The London Spitfire have won the first stage of the Overwatch League

The first stage of the Overwatch League’s inaugural season has come to a close and the London Spitfire are the League’s first stage winners, after they defeated the New York Excelsior 3-2 on Saturday night.

The final day of the Overwatch League’s first stage started with a battle between these two eventual finalists, but in the first series, NYXL won 3-2. This put New York directly into the finals as the first seed. After the remainder of the day’s regularly schedule games, London Spitfire were forced to face off against the Houston Outlaws in the playoffs for a second chance to beat NYXL that day. London defeated Houston 3-1, and moved on to the Stage One Finals.

After the first two maps, the finals seemed all but over for London Spitfire, who dropped the first two maps to New York, who seemed particularly dominant on map two, Oasis. But, never one to be counted out, London battled back on Horizon Lunar Colony and Numbani to draw the series even at 2-2 heading into Dorado, a map that the Spitfire had beaten NYXL on earlier that day. After a remarkably close final map, London Spitfire completed their reverse sweep and became the Overwatch League’s Stage One champions.

For their victory in the finals, the London Spitfire claim the $100,000 prize, while New York will take home a very respectable $25,000 as the runners-up.

With the first stage of the Overwatch League in the books, all of the teams involved will now have the chance for a little hard earned rest before Stage Two kicks off on Feb. 21. Each team’s record will start fresh for their Stage Two competitions, but their overall record will remain intact and will determine which teams move on to the end-of-season playoffs later this year.