Last Saturday, I attended the Overwatch League match in Philadelphia, to watch Philadelphia Fusion vs Washington Justice. The energy in the room was incredible, with the crowd cheering extremely loud and jumping up at every good play made by the Fusion, with constant booing whenever the Justice did well. There was a single person near me wearing a Justice jersey, and almost everybody in the crowd would yell and point at him whenever they lost a fight in the game.

The Singular Washington Fan

The game opened on the Control map Nepal. On the first point, the Fusion lost the point at 99% to capture, and the Justice got the come back to win the round. On the next point, the Fusion decisively won to the enjoyment of the crowd, putting the map score at 1-1; the next round would decide who gets the first overall match point. The entire round was extremely back and forth; every time Fusion won a fight, Justice would win the next. Eventually, each team had 99% on the capture point, and Justice was currently up in the fight to the dismay of the fans. Going into overtime, Carpe on the Fusion switched to Widowmaker, a sniper character who is not a common pick at this point in the game, but and he managed to kill nearly the entire team, clutching the first map win for the team.

The next map was the escort map, Havana, and overall Washington outplayed the Fusion, with Corey from the Justice consistently flanking behind the Fusion and killing their support backline. There wasn’t many standout plays from either team.

The match was now tied, with the next map being the hybrid map King’s Row. Justice was attacking first, and the Fusion held for almost the entire 4 minutes due to the heroic plays by their main tank Sado, however, Justice was able to capture the point and pushed the payload almost to the end of the map. The Fusion was able to stop their push, but this now meant that to win the map they had to capture the first point and completely push the payload to the final position. On their turn to attack, the Fusion quickly captured the first point, and with a small amount of resistance by the Justice, were able to fully push the payload and win the map, bringing the score to 2-1 in their favor.

At this point, if the Fusion won the next map, Temple of Anubis, they would secure the match win against the Justice in front of all their fans in Philadelphia. The Fusion attacked first, quickly capturing both points on the map. Next was the Justice; they struggled to capture the first point and appeared to be unable to capture the second point. However, on the last fight, the Fusion pushed up far past the point, and Ark from the Justice snuck past and captured the final point alone. Now, to win the game the Fusion had to defend against the Justice’s next attack, and then successfully capture the next point. The Fusion did just that, and the crowd went wild, cheering for their home team.

Overall, it was a great experience to go to one of the games live. Seeing how energetic the atmosphere was, and cheering in a group together for my favorite team was extremely fun.

The Overwatch League will be holding its second week of games in Philadelphia (and I’ll be attending it!), so we will talk about Philadelphia Fusions and one of their opponents, Washington Justice.

Philadelphia had a fairly interesting off-season. Although they have a great off-tank in Poko, they signed a potentially stronger Fury from the London Spitfire, who has been consistently ranked as one of the best at his role. In addition, the explosive flex support on their Contenders (lower level league) team, Alarm, is now old enough to play in the Overwatch League, and will likely take the starting spot from the mediocre Boombox. The other starting support will be FunnyAstro, who has proven his worth in many tournaments. They also signed DPS players Ivy, Heesu, and Chipsa, however, it is unclear how much playtime they will get when they kept the DPS duo who carried the team through Season 1, Carpe and Eqo. The biggest question mark on the team revolves around their main tank, Sado, who has consistently been the weakest player on the team. Sado is directly a bad player, but his level of play tends to be dependent on his teammates; if the team does not play well, Sado will play poorly, but he will be a serviceable tank if his teammates are playing well. With their new signings, Philadelphia Fusion will likely stray away from their streaks of incredible play followed by mediocre play and are looking extremely strong against other teams going into this season.

Washington Justice’s biggest strength lies in their DPS line, Corey and Stratus. Last season, the Justice was one of the worst teams, with a disjoint tank and support line, however, once Corey started playing DPS in stage 4, he shined and hard carried the team to a 6-1 record. Stratus was a bit behind Corey in skill level but was never a hindrance to the team. TTuba was signed as DPS in the offseason, a relatively unknown player from Contenders, but it is unclear if he will start over Corey or Stratus, as he has less experience than both. They replaced their tank line with former LA Gladiators tank Roar, and the European duo Ellivote and Lullsish. Roar was an extremely hyped player for LA going into Season 2, and he played fairly well, but not up to the par that was expected of him, and Ellivote and Lullsish have a very long history of playing together, so their synergy together could help the overall team play They maintained their main support, Ark, who was a serviceable player but replaced their flex support with Aimgod, an upper-tier player from the Boston Uprising. 

