Story: The Weight of a Moment in Overwatch

Surefour's Reaper unleashes his ultimate, "DIE DIE DIE!" echoing just out of range of Roolf's Zenyatta. Recovering from his wanton spin, Surefour finds himself defending a narrow passageway from the attacking Roolf and so too defending a one game lead for C9 against Method in the playoff stage of the Overwatch Open.

Reaper usually has the advantage on most characters up close, but the range is medium-ish and Zenyatta offers a slim frame. Most importantly, Reaper was without his coveted cloak of surprise. He can run, hit shift, and escape back to his team. He'll not get this square a chance again though. Zenyatta's shields will regen and he'll find safety behind his teammates. Surefour shouldn't retreat. Zenyatta has no way out and must fight. No teammates can reach them in this small alley, nor do the busy teams have the attention to spare.

Both need to land 2-4 shots to down the opposition and their weapons have similar rates of fire. For all intents and purposes, this is an even duel. No lag left to blame and use for consolation, no strategy left to overthink, no tool past their aim. Nothing but to do. There, contained in this side alley with no better option than to left click, they clash.

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Roolf, victorious, emerges. His ultimate just barely charged from his final shot, he speeds onto the point with Transcendence. The boost of healing hits four vulnerable teammates on the point, invigorating them and beating back both the opposition of C9 and the overtime tiebreak inevitability that one sees so often on Anubis. Had Surefour won, Debett would have eliminated Ultimawep's Reaper on his next swing of the hammer and with a 4v3 and respawns, C9 could have held easily. This entire match rested on this unexpected duel.

This confrontation is nothing new in Overwatch and this moment is one of the more unassuming ones. The NA side of the Overwatch Open alone offered thousands of more flashy of plays. Seagull slamming his ice block down to make his Mei a viable wall for his charging Reinhardt Milo to use as a corkboard. His incredibly accurate quad kill with Bastion's Tank Mode. Talespin and HarryHook lying in wait on the castle scaffolding attacking the second point in Eichenwald. Nano-boosted flying Death Blossoms left and right and center. Games are often decided on strategy and skill in most splendorous and spectacular of highlight-reel-filling gifbait. They make the game fun through wild adrenaline, no doubt. But it something else that wins tournaments.

This play, admittedly, didn't. Method did not go on to win the tournament, nor the NA finals, nor even the set. They were beaten in the tiebreaking game by C9 and exited the tournament unceremoniously. Their fairy tale, like many others, dashed itself on the ground, a multitude of would-be turning points and vehement regrets. Our innate dramatic sense leads us to be reductive in such situations. If only they had aimed better, if only they had made the other decision. If only they had won that _one_ duel. As if every moment singlehandedly won or lost the game, just as this one did.

For as good as this one play is by Roolf, a tournament is not a Play of the Game. Would that it were! Any self-respecting journalist or aspiring storyteller would pine to tell it, how this one confrontation compounded on itself and dominoed into the underdog triumph in some butterfly-effect confluence of fate. But one moment is only ever a drop in a large bucket. It's competitive video gaming's cruel reality, written entirely the same as big brother basketball or any other sport.

These competitors are placed in a gauntlet of decisions and reflexes, run at the unforgiving pace of the first-person shooter. Duels are gained and given, decided one way or another, falling yeah or nay in the literal blink of an eye purely by dint of talent and practice and desire.

 

You have to make that play that Roolf makes. And then you have to make it again five seconds later, then thirty more times in the match, two hundred more in the set. Duels upon duels upon duels, situations and decisions, each one as game-changing and crucial as the last. Minutes become hours on end. No secrets, no gimmicks, no magic to win a tournament.

And the scope pulls out. Reactive, guttural sounds give way to phrases, patterns form, and casters fall to analysts. And at the end of the day, the talking heads and the fanbases sit back, generalize and criticize.

"I want to say that it's a rare thing that we say a team is more coordinated or put together... but that was the case," HuK said in summary of a match. And that is the sublime tragedy of Overwatch. Better teams win, not better moments.

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. But the battle, and the war, goes on.

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