The Philadelphia Fusion picked up a 2-1 victory in a three-match series against the Boston Uprising on Friday at Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California, to advance to the Overwatch League semifinals.
After coming into the day with a 1-0 lead in a best-of-three with the three best-of-five series between it, the Fusion stumbled against Boston. The Uprising tore through the Fusion in a 3-1 series to force a third match, with the Fusion advancing to the next round after a convincing 3-1 rebuttal of that previous loss.
The Uprising came into Friday with intensity and knocked out a flexible Fusion in the first series. Boston swept through the first two maps, Junkertown and Lijiang Tower, while the Fusion struggled to settle on a team composition. Junkertown has been a notorious thorn in Philadelphia's side -- the team held a 2-8 record on the map during the regular season, tied with the Florida Mayhem for worst in the league -- and Boston was quick to capitalize.
The biggest boon for Boston was the DPS duo of Kwon "Striker" Nam-joo and Stanislav "Mistakes" Danilov, which stepped up in a big way, particularly Mistakes, after a lackluster first series on Wednesday. The Uprising's strong offense would reach a fever pitch in Lijiang Tower: Night Market, where it smashed the Fusion with 19 eliminations to two.
The Fusion stabilized when it brought in offtank Gael "Poko" Gouzerch for King's Row and Hanamura. Poko's aggression easily complimented both main tank Kim "SADO" Su-min and DPS Lee "Carpe" Jae-hyeok's bold and experimental playstyle on King's Row. However, the Fusion's experimentation also proved to be the team's downfall. DPS Josh "Eqo" Corona's slightly off-meta picks of Junkrat and Pharah found little success on either Junkertown or Hanamura.
Boston took the first series 3-1, but things went swiftly downhill afterwards.
Despite Boston picking three of the four maps during the final series, Philadelphia snowballed its way through its opponent thanks to the Fusion's flexibility. The compositions that failed in the first series, such as its triple-tank and triple-support compositions on Lijiang Tower, succeed spectacularly in the second series' Lijiang Tower map. Philly's compositional variety was helped by the Fusion's ability to switch between off-tank Choi "HOTBA" Hong-joon and Poko every map.
Even the rarely-seen support Park "DayFly" Jeong-hwan was able to get into the action. He played for the first time for Philadelphia since March 10, while Boston stuck with the same six players for eight straight maps and two series. The Fusion also played aggressively through the second series, pushing out into the Uprising's spawn after nearly every kill, notably on Eichenwalde and Hanamura in order to pick off players trickling out of spawn. Even the Fusion's main support, Alberto "neptuNo" González, found ways to get on the kill feed thanks to his aggressive Mercy play; his 110 final blows on the season are the most in the league by 52.
The Uprising's tight coordination fell apart in the second series as it attempted to counter the Fusion's aggression with triple-DPS compositions. While its compositions let Boston stay fast and mobile, it left the team with only a single healer, support Kristian "Kellex" Keller. The pressure on Kellex to keep his entire team alive would prove too much across the second series, as he was forced to expose himself in order to heal weak teammates and would get subsequently picked, a problem that has plagued Boston all year long.
Philadelphia easily capitalized on a strained Kellex to pick him off early in teamfights, leaving Boston without a healer and without a chance as it took the second series 3-1 and moved onto the next round.
The Philadelphia Fusion will advance up the brackets to next face the New York Excelsior at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday.