Surprising no one, Chinese superteam Once Again swept Team XX in the Pro-Chaser Association finals. Team XX did make Once Again sweat on Nepal, thanks to a timely Juno ban and stellar mechanical plays from XX’s DPS line, but the following three maps were inarguably one-sided. The series ended with Once Again completing a lightning-fast full push on Colosseo, during which Team XX failed to win a team fight.
Can another Chinese team ever compete with Once Again? To answer this question, PCA organizer Chen told the story of the Toronto Defiant, a team that dominated the OWCS North American region for almost a year. Like Once Again, the 2024 Toronto Defiant was built around the core of an Overwatch League roster — in their case, the Florida Mayhem, champions of the 2023 OWL season — and, like Once Again, the Toronto Defiant was far and above the best team in their region. Then, as the OWCS season went on, other NA teams started catching up.
“At the tail end of the season, other Western teams like NTMR were challenging Toronto a bit. Toronto went 4-3 against NTMR,” Chen said during his Ice Flame vs Young Blood co-stream. “It’s impossible for teams that can compete with Once Again to suddenly appear out of nowhere. The teams will slowly improve with more time and more tournaments. That’s why we organized the Pro-Chaser Association.”
An Ode to Lazuli
I first took notice of Japanese Overwatch in 2023. At the time, the Overwatch esports scene in Japan was tiny, with a handful of Japanese Contenders teams battling it out against teams from other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Then, at the 2023 Overwatch World Cup, Team Japan stole the spotlight with an unexpected 2-0 victory against Team France, a team with four ex-OWL players (and, for some reason, seven coaches).
Years after Team Japan’s dark horse run in groups, Overwatch has exploded in popularity in Japan, even winning Esports Game of the Year at the Japan Esports Awards. The recent rise of Overwatch in Japan can be largely attributed to the establishment of a separate Japanese OWCS region, as well as heavy investment from Japanese esports orgs like Crazy Raccoon. (The Crazy Raccoon Cup, a tournament featuring both Overwatch esports players and streamers, drew more than 70k viewers on Twitch.)
Two Japanese teams, Nyam Gaming and Lazuli, competed in the Pro-Chaser Association this season. Lazuli in particular proved that despite Japan’s fledgling status as a new and growing region, Japanese teams could still hang with teams from other places. Lazuli’s most exciting match this season was their 3-2 victory against Pacific team 99DIVINE, featuring SeungAn diffing R3K on Hazard, Schwi’s excellent Juno, some pop-off Sojourn plays from NewJ, and a truly wild extended final fight on Hanaoka. Just a few months prior, 99DIVINE had taken the Map 5 win over Lazuli in OWCS Asia Stage 2, and now Lazuli had finally returned the favor. The 99DIVINE vs Lazuli rematch featured different rosters, but Lazuli’s win still speaks to Japan’s development as a region.
Lazuli was knocked out early in the playoffs by Young Blood, but they can walk away with their heads held high. After all, they remain the only team in this tournament to take a map off Once Again. (Caster and analyst Ocie shared a detailed video breakdown of this map win, which you can check out here.) Japan might be the future of Overwatch esports, and I look forward to seeing the region continue to evolve.
The Road to Third Place
After a heartbreaking 2-3 loss to Team XX in Week 1 of the group stage, Ice Flame made its triumphant return in Week 3, winning all three of their matches 3-0. Their first 3-0 victory against Pastel de Nata, however, created an interesting seeding scenario. Since Ice Flame had already secured a spot in the playoffs, they had compelling reasons to throw their next two matches. Losing to Young Blood would allow Ice Flame to avoid a practically guaranteed loss to Once Again in the semifinals, while losing 0-3 to Nyam Gaming would knock Young Blood out of playoff contention.
None of this happened. After the growing pains of Week 1, Ice Flame had noticeably improved coming into Week 3, and they swept both Young Blood and Nyam Gaming with ease. When they won the first map against Nyam Gaming, Jinmu said on stream, “Okay! Ameng made it to playoffs!” Memorably, Ice Flame goofed around a bit during their lopsided 3-0 and 4-0 victories in the group stage and playoffs, running some deeply unserious team comps but still coming out on top.
Ice Flame had established itself as a cut above most of the other PCA teams — only natural considering the team’s three OWL veterans, plus a rising star in Bilideng — but they still met their inevitable end at the hands of Once Again, placing third in the tournament. That said, Ice Flame did successfully run Pharmercy in the year 2025, and no Chinese superteam can take that away from them.
Odds and Ends
I will be the first to admit that I don’t have much to offer in the way of game analysis. What I do have, however, is a variety of anecdotes and trivia that I hope will showcase the great personalities in the world of Chinese Overwatch.
Lateyoung, Kyo, and a rotating cast of CNOW personalities (Ameng, Jinmu, Shy, and streamer Minsea) co-streamed some of the matches, frequently betting cups of milk tea on match outcomes. During Lazuli vs Young Blood, Jinmu bet that Lazuli would take a map and then loudly supported Lazuli in the hopes that he would not have to buy everyone milk tea. (When Lazuli lost a fight: “My wallet has a hole in it.” When Lazuli won a fight: “Huh, looks like the hole’s been repaired.”)
Young Blood only won one map in their playoffs match against Team XX, but that map was perhaps the most entertaining map of the tournament. Hazard was banned on Hanaoka, so Ameng played an aggressive Reinhardt to counter 800’s Zarya. At one point, he confidently used Earthshatter on BL1NK’s Rallying Brigitte. He knew that BL1NK could stun him out of Shatter, but he bet it all and won. Afterward, the PCA broadcast played a clip of Ameng’s iconic Eichenwalde Shatter against the San Francisco Shock in 2019. But if you close your eyes… does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
During his co-stream of Once Again vs Ice Flame, Lateyoung had this to say about Shy: “Can we start banning players instead of heroes? Let’s ban Shy for one map. I don’t think banning heroes is enough.”
Soax, the PCA’s 180 ping warrior, finally broke his 5th-6th place curse this season by finishing within the Top 4 with Young Blood.
After the Young Blood vs Ice Flame third-place match, Jinmu was asked in the post-match interview whether he would join the co-stream and watch the finals with Lateyoung, Kyo, and company. His response: “I’m going to go play mahjong.”
Once Again presumably signed LiGe in the event of an off-tank meta, but with meta tank Hazard being fully within Guxue’s wheelhouse, LiGe spent much of the tournament riding the bench. In the finals post-match interview, he joked about being the team’s water boy. “Every day, I wake up at 10 AM and bring everyone water,” he said. “At 12 PM, I order coffee for them. At 1 PM, before they start scrims, I deliver the coffee to their doorsteps, and they drink it for energy. Let’s run it back.”
What Happens Next?
After the finals, Chen announced on the broadcast that the Pro-Chaser Association would return for a fourth season. Specific dates have not yet been decided, but the next season will begin in early February, after Chinese New Year, and end in early March. Chen also assured viewers that the PCA would end before the start of OWCS China, suggesting that Stage 1 of OWCS China begins in March.
The PCA has once again secured Overwatch as a sponsor (though it remains an unofficial community tournament), but the organizers are still looking for other sponsors.
Season 4 of the PCA will be held to prepare Chinese teams for OWCS China. “I’m afraid that Chinese teams won’t have a tournament environment available to them before the start of OWCS China, so I hope that we’ll do a good job organizing the PCA from February to March,” Chen said.
Team CC and Capere CAT, both strong teams that took a break from competing this season, may return for another tournament run in Season 4. With OWCS China looming on the horizon, the next season of the PCA might be the most competitive one yet.
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