Boston Uprising vs Philadelphia Fusion

For our first match of the day we have an incredibly exciting clash between the Boston Uprising and the Philadelphia Fusion. Now these two teams along with the Houston Outlaws and the Los Angeles Valiant are currently neck and neck in the standings, they're all incredibly strong albeit quite inconsistent and they've also shown glimpses of brilliance over the past few weeks. The Valiant taking down Seoul Dynasty, Philadelphia taking down New York Excelsior and Boston taking down London Spitfire. With all four teams fighting for a spot in the Stage 1 playoffs, every single match and even map win could be the deciding factor.

Boston however has been on a real upswing over the last two weeks. After they upset London they continued their dominant run with two incredible 4-0 showings against the Los Angeles Gladiators and the Los Angeles Valiant last week.

They're entering this match with a ton of confidence and with good reason. They've already beat every team that was predicted to be their toughest opposition (outside the Korean giants) When they fought against the Valiant, they were better on almost every front. Their methodical approach paid off in spades starting off with Eichenwalde. They focused on shutting down Soon and succeeded admirably. Agilities tried his best but couldn't do much in the end, other than a couple of great Pharah plays. Boston was simply stronger, they communicated better and every single player did his part in order to secure the win. They've also been performing incredibly well on an individual level as well, with Kellex being the leader in Mercy final blows and Note having the lowest number of deaths on certain maps, and when Dreamkazper pops off and the opposing team invests resources to shut him down, Striker is always present - cleaning out the backline.

The Fusion on the other hand are in a confusing spot right now. They've been more inclined to start with Hotba as their flex tank instead of Poko which was a criticized and baffling decision from the very get go. Poko has not only shown better, more aggressive D.Va play (a big factor that allowed them to scoop up wins on more than one occasion) and his self-destruct kills are off the charts. To see him then benched in important, perhaps even high profile matches is a puzzling sight. If that wasn't enough, Poko is the player that has better synergy with their main tank Fragi (of Team Gigantti fame) who has one of the most aggressive "in-you-face" playstyles. When his team follows him and plays around his hyper-aggression they find success (more often than not) however they failed to do so with Hotba.

Luckily for Philadelphia, they're coming into this match with some momentum. They were able to outclass Dallas Fuel in 4-0 fashion last week. Even though Taimou started playing a lot better they never let him pop off and were consistently putting resources into shutting him down. Fusion's supports were also more impactful and more in-sync. (managing to die 14 times less in the first two maps against Dallas) However even when Dallas stepped up, Shadowburn was waiting in shadows just waiting to unsheathe his deadly ultimate and clean up. He doesn't use "Dragon Blade" that often (waits almost up to a minute before ulting) but when he does it's almost always a triple kill.

While Shadowburn and Carpe are a beastly DPS duo, they're going to find their match in Dreamkazper and Striker. Dreamkazper especially has the ability to play a plethora of DPS heroes at an insane level and will surely be a force to be reckoned with regardless of the map, and paired with one of the (surprisingly) best tank duos in Gamsu and Note, they're poised to take this series.

That said, do expect Philadelphia to put up a big fight. This could by all means turn out to be a five map brawler. They have the tools to win, however they're still not there yet in terms of team cohesion and communication.