The NGE Overwatch Winter Premiere finally came to an end on Saturday, as the final four teams competed for the last time on the live stage in San Antonio, Texas. The Immortals took home $40,000 for first place after beating Ghost Gaming in the final. Luminosity Gaming finished third.
The third-place match between compLexity and Luminosity Gaming started off the excitement as their first map came to a draw on Temple of Anubis. Since NGE doesn't have a sudden death round or tiebreaker in this format, the map becomes nullified and they play more games total to decide the winner.
This best-of-five between coL and LG became a long, tiring and grueling experience as LG almost closed out the game by winning both Lijiang and King's row, but dropped the next two games on Hollywood and Nepal.
With compLexity in prime position to reverse-sweep LG, things didn't look like it could go wrong until LG chose Dorado to be the final map. There, LG achieved a full hold on the first point with the assistance of Team Captain Vytis "Mineral" Lasaitis placing a crucial Shield Generator from Symmetra that allowed them to withstand the onslaught. Unfortunately, Anthony "harbleu" Ballo took the game right out of compLexity's hands as he once again made a solo-attempt to flank the enemy team on Roadhog, only to be caught and killed. He did this on King's row earlier in the day, too, and it allowed LG to push to the first point on the very first attempt, sealing compLexity's fate.
With LG cemented as the third place team in the Winter Premiere, all that was left was to watch the carnage between Ghost and Immortals as they duked it out for the first place prize and prestige.
It was no surprise that these teams met in the finals given that they came out of the round-robin phase with the two best scores, but when it came down to the actual matchup, it looked like Ghost had finally gotten Immortal's number as they laid waste to them on Lijiang Tower 3-0. IMT refused to give in, and even in the face of several technological delays, reverse-swept Ghost on Dorado, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, and Nepal. Christopher "GrimReality" Schaefer played McCree once again to near perfection, even pulling off some superhuman flanks at the end of Watchpoint, taking out members of Ghost with Deadeye followed up by a few quick headshots for the victory.
The curtains close as Immortals are rightfully awarded the first-place prize from this two-month long ordeal, while Ghost Gaming walks away in second. With the year only beginning, each one of these teams will be looking to improve themselves for future tournaments.