After the long grind of the Overwatch League’s sixth season, 2023’s best team was decided live in Toronto, Canada. It was a battle between two goliaths, but in the end, Florida Mayhem got to hoist the trophy over their heads and be crowned OWL Champions 2023.
Inspired by an outstanding DPS display by Grand Finals MVP MER1T, Florida Mayhem took down Housin Outlaws 4-0, getting their hands on the coveted trophy for the first time in their history.
When the series began, it looked like Houston were getting the edge over Florida, with the recently announced regular season MVP Someone playing Reinhardt and not getting much value. While he did make swaps, notably to Sigma, it was MER1T who turned their fortunes around to win Control. That momentum carried to map two on Blizzard World, where the Mayhem held the Outlaws just before the third point and proceeded to roll their way past it on their attack.
A tough, close map on Suravasa led to yet another outstanding triple kill from MER1T on Bastion, clutching the final fight to get the map and the 3-0 lead. One map away from their title, Esperança was to be their coronation. It was close the entire way through, but some clutch moments from almost every Mayhem player led to the final two fight wins and their first title.
Funnily enough, this means that each team who finished bottom four in the inaugural year of the Overwatch League have now won a championship, from the 0-40 Shanghai Dragons to the Florida Mayhem. All of these organizations managed to rebuild their teams and find success, some sooner than others, but all succeeded and got their championship.
One of the longest-tenured Mayhem players is DPS player Checkmate, who made his entire team laugh when he responded to questions from the media. He likened his time with the Mayhem to “starting from rock bottom and riding the wave to the top,” and the moment of victory to a “heart attack, vision going blurry, feeling dizzy.”
Even with that elation, he was confident in his win, saying they knew they would win the title “as soon as we formed the roster and played three days of scrims.”
In the end, the man who spoke the most was the charismatic Someone, who said “when I joined the league after my stint in Contenders, pros and fans didn’t have a great reception of me. My motivation was to prove them wrong, and as I beat better and better players, it just kept adding to the momentum building behind me.”
That momentum led to one of the most one-sided finals in OWL history, and both the 2023 MVP and Dennis Hawelka Award winner got to bring the championship trophy with him out of Toronto and back to Florida.
