Video Credit: Akshon Esports
Yesterday, in the Overwatch League Playoffs Semifinals, Philadelphia Fusion proved it was one of the world’s best teams, absolutely crushing favorites New York Excelsior in a 3-0 sweep and earning themselves a 1-0 lead. Given just how dominant New York Excelsior had been in the regular season of the league, this was a huge win for Philadelphia, and for once, New York didn’t look like the unstoppable force it did before.
Map 1 went poorly for Excelsior, for though they had a decent chance of taking the map, their early game struggles led to a failed final push. Particular standouts for Fusion included support Alberto “neptuNo” Gonzalez, who took out New York DPS Kim “Pine” Do-hyeon, effectively shutting down New York’s final offense for the map. Fusion also took initiative to apply pressure on Excelsior, with one of the major factors being Fusion DPS Josh “Eqo” Corona, who led all players with a ridiculous 9,401 damage per 10 minutes.
Excelsior fought back the second map, as DPS player Park “Saebyeolbe” Jong-ryeol wreaked havoc with Tracer, but it wasn’t enough. The rest of the Excelsior team struggled, and Philadelphia flex player Choi “HOTBA” Hong-joon crushed New York’s chances with a great D.VA self-destruct play, taking out 4 Excelsior players at once.
The primary reason Fusion dominated so heavily was most likely due to their better preparation after the new patch. On Eichenwald, they came into the games with a three-tank and three-support comp, a move to which New York had no answer. As a result, New York was swept for the very first time this season, a result even more shocking considering that Dorado and Oasis (the first two maps) were two of New York’s strongest maps during the regular season. Up until now, New York hadn’t lost on Dorado since Stage 1 of the regular season.
New York will face off against Philadelphia again this Saturday at 8 PM ET, a game they’ll have to win if they want to keep their playoff dreams alive. Fusion only needs one more best-of-five series win against Excelsior to move on to the finals, so New York is going to figure out what went wrong Wednesday and come back strong. Don’t miss out on the action — you can watch through Twitch, Disney XD, ESPN, and ABC.