Overwatch League Playoffs: Philly takes first match in their playoff series against Boston

The Overwatch League postseason is here, and Philadelphia Fusion and Boston Uprising clashed in the first ever Overwatch League playoffs game.

It’s been quite a few weeks since the Overwatch League wrapped up their inaugural season, but the league is back with its first ever postseason playoffs. Over the next three weeks, the top six finishers of the regular season will vie for the title of champion and a prize pool of $1 million.

Philadelphia and Boston kicked off the playoffs on Wednesday, playing their first match of two at the Overwatch Arena. Both teams had a roller coaster of an inaugural season, with stages where they looked brilliant alongside stages where they looked stifled. Boston is still the only team in the league to boast an undefeated stage record, a significant feat even though they lost in the stage championships to New York Excelsior. Even though the Uprising struggled in Stage 4, Boston was slightly favored to win the set over Philadelphia.

Wednesday night’s matchup was only the first of at least two matches the two teams will have to play to determine which team will move on to the semi-finals. Boston and Philadelphia will finish their set on Friday at 5:00 p.m. PST.

Map One: El Dorado

Philadelphia went on offense first, and easily took the first checkpoint with some great plays by Eqo on Hanzo and Sado on Reinhardt. With Boston only able to earn themselves three eliminations through the second point, the Fusion’s push continued to progress nearly unchecked until the third section of the map. And even as the Uprising finally got a couple more kills on the board in their favor, another terrifically combined set of ultimates wiped out any sort of defensive stand they had around the payload’s destination. Smoothly, the Fusion completed the map in their turn on offense.

Boston’s attack run was much more of a struggle. By the time the Uprising managed to reach the first checkpoint, they had less than a minute remaining on the clock. While they did gain time with the objective capture, this left them with much less time to complete the map compared to what Philadelphia had to work with. While the Uprising wasted no time in getting the payload nearly to the checkpoint, it predictably stalled the closer it got to the second point. With the attack run in overtime, Eqo gave Philadelphia the earlier edge with a brilliant pick on STRIKER. From there, the Boston offense slowly petered out, giving Philadelphia the first victory of the playoffs.

Map Score: Uprising 1, Fusion 3

Match Score: Uprising 0, Fusion 1

Map Two: Oasis

The Uprising started off much better on map two. Boston took control of the point on City Center first, patiently positioning themselves into advantageous situations to get the eliminations they needed to take control. The Uprising went on to completely shut the Fusion out of the point, putting on just the right amount of pressure to bait out Philadelphia’s crucial Transcendence well before the Fusion had made their big, ultimate-laden push onto objective. What would have been a tide-turning attack ended in lopsided disaster, and Boston reached 100 percent on the objective with no overtime necessary.

Boston was first to take the point on University as well, but Philadelphia this time was able to find an effective opening to take it back after the Uprising had only built up 35 percent. Thanks to a large bank of ultimates, the Fusion were able to hold onto the point until it reached 99 percent in their favor, at which point a furious battle ensued complete with offset Dragonstrikes. In the end, Philadelphia prevailed to tie up the map.

On Gardens, Boston started off in control of the point once again. While Mistakes and Eqo dueled in the skies as Pharah, STRIKER made his presence felt as Brigitte. The hero’s valuable ability to heal and deal damage at the same time helped Boston shut down opening after opening, allowing the Uprising to build up 84 percent before the Fusion finally made a comeback. Even then, the comeback was extremely short-lived. Mistakes’ next Rocket Barrage was fatal, wiping multiple Fusion players from the map, including the all-important Neptuno. Boston locked up the point and evened the match score.

Map Score: Uprising 2, Fusion 1

Match Score: Uprising 1, Fusion 1

Map Three: Eichenwalde

On attack first, Philadelphia quickly established themselves on the objective, which led to a quick point A take. Before the payload even got moving, the Fusion’s tanks were already set up on the high ground in the next portion of the map in an attempt to gain as much ground as possible with the payload. Carpe on Widowmaker also pushed far forward in an attempt to get some early eliminations. With Boston scrambling, Philadelphia easily reached the next checkpoint with still no deaths on their side.

With 3:30 still left on the clock, Philadelphia had nearly an eternity to push the payload just a few meters to the end point of the map. With their spawn point right next to the objective, Boston was able to survive three Eqo Dragonstrikes. However, Eqo’s regular arrows were really what did the consistent damage to Boston’s ranks. After their longest defensive stand on the map, lasting slightly over a minute, the Uprising gave in to the Fusion’s pressure.

Boston elected for a pure dive composition on their attack, and while the Uprising suffered first blood Boston was able to rear right back. Even faster than Philadelphia, Boston capped point A and started their push forward immediately. Similar to the Fusion, several members of the Uprising pushed forward to give their payload as much room to progress as possible. With some great eliminations getting traded back and forth, Philadelphia stabilized over the payload halfway over the bridge to the second point.

The Fusion was able to repel the Uprising several times before giving up the next objective, making sure that Boston entered the last section of the map with far less time than they had to work with. However, Note’s next Self Destruct notched two kills and blew things wide open for Boston. Shortly after, the Uprising completed their attack run, forcing to map into time bank rounds.

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With a very short amount of time to work with on their second attack run, Boston had to rush to the point and make things happen quickly. Boston fans were gratified that their team did exactly that, flawlessly. But even so, the Uprising were then tasked with pushing the payload as far as possible in overtime. Mistakes earned his team some forward ground with a multi-kill Dragonblade, and STRIKER on Tracer nabbed plenty of eliminations as well to add to the effort. Philadelphia could not stop the Boston train until the payload was knocking at the door of the second objective, where the Fusion were finally able to stop them just short thanks to a perfectly placed Carpe Pulse Bomb on Boston’s Mercy.

Philadelphia bounced back on their next attempt on offense, with another quick first point take. However, Boston was able to dismantle Philadelphia before the payload made it across the threshold to the next portion of the map. The Fusion fortunately had time on their side, allowing them to rally together again for another push and that was all they needed to get the edge. Big Eqo plays combined with a big Poko Self Destruct cleared the way for the Fusion to get another map win.

Map Score: Uprising 4, Fusion 5

Match Score: Uprising 1, Fusion 2

Map Four: Volskaya Industries

The Fusion put three tank players into their lineup for this map but had Hotba, a usual D.Va, play Tracer. With Hotba badgering members of the Uprising while Eqo aggressively pushed onto the point as Hanzo, Philadelphia quickly assured themselves point A. That quickly snowballed into a dominating point B take as well, leaving them with 5:22 still on the clock.

Boston tried once again to attack with a dive composition. They found Philadelphia much less malleable this time than on Eichenwalde. Over and over again, clashes left both teams without a Mercy, which meant the skirmishes came right down to which team could get the most kills. Unfortunately for the Uprising, that was the Fusion time and time again. With less than a minute on the clock, Philadelphia moved their defense right up against Boston’s spawn point to rob them even of the ability to attack. With that, the Fusion took the first match in the series.

Map Score: Uprising 0, Fusion 2

Match Score: Uprising 1, Fusion 3