The weekend has come and gone and so has the Fusion’s first homestand, so how did they get on? Did they beat the Mayhem and Justice? Or did they slip into last season’s weakness of throwing away games that they should win? If you read on, you’ll find out!
Just before I get into the game breakdowns, I have to say this homestand was absolutely incredible from start to finish. I was worried about the OWL heading into the season with this new homestand format but watching the games at the weekend, my opinion has completely changed and the future looks bright for Overwatch esports. The crowd were on fire, even when the Fusion weren’t on stage, Gritty leading the Fusion out for their games was fantastic and it was hilarious watching some of the fans react to Gritty for the first time ever. Our next homestand is in May and I just really wished we had one every week now! Right, onto the games!
Game 1: Washington Justice 1-3 Philadelphia Fusion:
The Fusion started out day 1 with a matchup against the Washington Justice. The hype behind the Fusion side was seriously high going into this opening game and, for the most part, the Fusion lived up to it. The starting lineup was a bit of a shocker to some OWL fans, with the Fusion deciding to keep Sado and Poko together as the tankline, rather than playing Fury as the off-tank with Sado. Another shock was that Eqo was dropped from the starting 6 for new DPS player Ivy. It turned out to be the right call as the Fusion ended up winning the match 3-1.
Map 1 saw the teams compete on Nepal and the compositions from both teams were very weird, it led to the Justice taking point 1 and it was pretty easy for them. Point 2 was completely different and Fusion took control, winning the point quite easily. Point 3 was a tense one, that went to overtime and it looked bleak for the Fusion, that was until Carpe put the team on his back and silenced the doubters when he switched to Widow and picked off 4 of the Justice players to earn map 1 for the Fusion.
Heading into Havana off that brilliant, clutch win on Nepal, it was looking good for the Fusion until they only managed one point off their offensive push and it was all down to our defense and whether it could hold. Unfortunately, after making the game a lot closer than it should be, the Justice managed to get 2 points and we headed into map 3 tied at 1-1.
Kings Row would be the third map of this series and this was another seriously close matchup. We managed to just about hold the Justice to 2 points on their offensive push, and right at the death, we managed to reach the third point and win map 3, giving us the chance to end the series on map 4. All of this was down to Carpe and his heroics, he really carried the Fusion through this series and was really effective at cleaning up kills after Ivy did well to initiate them.
Temple of Anubis would end up being the 4th map of this series and It looked like Fusion had it in the bag after a brilliant push that got us 2 points and then some solid defense gave us the view that the Fusion would hold on and win. However, Ark snuck around the back of the Fusion defense, as we pushed up to eliminate his team mates and captured the point for the Justice, taking the game to overtime.
Heading into overtime, the Fusion had more time with their push and that’s what won the map and the series for the Fusion. Sado had a fantastic Shatter with Rein during this that secured the win for the Fusion.
My standout player in this game was Carpe. It was tough to pick one as Ivy did so much that went unnoticed and Sado silenced a few of his doubters with his performance, but Carpe put the team on his back during the clutch moments of the series, especially that Widow play on Nepal.
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