On paper, Fusion has a better tank and support line, and they have comparable DPS lines, but from last week the games seemed to depend heavily on the DPS to make strong plays, so the game could be close. Corey proved himself to be one of the best DPS players at the end of Season 2, so the match could go his way if he can maintain that level of performance. Towards the end of last season, Fusion’s DPS duo was fairly mediocre, but if they are able to return to their peaks from Season 1 they could outplay Corey. Either way, I’ll be rooting for the Fusion at the game!

Overwatch League’s 3rd season starts this weekend, with the games being played in New York City and Dallas. 8 are games being played this weekend, so I will discuss the most interesting game to watch for each day. For Saturday, it is the London Spitfire vs New York Excelsior at 3 PM, and for Sunday the San Francisco Shock vs Dallas Fuel.

The London Spitfire’s roster consists of one returning player, Krillin, who received fairly low playtime last season, and new players from various teams in Overwatch Contenders, the lower level of competition from the Overwatch League. Their most anticipated pick up is Glister, a DPS player who previously was on team Gen.G; he was played extremely well in past tournaments and was sought after by many different Overwatch League teams. The other players, however, were either relatively unknown or considered to be average by the League’s standards. They are the clear underdog going into their match, and their performance will depend heavily on how well their star player, Glister, performs.

London Spitfire 2018 Roster, Season 1 Champions, who all are no longer on the team

New York Excelsior is an extremely accomplished team, who finished first overall in the standings for Season 1, and third for Season 2. Their returning players, Mano, Saybyeolbe, Libero, Nenne, Anamo, Jjonak, and Bianca have all been widely regarded as some of the best players for their respective roles, with Jjonak receiving the MVP award for Season 1. Some of their newcomers, however, show incredible promise. Whoru, a DPS player who led the Fusion University team to several undefeated seasons in Overwatch Contenders, is widely known for his aggressive Genji play, and Hotba, who previously played on Philadelphia Fusion and Guangzhou Charge, has been a consistently strong tank player over the past seasons. This team’s established synergy from years of playing together, and widely hyped newcomers, will be difficult for the fairly new roster of London to overcome.

Jjonak, Season 1 MVP with his trophy

The next game features the winners of Season 2, the San Francisco Shock. At the end of last season, they were by far the best team, beating the Vancouver Titans in the playoffs 4-0. Their team had the Season 2 MVP, Sinatraa, the tank and support from the USA World Cup team, Super and Moth, and the explosive flex support in Viol2t as their star players. The Shock was so powerful as a result of their incredible teamwork in-game, with players all using their abilities in unison to dismantle all the opposing teams and the players’ high individual skills. Almost every power ranking for the next season has the Shock at the top, so they are the clear favorites to win their first match.

San Francisco Shock after winning Season 2 Finals

In the past, Dallas Fuel has been a fairly mediocre team, placing 10th in Season 1 and then dropping to 15th for Season 2. However, their offseason pickups for the team could help to bring the team up in the rankings. Decay, previously on LA Gladiators, and Doha, who played on the winning team of the Overwatch Contenders Gauntlet, are their two new DPS players, and both have been the carry players for each of their previous teams. Together, they will likely be one of the best DPS lineups in the entire league. In addition, the team signed main tank Gamsu, from Shanghai Dragons. The “meta” (what heroes and team compositions are considered best at the time) for Season 3 appears to include the tank Wrecking Ball, who not many tank players have much competitive experience with. Gamsu, however, played this hero frequently on the Dragons and was able to win the Stage 3 title against the dominant meta at the time. With Gamsu’s experience on Wrecking Ball, and the new star-studded DPS lineup of the Fuel, there is potential for the upset against the defending champions, the Shock, and even if not it should be a close, exciting game to watch.

Dallas Fuel 2020 Roster. From left to right, Doha is 3rd, Gamsu 6th, and Decay 7th