Philadelphia Fusion Take Down New York Excelsior To Move On To OWL Finals
New York Excelsior felt pretty confident heading into Saturday’s playoff match against Philadelphia Fusion, calling the series “winnable” despite trailing the series, 1-0.
But Excelsior’s confidence didn’t translate into their gameplay on Saturday until it was too late. Instead, Fusion was able to complete their upset of the Overwatch League’s most dominant regular season team. Philadelphia came out on top in a close 3-2 series and secured their spot in the upcoming OWL finals.
Even though the match was much closer than Fusion’s 3-0 victory over Excelsior on Wednesday, New York let some of Wednesday’s mistakes haunt them this weekend. Philadelphia made smarter, more effective hero swaps throughout the series, while Excelsior seemed to struggle with their composition.
After posting an impressive 34-6 regular season record, perhaps New York had gotten a little cocky, believing they could win any game against any team, no matter the situation. They even resorted to some off-meta tactics on Saturday, such as a random Sombra opening on Lijiang Tower. They seemed to start coming together during the fourth and fifth maps, but by then it was too late.
The series opened in Junkertown, where Philadelphia finished with a decent time. While New York had some awesome combinations between their two snipers, Kim “Libero” Hae-seong on Hanzo and Kim “Pine” Do-hyeon on Widowmaker, Fusion proved superior thanks to a few hard-fought tank battles on the cart and some help from series MVP Lee “Carpe” Jae-hyeok on Tracer.
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Excelsior was able to bounce back on Lijiang Tower and take their first map of the series. But then on King’s Row Fusion stomped on New York in one of the most one-sided maps of the entire season, finishing with 4:13 left on the clock.
Regular-season Excelsior began to shine through on Hanamura, where they pulled off a win thanks to some key sleep darts from league MVP Bang “JJoNak” Sung-hyeon on Ana.
It all came down to Dorado, where the teams fought neck and neck in one of the closest matches of the season. New York had 4:44 to finish the final section of the map, but came to a grinding halt when Fusion seemed stronger in the Brigitte battle on the ground.
Some key hero swaps from Philadelphia’s Josue “Eqo” Corona also helped put the last nail in Excelsior’s coffin. When New York’s Pine switched from Widowmaker to Hanzo, Eqo countered by swapping from Brigitte to Pharah and dominating from the sky.
“Not even once we underestimated the strength of our opponents, New York and Boston,” Eqo said in a post-game interview. “We pretty much gave everything we had into practice.”
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Now, Philadelphia is heading to the Overwatch League grand finals next week. They were the sixth and final seed entering the playoffs and will be facing off against another unexpected playoff contender, London Spitfire.
The teams share similar stories and boast similar strengths, which should make it a pretty epic series you won’t want to miss. Both teams feature two superstar DPS players and have some of the most versatile players in the league, Eqo for Fusion and Park “Profit” Joon-yeong for Spitfire. They’ve both also found succecss in flexing a tank or support to other heroes and are both able to hold their own when the fight gets nitty and gritty.
The teams will be heading to New York for the grand finals, which will begin Friday and will be broadcast live on ESPN.