The time of judgment came and passed, as the final day of the NGE/Blizzard Overwatch Winter Premiere's group stage came to its conclusion. With six teams in contention and only four advancing to the playoffs, it was do-or-die time at the North American league.
Things looked scary for compLexity as they lost their final game of the group stages to Kungarna, who ran them through the grinder on Eichenwald simply by running past coL's Reinhardt to land a Graviton Surge. With all the rookie mistakes compLexity made, they left their fate up the gods for the rest of the day. As long as the right teams won their matches, coL still had a chance to advance.
The stars aligned for them, as the top teams in the standings, Immortals and Kungarna, won both of their games. As stated, Kungarna ran a clinic on compLexity, but they also smashed Renegades on Watchpoint: Gibraltar with a full hold as Andrej "BABYBAY" Francisty proves once again why he is one of the biggest threats in the tournament. Time and time again, he finds a perfect vantage point to rain bullets on the opposing team, but that is also only possible due to the perfect set-up from the rest of Kungarna in the first place. The team's threatening posture allows BABYBAY to strike from the shadows.
The other top team, Immortals, went 2-1 in both of their matches against both Liquid and Luminosity. Each member of IMT has a clear understanding of his role and can adapt his hero selection based on what he thinks is necessary against specific opponents on specific maps.
Most of the time, you see IMT's Christopher "GrimReality" Schaefer on Soldier 76, but he also plays Zarya which lets Brady "Agilities" Girardi pull out Genji when he feels comfortable that he can carry towards the end of a map. More than that though, IMT's teamwork shines brightly, as demonstrated when they took out Team Liquid on Hollywood. On offense, George "Hyped" Maganzini shot a well aimed D.Va Self-Destruct over the heads of Team Liquid that finished off four people. It's likely this D.Va multi kill could have been prevented, but aggressive play combined with Stefano "Verbo" Disalvo's Lucio speed boost caused TL to drop the Reinhardt shield in panic, which doomed the Team Liquid lineup.
At the end of the day, Team Liquid and Renegades were the bottom two teams of the second group stage and have been eliminated from the competition. Immortals, Kungarna, compLexity, and Luminosity Gaming advanced to the bracket Live Stage phase at PAX South that will take place on January 27 with a first place prize of $40,000.