OWL 2022 Week 1 Matches & Narratives – What to Expect

The Overwatch League is about to get back under way this weekend. The OWL 2022 Week 1 matches are coming up soon, and there’s plenty of reasons to be excited for this new season.

For a starters, the game is being played on the new Overwatch 2 beta. Streamers playing this version of the game have already broken stream records on Twitch for the title. Things are looking bright for getting fans back involved in Overwatch. This is what’s going on at the opening weeks of the Season:

OWL 2022 Week 1 Matches & Schedule

The OWL 2022 Season first week is about to kick off. This year the game is running with the same adapted format as we saw in 2021. This is a group of smaller tournaments throughout the year leading into the Grand Finals, each with their own bracket. Last year this proved quite a bit more entertaining than a whole season of relatively unimportant regular matches! Things will be kicking off with the Kickoff Clash. Notably though, this time there are going to be more in-person games. Some matches in every week of competition are going to be played offline.

The Kickoff Clash begins with a group stage, from here the top teams enter into a playoff bracket. Claiming an early victory in one of these cups definitely sets the tone for the year to come.

OWL Groups

The teams for the OWL Week 1 matches are going to be divided into two groups. These are going to be:

And these are the matches that we’re going to be seeing over the first week of the tournament:

Biggest OWL 2022 Week 1 Matches to Watch

There’s already some interesting match-ups and narratives just from the first week of the tournament. One OWL 2022 Week 1 match that might be eventful for some of the wrong reasons is going to be Vancouver v London. These two finished the last season pretty definitively as the lowest ranking teams in this side of the League. Both will be hoping to do better this time around, and a soft match-up like this early on could allow one to escape the worst team in the League label for now.

Dallas are featuring in two early matches after they came out on top of the West teams last time around They’re up against Washington and Houston. Both of these teams performed middlingly last time around. However, Dallas didn’t exactly enter the 2021 season as the favourites. This could be the chance for either team to score an early win against the current top team and set-up an eventful run.

While there’s some matches that could prove eventful on the docket, there’s also some that few would expect to go an unexpected way. Match ups Florida and Atlanta, London v Shock, and New York v Atlanta Reign all look set to go the favourites. Although, roster changes wiping out half of the established teams are definitely going to make things unpredictable These could be the ones to watch if you’re hoping for an upset though!

Changes to the League

Those are some of the bigger matches at the OWL Week 1 2022. However, the biggest narrative going into the weekend is just how the League will adapt to the new Overwatch. There’s a new hero for the first time in a while, big changes to exisiting heroes, and even a change in format to 5-v-5. Adapting to the faster style of gameplay with Overwatch 2 and one less tank is going to be the two most defining factors of the weekend. While we’ve looked at which matches look exciting for Overwatch betting, this beta is a wild card. It has the potential to upend the current rankings for Overwatch, it’s an exciting time to be watching League.