After another 1-1 week, the Philadelphia Fusion find themselves barely in a playoff position. As weeks pass and the Fusion continue to find themselves on the losing end against top teams like the New York Excelsior, an unfortunate reality begins to set in. The Fusion might have taken the unfortunate role of gatekeepers of the Overwatch League. With their Stage 2 wins only coming against struggling teams like the Toronto Defiant and the Florida Mayhem, it’s not a hard case to argue. Although the team can have competitive series against the top-tier teams of the Overwatch League, it’s often not enough as the Fusion slowly become the benchmark for distinguishing a top tier team and a bottom tier team.

Fortunately for the Fusion, a possible solution to their problems can be found from an unlikely source. To find it, let’s take a look at another esport in Korea, more specifically the League of Legends Champion Korea (LCK), and the team Hanwha Life Esports. Through them, the Fusion can find solutions to move away from the gatekeeper status placed on them by fans and become a true top tier team.

Hanwha Life Esports: Korea’s Gatekeeper

Image courtesy of OGN

To better understand how Hanwha’s situation can help the Fusion rid themselves of the gatekeeper status, it’s important to understand Hanwha Life’s history and how they became the gatekeeper of Korea. The team’s history begins in 2015 under the original name of GE Tigers (later KOO Tigers and ROX Tigers), a legendary team most known for their amazing rivalry against SK Telecom T1 through 2015 and 2016. Soon after, the original roster would break up as a new roster came in and failed to live up to the team’s legacy. From that point in early 2017 to now as the newly branded Hanwha Life Esports, the team would make the playoffs once and barely miss out at sixth place every other time (except for a seventh-place finish in the summer of 2017).

The team’s issue was simple: the roster had some solid players on paper with the likes of top laner Park "Shy" Sang-myeon, who could still hold his own in the later stages of his career and mid laner Lee "Kuzan" Seong-hyeok, who was still a top player in his position at the time. However, there was a lack of synergy and the team as a whole just didn’t work. As a result, the talent of the roster was able to carry them to victory over the weaker teams, but against the top tier teams of the league, Hanwha would often fall short of victory. Despite this, Hanwha rarely made any roster changes and stuck with a similar roster for most of their time.

A path shared by the Fusion

Ben Pursell For Blizzard Entertainment

So how does the Fusion’s history line up with that of Hanwha Life Esports? While the Fusion have not been around for as long as Hanwha Life Esports, they are following some similar patterns. Despite a successful run in the Inaugural Season Playoffs, the Fusion were actually a middle of the pack team, ending the regular season at sixth place. While they had a successful Stage 2 as well, the team’s overall performance for the season was mediocre as they usually found themselves around the sixth to eighth spot in the standings. While the Cinderella run to the finals causes many fans to forget how the Fusion performed for the rest of the season, the reality is simply the team is a mid-tier team at best.

. @MonteCristo was right. Philadelphia had the easiest schedule, by far, last stage.



Their SOS was -0.80. The next-lowest was London, at -0.43. pic.twitter.com/XS9Qj1WG1c — Overwatch League Statistical Insights (@owlstatsnet) April 18, 2019

Coming into the second season, the Fusion made a single addition to the roster as they brought up promising support Elijah Hudson "Elk" Gallagher from their Contenders team Fusion University. Much like Hanwha, the lack of change would end up causing results mostly the same. Thanks to the easiest schedule in Stage 1, the Fusion would make the playoffs as the third seed and, after a close 3-1 victory over the Atlanta Reign in the quarterfinals, would get decimated by the San Francisco Shock. Now with a harder schedule in Stage 2, the Fusion once again find themselves at the middle of the standings. Along with that, the team currently lacks any wins against the top tier teams of the league with wins only coming from teams in the bottom-five.

The Solution? Follow the way of the Hanwha

So how does the Fusion get out of this situation? They must continue to follow the same path that Hanwha has traveled.

League of Legends Champions Korea

Coming into the 2019 season of the LCK, Hanwha finally made noticeable roster changes; the organization decided to place their bets on the young players. Hanwha would decide to keep a solid core in mid laner Kim "Lava" Tae-hoon and the longtime bot lane tandem of ADC Gwon "Sangyoon" Sang-yun and support Kim "key" Han-gi. To bolster their roster, they brought on jungler Kim "Moojin" Moo-jin, who just had a great showing at the World Championships. Finally, the team would add two solid top laners in Park "Thal" Kwon-hyuk and Kim "SoHwan" Jun-yeong.

With this roster, the team would go on to have a solid start to the season, ending up in fourth at one point. This was thanks to the team’s solid use of substitutes as needed and the team developing synergy at a fast pace. However, poor roster management late into the Spring Split would cause the team to finish at sixth once again. Despite this, the roster changes have been mostly a success as Hanwha should be a solid contender for a playoff spot in the Summer Split and poses an actual chance at taking games off the top teams in the league.

For the Fusion a similar course of action can be taken. Keep a few players that can act as the core of the team which at the very least will be DPS players Jae-hyeok "Carpe" Lee and Josue/Josh "Eqo" Corona along with flex player Gael "Poko" Gouzerch. To fill out the rest of the roster, the Fusion can do two things. The first is to place their bet on their young players in Contenders and bring them on to the main roster. The second path is to trust in free agency and pick up solid players that fit the team.

Regardless of what the Fusion do in this scenario, there are two main aspects to focus on. The first is picking up players that gel well with the team, especially Carpe in this case as evidenced by the current situation with tank player Joona "Fragi" Laine. Secondly, a solid tank that can adapt to different metas and team compositions.

While the Fusion may not find the success they’re looking for with these types of drastic changes, it’s still a risk worth taking if the Fusion want to move beyond simply being gatekeepers of the Overwatch League.