The Transatlantic Throwdown

Sunday evening saw the stage set for a thrilling aerial faceoff between Aaron “FlexG” Kay from Team Ireland, and Liam “Mangachu” Campbell from Team Canada and the Overwatch League’s Toronto Defiant. Both players would duke it out in a Pharah 1v1 to see who would fly victorious and assert dominance over the airspace.

Mangachu came into this match as the veteran with experience under his belt, both from top-tier Overwatch including being picked up by the Toronto Defiant in July, as well as experience in top-tier 1v1 battles as he came out victorious in the Torbjorn Hammer 1v1 against Dafran at the Atlanta Homestand weekend. As caster Rob “GosuDreams” Price put it, going up against Mangachu would be “a different kettle of fish” for FlexG.

The match took place over the streets of Eichenwalde, with the first game taking place on EU servers and the second on NA servers to mitigate the ping advantage for each player. The rules were that they were first-to-10 matches and health regeneration was turned on, forcing them to land direct rocket hits in quick succession to confirm each elimination.

When it began, Mangachu was able to secure the first kill as FlexG tried to Jump-Jet from near the bridge. He tagged two more, going up 3-0 before FlexG finally managed to take him down in his reload animation.

Mangachu took one more, going up 4-1 before FlexG found a groove and came roaring back, rattling off 4 kills in a row and taking the lead 5-4.

They battled back and forth from there until FlexG got a couple more, going up 9-6 with the ninth being a melee kill. But the veteran Mangachu refused to give up that last elimination, clawing his way back to equalize at 9-9 before securing the tenth kill and snatching the round from FlexG’s hands.

EU Servers: Mangachu 10 – FlexG 9

Switching over to the NA servers, Mangachu took the first 2 kills before FlexG took him down after the Jump-Jet animation. After a drawn-out battle with many rockets landing too spread out to get the kills, FlexG evened the score at 2.

Mangachu found the next two eliminations, but FlexG quickly scored two of his own right after, settling things at 4-4. Back-and-forth it went, and FlexG took the lead at 6-5.

As Mangachu flew low on the top of the castle, FlexG hit one rocket and immediately used his Rocket Barrage ultimate ability, hoping that he could get enough damage onto Mangachu to kill him quickly. However, the Canadian Devastation used his Concussive Blast to escape, leaving FlexG as a sitting duck in the air that was easily dispatched. 6-6.

This second round was incredibly close, as they kept trading kills for scores at 7-7 and 8-8. Mangachu was dialed in as two long-distance rockets found their mark, giving him kill number 9.

On match point, FlexG landed more rockets than Mangachu but could not follow them up in time to get the kills. He tried to dodge under the bridge and rocket back up, but Mangachu was waiting for him and found the tenth kill and the win.

NA Servers: Mangachu 10 – FlexG 8

With the win, Mangachu has proven his expertise in the 1v1 matchups. With the wins against Dafran and now FlexG, the challenge he issued to Team Germany’s Engineer seems heavily in his favor. We’ll see how that turns out as he wanted to do it on LAN rather than have ping issues, so keep an eye out for that at Blizzcon potentially.

And for FlexG, this was a magnificent performance. To go toe-to-toe with one of the best Pharah players in the world is no small feat, and it seemed like he even hit more shots overall but was unable to capitalize on many so Mangachu got back to full health. Through the scrimmages and showmatches, he has shown his prowess as a projectile DPS player and will be out for blood at the World Cup.

Article by Staff Writer, Matthew “Setanta” Kennedy 

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Matthew Kennedy