“Boston is Uprising, let’s start the revolution.” These were the words spoken by caster Robert “hexagrams” Kirkbride after the giant screen in the Blizzard Arena turned completely dark blue, overwhelming the Orange that covered half of it just a few seconds before. This was the moment that one of the three undefeated full korean rosters had their first defeat in the Overwatch League. Not by the hand of Dallas Fuel or LA Valiant as many might have expected, but by the hands of Boston Uprising. How did the undefeated Korean mix of former Apex teams GC Busan and Kongdoo Panthera fall to an opponent that was considered middle of the pack in the OWL?

London Spitfire came into this match 5–0. They had, up until this point, dropped a total of 5 maps, half of those dropped by the Boston squad. 2 maps were against LA Valiant, which seems like the strongest squad that does not have a full Korean roster. They didn’t get here looking unbeatable though. Control has seemed like an issue for them since the start of the season. In the 4 matches they played, they lost Oasis (the Control Map) in every single one except the first, against Philadelphia Fusion. 2 of those losses were 0–2 versus LA Valiant and Dallas Fuel. Even though control was an obvious flaw from the Koreans, Boston hasn’t been a strong control team by any means, the only victory they achieved in a control map was a 2–0 on Oasis against Florida Mayhem. If Control was a problem for both teams, how did the less skilled Boston line up manage to crush the Spitfire with 2 wins on this type of map, one of them being a 2–0?

The London squad starts Ilios with a roster swap: Hooreg in- Rascal out. This was the second time Hooreg played in the OWL stage, the first being an Eichenwalde game VS San Francisco Shock in which he only played Phara. Ilios is a map that sees a lot of play from this specific hero but Hooreg came in to play McCree. Boston decides to mirror the compositions and Dreamkazper ops into the Western Duel. Due to better target focus and ult management the first round ends with a clean win for the Spitfire.

The second round kicks off with two hero swaps from the London squad: Hooreg goes back to the Phara and Bdosin trades the Orbs for the Boops, opting into Lucio. The first fight near the Well is a crushing defeat for the Boston Uprising, who decide to follow Spitfire’s footsteps, with Dreamkazper going Phara and Neko going Lucio. This still gives a big advantage to the Korean squad, with Hooreg and Bdosin having around 50% advantage on ult charge on those heroes alone. It doesn’t take long for Kazper to shoot the opposing Phara out of the sky but London manages to win the fight anyway. When the control meter is reaching 70% for the Spitfire, Boston reassures control of the sky with Hooreg being killed by Dreamkazper as the first blood once again and, sure enough, this time it works out for the Uprising team as they manage to retake the point once it reaches 91%. This causes Hooreg to go back to the McCree. The rest of this round is an amazing display of team play from the Boston squad: Dreamkazper has complete control of the skies, constantly dealing damage and farming his ultimate at a very first pace, with both Striker and Gamsu constantly negating Hooreg’s impact on the McCree, which was pretty much none.

To finish it all we have Ruins, also known as the Widowmaker shooting range, so Hooreg and Dreamkazper get back to facing off in a hitscan duel. The latter takes the better of the first fight and the point goes over to Boston. At 61% control the Spifire take back the point, with the Korean sniper winning the Widow duel twice in a row, but the Uprising show very good ult management, saving their ults and trying to get on an even footing with the London squad. This culminates in a fight with 4 ults on either side, the most important being both Transcendences. But this fight is pretty much over as soon as it starts: Striker gets a very quick pick onto Bdosin, who is neither able to ult or to be Ressurected by Nus who hasn’t gotten his Valkyrie yet, so Boston take back control at 61%-87%. At 90% the last fight starts and, even though both Valkyries are up, the key difference is that Bdosin still has his Trans and Neko is only around 40%. Once the fight breaks out, both Mercys Ressurect two people but the Spitfire get in trouble when Bdosin is forced to ult to save himself. No one else on his team is low except Fury, who ends up losing his mech as soon as the Transcendence is popped anyway and, as soon as the AOE healing runs out, Gamsu gets the kill on both Supports and Ilios is over.

Obviously, this series finished off with a control map as the decider: Lijiang Tower. There was a key difference here that gave even more control away to the Boston Uprising, who managed to take the map 2–0. Dreamkazper’s Phara was still unanswered and was the main reason Spitfire lost the first fight on both points. But this time the London squad didn’t even attempt to play Phara, with Birdring sticking to the McCree. The other change was that when the Boston DPS player was forced off the Phara, he didn’t opt into a Hitscan duel, he went with the Genji. So, even more so than in the previous control map, the McCree impact was pretty much none for the entire game.

At the moment, the London Spitfire do not have an evident Phara player and their McCree players have not been able to nullify her as someone like Pine. Will this be a persistent problem? Should a player like Hooreg or Rascal dedicate more time to dominating the skies, or should the hitscan play be upgraded? We will see if they have an answer to this issue in the next week of the OWL, once they face off against Seoul Dynasty and Fleta’s mighty Phara.