is a simple task.

While coL’s new tactics may surprise the other teams left in the tournament, they do have a few issues to clean up before they can be considered true contenders for the crown.

Thanks to their reliance on flanks and lone wolf styles of carries, they’re susceptible to getting picked off while looking for advantageous positions. They’re masters of Eichenwalde (despite that one loss to Kungara), but they struggle on both Watchpoint: Gibraltar and Dorado. They have a tendency to get to the final point but seem unable to close out the round.

To be able to bring down Immortals or Kungara, compLexity has to learn how to finish the job.

2. Kungarna

Kungarna owns Watchpoint: Gibraltar. With six wins, a single loss, and an average score differential of 1.14 points per map during the round of eight, no other team at the Premiere dominates a map so completely. Their offense is relentless and their defense of the second point impenetrable. hey simply demand bans of the map against them.

The question becomes what they do if they don’t get to play Gibraltar.

Ideally, they fall back to Dorado, where teams struggle to even get past the first point against Kungara. On both maps, Kungara constantly pressure the frontlines of their opponents, throwing bodies into the line of fire to keep the other team on their heels.

Their aggressive style, led by flex player and captain Michael “mykL” Padilla, leads to a ton of deaths for the roster – but they win. It’s risky, but when it works, they’re nearly unbeatable.

However, when you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Kungara’s losses come from their aggression getting the best of them. One by one, they get picked off, staggering their death timers to the point of never being able to mount a unified offense. If they hope to bring this thing home, they’re going to have to fix their consistency issues.

1. Immortals

Fear Immortals on the final point.

No team at the Winter Premiere has been more clutch than Immortals. Time and time again, they found themselves on the back foot, with the opposing side pushing to the final point on a variety of maps. And yet, they rarely gave it up.

Every time they’ve got their backs against the wall, they fight back with ferocity. A roster full of individual talents, they’re skilled enough to throw player after player at a point, delaying long enough to find the right teamfight.

The players to watch here are flex player George “Hyped” Maganzini and tank David “Nomy” Ramirez. While they don’t really have a weak link, Hyped and Nomy have looked the best of anyone on the roster.

Hyped is among the best D.Va players in NA, and this tournament has shown exactly why. His self-destructs often get multiple kills and are always timed to create a path to the objective. He’s very, very good.

Nomy’s mechanics aren’t as pretty, but when you’re playing Reinhardt, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Every ult he throws is impactful, turning fights and creating picks with absurd regularity. When he dies (and he does die often), it’s not without impact.

What’s more, Immortals seems the most comfortable with the carry meta that APEX Season 2 brought into the limelight. Expect Immortals to be the strongest contender here.

All stats provided by Winston’s Lab.

Taylor Cocke wants more Sombra. Follow him on Twitter @taylorcocke.