London Spitfire’s past performances this stage are shocking and not in a good way. This team is not playing well, and even though they’re 1-5, which is better than Los Angeles Valiant (0-8), even the Valiant look more promising.

Over their last three outings, London Spitfire have lost against Houston Outlaws (1-3), Vancouver Titans (0-3), and Florida Mayhem (1-3), and even though they stole a map from the Outlaws, it’s tough to find a good reason to feel excited about Spitfire’s future.

Los Angeles Gladiators are not the best team in the Western Division, but they have been playing well and enter this match with a 4-2 record. Last week they defeated Vancouver Titans (3-1) and Vegas Eternal (3-0), showing improvement from their 1-3 run over the first two weeks of the stage.

On paper, Spitfire don’t look that bad since this team still consists of good coaching personnel and talented players, but based on what we’ve seen from them lately, it’s highly likely that the Spitfire will suffer another 0-3 loss on Friday.

Atlanta Reign are easily one of the top-two teams in the Western Division and the main candidate to qualify for Midseason Madness as West’s top seed. They’re 6-0 after four weeks of action with an 18-1 map differential, well ahead of the current second-ranked team, Houston Outlaws (5-1, 16-5).

Their next opponents, Vegas Eternal, sit on the other side of the league table, with no wins to their name (0-6) and an abysmal 1-18 map differential. However, they didn’t look too bad against Los Angeles Gladiators last week, when Eternal won two maps on King’s Row – Hybrid (2-3) and Junkertown – Escort (2-3).

Winning against Atlanta Reign looks like an impossible task for the Eternal; however, at the offered Overwatch betting odds, the value is with Vegas Eternal to win a map.

It’s not uncommon for OWL teams to experiment with compositions once they’re guaranteed a spot in the next event (it happened with LA Gladiators last week), and it’ll likely happen with the Reign on Friday. This won’t make it much easier for Vegas Eternal to win the series, but at +600, the underdogs are worth backing to win a map.

Washington Justice are 4-2 and guaranteed a top-nine finish, whereas New York Excelsior are not locked in for Spring Stage Knockouts yet. However, they should be safe unless London Spitfire and Toronto Defiant win all of their games and New York Excelsior lose against Washington Justice and Vancouver Titans.

Form-wise, Washington Justice are in a better spot. They went 1-1 in Week 3 of the qualifiers, with a dominant 3-0 win against San Francisco Shock and a one-sided defeat (0-3) against Houston Outlaws. On the other hand, New York Excelsior lost both their Week 2 games against the Shock (2-3) and Vegas Eternal (1-3).

Washington Justice should win, but $1.20 looks a bit too pricey. New York Excelsior aren’t one of the top teams in the league, but their DPS lineup is good enough for us to believe that they can cause problems to the Justice. At +137, New York Excelsior with a map advantage is a better choice.

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We’ve yet to see Seoul Dynasty and Seoul Infernal play this season, so it’s tough to make firm conclusions on which of the two teams should win. But individual talent-wise, there isn’t much to separate them.

Seoul Infernal (formerly Philadelphia Fusion) enter the 2023 season with two new players in tank Kim “Mag” Tae-sung (ex-Boston Rising) and Kim “skewed” Min-seok (ex-LA Gladiators), who are solid players. In addition, the Infernal also re-signed support Kwon “FiXa” Yeong-hun, which is a strange move knowing how mediocre FiXa was during his last stint with the team.

On the other side, Seoul Dynasty put together a very young squad of former 02 Blast players and mixed in some veteran blood in Kang “Void” Jun-woo to form a very exciting roster with the potential to grow. This comes with some unpredictability – especially early into the season – but the potential is there.

Seoul Dynasty are a bit of an enigma, but it’s unlikely that they’re that much worse than Infernal, who are a mid-table team at best. At the offered Overwatch betting odds, we like the Dynasty better.

Shanghai Dragons went from placing third in the 2020 OWL playoffs and winning the league a year later to finishing ninth-12th in the 2022 OWL Playoffs. And looking at the roster they’ve put together, things likely won’t look any better this term.

Shanghai Dragons have lost much of their top talent and now look more like a bottom team than serious title contenders. But when we rank teams, it’s more about how much they can achieve throughout the whole season and not so much how they’ll do in the first week.

Still, even if we weigh in the unpredictability of early-season matches, it’s tough to bet against Hangzhou Spark, who are legitimate title contenders with significantly better players than most other OWL East teams.

The Spark already placed fourth in the 2022 OWL playoffs, and with the signing of Luo “Twenty” Wenjie, Huang “leave” Xin, Chen “Lengsa” Jingyi, and Zhou “Mmonk” Xiang, it can only go up from here.

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Houston Outlaws enter their first match of the OWL Spring Stage Qualifiers as favourites to defeat Los Angeles Gladiators, which doesn’t sound right. Some may argue that the Outlaws have assembled a stronger roster for the 2023 season, but they’ve already lost against the Gladiators (2-3) in the OWL 2023 Pro-Am semifinals.

Although one result doesn’t mean much in the greater picture, there is no reason OWL betting sites should have the Gladiators priced as -138.89 favourites. Besides being 0-1 down in the head-to-head, the Outlaws also seem less flexible and much more reliant on the meta.

The big issue is that Lee “Fearless” Eui-Seok can’t play Winston, which won’t do any favours for the Outlaws when faced with the Gladiators, who are far more versatile with their compositions and look set for better long-term success.

This is still the first match of the season, so it’s tough to say what will happen. But at even money or better, Los Angeles Gladiators are an easy choice.

Vancouver Titans are not a top-tier team, and their performance at the Pro-Am would confirm that. They finished the season-opening event in ninth-12th place with two tough losses against San Francisco Shock (0-2) and Florida Mayhem (0-2).

In their defence, the Mayhem and Shock are two of the most stacked rosters in the league, so perhaps it’s not fair to criticise the Titans too much. But so far, they’ve yet to show anything promising.

Los Angeles Valiant have achieved even less at the Pro-Am, with just one win against Vegas Eternal (2-0) and three losses against Saints (1-2), London Spitfire (0-2), and Atlanta Reign (0-2), which is concerning. However, this team has some decent players and can claw their way to a mid-table finish if Alex “Seeker” Taylor and Domenic “Krawi” Akrawi step up. But for now, we would tame our expectations.

Vancouver Titans look stronger on paper, but we wouldn’t price them at just -2500, which is absurd for the season’s opening match. Los Angeles Valiant to win a single map at +110 is a clear choice.

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