GR Pick: Overwatch Pro Pulls Off Epic Save as Winston
By AJ Caulfield 25 February 2017
Video game enthusiasts continue to outdo themselves as time goes on, honing their skills to near-professional levels and wiping out their competition with the flick of a wrist or the touch of a key. One Overwatch player actually is a pro, and recently competed in the very first Overwatch World Cup, showing off his insanely impressive capabilities as the tank hero Winston. Earlier this week when playing against a fellow eSports team, South Korean professional gamer Miro pulled off an under-the-wire recovery as Winston.
Season 2 of the eSports tournament Overwatch APEX 2017 is well under way, and Friday, February 24 saw two fantastic teams go head-to-head in the blitzy Blizzard game. South Korea’s Lunatic-Hai team took on the European squad Misfits, and while the whole pack of players on both sides played with precision, it was Gong “Miro” Jin Hyuk playing as everyone’s favorite genetically-altered gorilla, Winston, who stood out amongst the gunfire. In an eleventh-hour move, Miro utilized a supremely well-timed Jump Pack recovery.
Playing in the Greece-inspired Ilios map, Lunatic-Hai and Misfits were going after one another relentlessly, and when the opponents’ Pharah was blasting mid-air shots at Miro’s Winston, he decided to make an impressive move. Miro popped Winston’s ultimate ability, Primal Rage, which offers a massive health boost and an increase in melee attack effectiveness, in order to vanquish Team Misfits’s Mercy. However, when he took those few rounds of heavy-hitting damage, he consequently fell over the edge of the Ilios map. Miro appeared absolutely done for until he took advantage of Winston’s decreased cooldown time on his Jump Pack ability. The shout-casters commentating the match believed he was dead, but were noticeably impressed when they saw him come soaring back into the map. Even the audience can be heard gasping in the background at Miro’s epic recovery.
The mid-air comeback can be seen right after the 3:00 mark in the video below:
This kind of ballistic behavior is nothing new from Miro. Back in November of 2016, Blizzard Entertainment held its inaugural Overwatch World Cup, bringing together the greatest bands of team-based shooter experts to duke it out in hopes of achieving victory. Along with his Lunatic-Hai teammates, Miro exploded with power as Winston, his deftness in battle helping South Korea secure the game’s first ever world cup. More than that, Miro also received a most valuable player honor during personal tournament play. If his professional title and last-second recovery against Misfits didn’t already give away his Overwatch aptitude, his gaming craftsmanship during the World Cup surely should.
The news of Miro’s heroic save seems yet another building block in the tower of Overwatch stories breaking headlines this week. From the long-awaited (and much-teased) information on hero 24 to the news that Overwatch won Game of the Year at the 2017 DICE Awards, it’s as if everyone’s attention is on Blizzard and the Overwatch creative team to see what’s coming next. Anticipation has sky-rocketed, and players are on high alert for any type of announcement that could be lingering on the horizon.
It’s only natural for gamers to get excited over pro players smashing records, and when it concerns one of 2016’s most popular titles, may even serve as motivation for Overwatch fans to spend more time with the game’s characters and polish up their play-styles. And who knows, a lucky few may be able to fine-tune their skills as a new hero pretty soon — perhaps even Doomfist.
Overwatch released May 23, 2016 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
