The Battle of the Broads has made its way into esports with the Philadelphia Fusion and New York Excelsior facing off in week 3 of the Overwatch League’s 2020 season.
Though the series wasn’t easy, Philadelphia stayed perfect by taking a 3-1 win over New York.
The rivals battled it out, but NYXL were put on their back foot early as the Fusion exploded out of the gate to take the first map 3-2 and scored an effortless sweep of Horizon Lunar Colony in map two.
Map 3 was more difficult for the Fusion. They made a good push through points one and two, but were stopped by the NYXL ahead of point three. Su-min “SADO” Kim was unable to use Earthshatter on Reinhardt due to strong Reinhardt play on the other side by Hong-joon “HOTBA” Choi. A few stumbles by Philadelphia gave NYXL the win.
NYXL fans were hoping for a turnaround on map 4, but the NYXL were unable to contest the Fusion’s star DPS Jae-heyok “Carpe” Lee’s flanking McCree. Daniel “FunnyAstro” Hathaway constantly harassed SeongHyun “jjonak” Bang, which was a key factor in their victory.
WIN.gg was in attendance to speak with Assistant Coach Christopher “ChrisTFer” Graham about their strategy.
“100% it was our plan [to cover jjonak]. If you stop jjonak from farming then New York instantly become the weaker team and we had been playing the entire week with [Gael “Poko” Gouzerch] playing to kill Ana.” ChrisTFer said.
Head Coach Yong-cheol “imt” Jeong also opened up on the loss to WIN.gg. He said NYXL’s misstep was misjudging the positions in which Carpe would be flanking. “He’s normally flanking, and that’s the part we prepared for today, but he played really well today and we tried to find the places where he could be hidden and flank us back but we missed that today,” he said.
The Fusion are currently on the top of the standings with a 3-0 record. The Vancouver Titans are in second at 2-0. The NYXL are in fifth place behind the San Francisco Shock and the Toronto Defiant, who play the Fusion on Sunday.
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