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Today marked the first day of the grand finals for the Overwatch League and we got to see the two top teams face off in the Barclay Center in Brooklyn New York.
Before the game even began, panning shots of the crowd revealed just how huge this venue is a set the scene for the upcoming games.
Seats to the event had sold out long in advance and the sweeping views of an excited packed out crowd full of orange and blue showed a fan base ready to cheer on their favourite teams in a series that would not disappoint.
The first map in the pool was the payload map Dorado, and Philadelphia on the attacking side took the first point with speed.
London finally woke up and managed to stall the Fusion and hold them just outside of the first gate but a Dragon Strike from EQO’s (Josue Corona) Hanzo followed up with a Self Destruct sent far ahead of the team broke through London’s defense.
It wasn’t enough to take point two with Philadelphia’s Zenyatta, Boombox (Isac Charles) also needing to commit his transcendence to the fight to go the distance.
The final corner of this map has proven to be where most teams falter and it was no exception for the Philadelphia Fusion.
The hold from London pushed the match into overtime but despite the strong defender spawn advantage and a last-ditch dragonstrike from Profit (Jun-young Park) Philly finally managed to push the payload all the way to the final point.
With the teams swapped Birdring (Ji-hyeok Kim) secures the first kill in London’s favour which snowballs into the Spitfire almost totally wiping out the Fusion to take the first point.
Main tank Gesture (Jae-hui Hong) leapt forward to capitalise on the momentum and take out half Philadelphia’s team again before they can even make it out of spawn allowing an easy point two.
Once again the final corner was where everything slowed down with Philadelphia’s own main tank Sado (Su-min Kim) getting revenge by eliminating London’s supports.
The Spitfire have plenty of time in the bank though and look sure to take the point until Fusion pushes back with their support ults and devastate London with a team kill in overtime meters from the point.
Next up was the control map, Oasis and London were done playing around. The Spitfire were the first to capture University seemingly with ease thanks to the team’s superior positioning.
Philadelphia just managed to flip the point with London at 99% but it was clear that the Spitfire were willingly giving up the ground when they took it back with little fanfare.
This continued as the map moved on to Gardens and London used the triple support meta putting star DPS player Profit (Jun-young Park) onto the hybrid anti-dive hero Brigitte.
While Carpe’s (Jae-hyeok Lee) superb Tracer play did win Philadelphia the point initially, London came back with a team kill after Fury’s (Jun-ho Kim) D.Va put an end to EQO’s Pharah leading his team into another team kill onto the Fusion which ultimately won them this map.
This left us with a tie at halftime which exactly how we want to see a grand final game go. Both teams were playing exceptionally well but Oasis did seem just a little bit too easy for the Spitfire and with a team as emotional as the Philadelphia Fusion a loss like that didn’t bode well.
Eichenwald had Philadelphia back on attack and Carpe started the round out on Sombra to scope out London’s defence before switching to Hanzo.
This change allowed for a dragonstrike later after a few failed pushes, which split the defending team allowing Hotpa’s Tracer to clean up the dregs of London and give Philadelphia the first point.
Despite this relatively clean start London managed to hold the Fusion before the bridge in part thanks to EQO’s Pharah constantly being shut down.
This all seemed fine for Philadelphia as they nearly hold London at the first point with impressive tank play from both Sado and Hotpa.
The Spitfire just managed to cap the payload in the final minute and snowballed this to a win with Bdosin’s (Seung-tae Choi) Tracer sneaking around the backline and keeping the Fusion at bay.
That left Volskaya to decide if London could close out this series and Philadelphia started once again on attack.
The Fusion took a triple tank triple support approach but were taken out by clutch kills from Birdring’s Widowmaker.
Not to be discouraged they tried again coming around the top right-hand side and with a rally from Carpe’s Brigitte boosting the team were able to get fully onto the point.
Sado followed this up with some very satisfying aggressive Reinhardt play which almost got them the point but it wasn’t until the combination of Zarya and D.Va’s ults that they were able to take out London and secure point a.
This saw the team in fine form and they stormed point b to get the first tick on the point and nearly pushed it all the way to the second.
London were forced to have Profit swap to a stalling Mei while Nus (Jong-seok Kim) managed to Res up main tank Gesture pushing Philadelphia back and holding out for the rest of the match.
London didn’t look anywhere near as good in their initial attack as Philadelphia with a staggered kill onto Bdosin’s Ana really setting them back on time.
The second push even had a nano boosted dragonblade from Profit and still, they couldn’t find ground with him being shut down by renowned battle Mercy Neptuno (Alberto Gonzalez Molinillo).
Another push and Bdosin was staggered again, leaving the Spitfire no choice but to try once more in overtime where they surprisingly managed to take the point.
The team pushed straight on to the second point and some crazy Hanzo play from Profit almost cleared Philadelphia clean off the point but the respawn advantage saw Philly hold off on this first attack.
Unfortunately, for the Fusion the Spitfire made some key swaps moving the to McCree and putting Profit on to Tracer who managed to nearly team kill Philadelphia alone in the last few seconds of the game, capturing the point and winning London the series.
The interesting thing about this matchup is while London were dominant overall, when Philadelphia were good they were better than their opponents.
These brief glimmers of light mean the next two matches could still go either way if the Fusion can get back into the game.
EQO wasn’t in as fine form as what we’d usually expect and Carpe has very competent competition in the enemy’s Widowmaker meaning he can’t carry quite as hard as usual.
These matches were by far some of the most intense we’ve ever seen in the Overwatch League with crazy plays but the DPS duo which are so crucial to Philadelphia’s success were outmatched today by London’s own.
If the Fusion can’t pull themselves together and come back from this then they’ve probably already lost the grand final.