GC Busan came back against RunAway in the OGN Overwatch APEX Season 4 finals on Saturday to complete its Royal Road and become the first rookie team to win a South Korean major.
Map 1: Nepal (Control)
Map 2: Hollywood (Assault/Escort)
Map 3: Hanamura (Assault)
Map 4: Watchpoint: Gibraltar (Escort)
Map 5: Temple of Anubis (Assault)
Map 6: Dorado (Escort)
Map 7: Eichenwalde (Assault/Escort)
Nepal was an incredible nail-biter between the two teams, featuring the core strengths and weaknesses of both squads, but moreso RunAway. RunAway usually doesn't opt in for using long-ranged hitscan, instead placing its trust in Kim "Haksal" Hyo-jong's Genji and Lee "Stitch" Chung-hee's Tracer. In this case, it was a difficult fight against the Pharmercy combo of GC Busan's Lee "Hooreg" Dong-eun on Pharah and Jo "HaGoPeun" Hyeon-woo on Mercy. The two of them dominated and kept GC Busan on the point for as long as possible. Because RunAway wasn't using a long-ranged hitscan like Soldier 76, shooting down the high-flying duo and taking the point was difficult.
Even so, Haksal made it happen a few times. He unleashed some of amazing Dragonblades to assassinate the Mercy and Pharah in the skies, then used that vantage point to chain kills into the rest of GC Busan. GC Busan stayed resilient, though, and took Nepal regardless of this incredible Genji display.
After Nepal, RunAway fired back with wins on Hollywood and Hanamura to take a 2-1 lead in the series. Hollywood featured a fantastic final push into Point C where RunAway finished the map after Stitch got a Pulse Bomb to stick onto Hong "Gesture" Jae-hee's Winston, taking him and another member of GC Busan out.
Hooreg's Sombra was jaw-dropping when it was GC Busan's turn to push the payload on Hollywood, but it was stopped short, giving RunAway the map win. Hanamura featured a fantastic offense from RunAway, while GC Busan began to falter and couldn't pierce its opponent's defense. But here was where the tables would turn.
GC Busan DPS Park "Profit" Joon-yeong took the reins for his team. Hooreg switched to Tracer, which allowed Profit to play on Genji.
It was the right call, to say the least.
At the end of the entire best of seven, Winston's Lab had compiled the astonishing results. Profit, with 134 kills in the series to only 55 deaths, was easily the MVP of the match; no other player on either team had more than 90 kills, and only three players died less than Profit. Hooreg stepped up his game once he switched to Tracer, too: He went 53-23 while on the speedster compared to 31-28 across all other characters.
RunAway lost both Watchpoint: Gibraltar and Temple of Anubis in close skirmishes following the switch. It was, however, able to win the sixth map, Dorado, with an excellent defense off of the final point.
The final map, Eichenwalde was incredibly tense, with an very close finish of the map for GC Busan, who pushed the payload to the end only in overtime. RunAway had a heartbreaking attempt to push through the bridge but one by one, the members of RunAway fell, as did their chances.
RunAway for the second time on Game 7 in the finals of APEX, would fail to seize victory. GC Busan, meanwhile, became the first Royal Roaders in a team game in South Korea.