As OGN's Overwatch APEX Season 1 gets closer to its grand finale, the fated showdown between Europe's EnVyUs and South Korea's Kongdoo Uncia set the pace for the finals next week on Saturday, Dec. 3 against South Korean team Afreeca Freecs Blue. While EnVyUs had a recent roster swap, it is stronger than ever in a meta that allows stand-in Pongphop "Mickie" Rattanasangohod to play D.Va 100 percent of the time for EnVyUs. This twist of fate is a huge reason for the European squad's victory over fellow EU team Rogue in the semifinals; it also turned out to be a deciding factor in defeating Kongdoo Uncia.
The tempo for the best-of-five was set early on on both Lijiang Tower and King's Row as game-making plays were executed by Kongdoo Uncia's Kim "birdring" Jihyuk on Roadhog versus EnVyUs's Jonathan "harryhook" Tejedor Rua's Soldier 76. Where harryhook was constantly getting the best possible vantage points to rain death upon Kongdoo Uncia, it was birdring who was continuously hooking in key members of EnVyUs's defense, even going as far as hooking in harryhook as many times as possible to stop the onslaught of the tactical visor.
While birdring and harryhook continued their duel to outshine each other in the heated faceoff, it was Mickie and fellow teammate Christian "cocco" Jonsson who nailed the coffin shut for Kongdoo Uncia on Eichenwald, the fifth map. At first, Mickie's ace D.Va, wasn't finding many multi-kills off her Self-Destruct ultimate. At the end, though, EnVyUs succeeded in pushing Kongdoo's entire lineup off the payload during overtime by sending Mickie into the pit of the enemy team to Self-Destruct. Kongdoo saw it coming and the move didn't kill anyone, but it didn't have to. EnVyUs succeeded in making its opponents step off the payload to survive, and then cocco on Reinhardt delivered the finishing blow by landing a massive Earthshatter, stunning the entire enemy team to prevent them from refreshing the overtime counter and erasing all opportunity for a comeback.
With this 3-2 victory and incredible tournament momentum at its back, EnVyUs will face off against Afreeca Freecs Blue for the $90,000 first prize and the title of first ever APEX Overwatch champion on Dec. 3.