Written by Colin ‘Howl’ Kenitz (01.21.2018)

[=] Seoul (4 – 0: 14 – 1 – 1) [=] London Spitfire (4 – 0: 13 – 4 – 0) [=] NYXL ( 4 – 0:13 – 2 – 1) [=] LA Valiant (2 – 2: 10 – 5 – 2) [ +2 ] Houston Outlaws (2 – 2: 13 – 4 – 0) [=] LA Gladiators 2 – 2 ( 7 – 10 – 0) [ +2 ] Philadelphia Fusion (2 – 2: 7 – 10 – 1) [ -3 ] Dallas Fuel (0 – 4: 2 – 12 – 2) [ +2 ] SF Shock (2 – 2: 8 – 8 – 1) [ -2 ] Boston Uprising (1 – 3: 7 – 10 – 0) [ -1 ] Florida Mayhem (1 – 3: 5 – 11 – 0) [=] Shanghai Dragons (0 – 4: 1 – 15 – 0)

1. Fuel the Fire – The Texas Rivalry

The Dallas Fuel have been under harsh criticism so far in OWL, sharing the worst record in the league with Shanghai. Despite this, I’m putting them at 8th, still above several teams with better records. It’s important to note that the Fuel have lost to 3 top 4 teams in the league. They have unarguably had the most difficult schedule thus far. Losing to Seoul, London, and LA Valiant are understandable and predictable. LA are proving to be the strongest of the non full Korean rosters so far. Losing to Houston in the Texas rivalry match was unexpected this week, and without a doubt the Fuel have a lot to work on in order to reach their previous form. However, Houston has shown that they’re a top contender along with the Valiant for the best non full Korean roster.

Houston has jumped so far up in the rankings this week because they look like they’re finding their groove as a team. Muma is an aggressive player, but this is complimented well by Coolmatt’s defensive style, protecting him as they dive. LiNkzr has become a reliably flexible DPS player, along with Jake’s consistency. Rawkus also has the flexibility to play a triple tank in death-ball style team comps. The Dallas Fuel have been struggling to find their identity as quickly as Houston, and their communication seems to break down a lot quicker, resulting in synchronized dives and poor target selection.

Coolmatt isn’t the D.Va player that’s going to get massive kills with his self destructs, but he’s undeniably one of the most proficient D.Va’s in the league. He’s shown his defensive but reliable play style enables his team to comfortably make decisive dive plays. Since D.Va’s update she’s been played more aggressively. This has been an Achilles heel to players like Mickey, who is a fantastic D.Va player, but has had trouble feeling out her limits. He often loses his mech quickly, and since D.Va can’t just be resurrected back into her mech, that means an instantly lost team fight a lot of the time.

This match was insightful as to the power level of both of these Texas teams. Despite Dallas’ slow start, their coach KyKy has been consistent about his positivity that things will shape up soon. Once Dallas finds their form and gains some momentum I think they will begin to slowly rise back up the rankings. Next week they face the San Francisco Shock and the Boston Uprising, two teams they have a solid chance of conquering.

2. Close Calls

There were a couple matches that really disrupted my power rankings this week. First, I was going to rank the Fusion above the LA Gladiators, but in reverse sweep the Gladiators won the match 3 – 2. This series exposed the main weakness of an otherwise surprisingly strong Philly team, which is that they really only look proficient on a dive comp.

Shadowburn’s Pharah has looked pretty damn good, but taking him off the Genji disrupts the style the Fusion are comfortable with. Carpe’s Widowmaker is amazing, but as seen on point 3 of Ilios, this forced Shadowburn onto Tracer and Reaper, which he looked significantly worse on. Yet another example is Poko, who has only played D.Va barring a completely unpolished Zarya in their first game against Houston. If Poko could comfortably flex onto heroes like Zarya and Roadhog it would open up a lot more options for the Fusion.

Philly is struggling to maximize the value of their roster, especially their DPS players, due to their one dimensional play style. They played really well this week overall, but their weaknesses are being exposed, especially as a series goes on longer and their opponents begin to adapt.

On another note, I was going to rank Boston above the Shock, but San Francisco won in the 5th game tie-breaker on Li-Jang Tower. I still could have ranked Boston higher, but it wasn’t just the score line that comes into consideration. Communication just seemed to break down in that 5th game for Boston. Breaking down under pressure is simply something that can’t be absent from considering which team is better. San Francisco showed that they can really focus and clutch out a win when it really matters. The Shock played surprisingly well against Philadelphia earlier in the week too, showing a lot of growth from last week and edging out 9th place over Boston, bumping them up two places and knocking Boston back two.

3. Valiant’s Limitations, Spitfire’s Arsenal

This match up was one of the hottest series of the second week of OWL. Going all the way to a 5th game tie-breaker, the Valiant almost reverse sweep London, but fall short at the very end on Li-Jang Tower. London’s 2 – 0 win was especially notable since they lost on the previous control map (Oasis) 0 – 2.

The most predominant issue I see with the LA Valiant is their player overlap. They have Soon, who is a great tracer, but that’s basically all he plays. Then, they have Silkthread and Agilities, who are both Genji specialists. The fact that both of these amazing DPS players both specialize in the same champion means that they’re never going to be able to utilize both at the same time. Conversely, London has Birdring, Profit, and Rascal, each of which have large hero pools they are comfortable with.

On Dorado during London’s defense round Birdring plays Widowmaker because they want to try having Profit on the Reaper. When it doesn’t work out he just swaps to his Genji. Then, on their attack round, London puts Profit on the Widow since they want to have Birdring on tracer. This kind of flexibility is what makes teams like London so frightening and what’s limiting so many of the teams in OWL that don’t have this ability. On top of these two, London has Rascal, who’ve they’ve been using as a projectile specialist, but he’s another player who’s completely comfortable on so many heroes there’s almost no risk to subbing him in over these other two.

An example of LA’s limitations can be seen on Li-Jang. Projectile heroes are generally strong on Li-Jang, however London decides to go with Profit/Birdring, verses Birdring/Rascal on the previous control map. This choice is likely due to the fact that Birdring plays a great roadhog while Profit plays a great Zarya, two really strong picks on this map for triple tank team comps.

Oppositely, the Valiant sub on Silkthread for Agilities. Silkthread has shown he can play widow, and he’s probably a slightly better Genji player overall, but LA are forced to pick Agilities here because he can play the Roadhog and Pharah. This player substitution is a result of needing to answer the flexibility of London, but exposes LA’s limitations from their DPS and tank players.

Player of the Week

(On Oasis against Dallas Fuel per OWL)

Austin ‘Muma’ Wilmot – Muma is a player who came into the OWL with a plethora of aggressive highlight reels, but couldn’t really be considered a top tank player in this league. In the preseason and first two weeks of season 1 he’s grown immensely. He looks to have tempered his aggression a bit in favor of a style that will enable his team, along with Coolmatt. He’s had impressive performances against some of the best tanks in the league already, such as cocco, Fragi, and even holding his own against Janus and Mano in many fights. If his improvement doesn’t taper off he’s on pace to lead the Houston Outlaws to a run in the playoffs.

Tune in next Sunday for a summary of week 3’s OWL matches. Look out for other content on OWL in the future, or check my archive of past articles.

Twitter: @Howl_CK