Dallas Fuel vs Houston Outlaws

For our third match of the day we have an incredibly exciting clash between the Dallas Fuel and the Houston Outlaws.

Yet another battle for Texas, however this time around it's actually going to be very competitive.

Dallas continued their "miracle" run last week with a very solid 1W-1L showing and they're currently sitting with four wins and two losses.

With a win over the Outlaws they would not only avenge a loss but they would also overtake them in the standings as well. They're up against Florida on Saturday as well and a 2-0 week could in prepel them to Stage playoff contention. They have Seoul next week which is a very winnable match as well and with a 7W-3L record they would be a shoe-in for the playoffs and after three stages of absolute, abysmal mediocrity seeing the boys in blue compete at the highest possible level would be a treat.

Dallas are currently fairly one-dimensional in their strategy and that's quite the problem however they aren't really getting exploited right now. The Shock gave a very solid blueprint last week on how to handle Dallas but other than that they've been able to run Brigitte-centric team comps on almost every map and to a very high degree of success.

They're running Brigitte 72% of the time whereas the League average is sub 30% which is an insane difference. To their credit they're actually making it work and it's not the strength of the team comp that is allowing them to win so much but rather their stellar teamplay and coordination. Mickie's Brigitte isn't perfect but the way he plays her goes hand-in-hand with how Dallas want to play things out - constant unrelenting aggression.

Their loss to the San Francisco Shock was somewhat expected as they couldn't really handle the Shock's flexibility and individual level of play but the way they dismantled London Spitfire was nothing short of brilliant. They secured the 3-0 victory in exactly one hour (all commercial breaks included) and thus set the record for fastest match win in the entire League.

To be fair the fact that London played some abysmal Overwatch helped Dallas secure the win so fast but still. It was what we expect from Dallas - Taimou taking heads, Mickie bashing people left and right, Seagull switching and being fantastic on every pick and OGE making some insane clutch plays when it mattered the most. Unkoe is perhaps the biggest surprise as last week was the first time he was able to shine after weeks of ups and downs. His Zenyatta snipes were outstanding and he was the deciding fact more often than not.

London was simply too stubborn to adapt and switch, they played full dive and against a team specialized in countering dive that could've ended in only one way.

As for Houston they were able to get two much needed wins last week however it was at the expense of two of the worst teams in the entire League - Shanghai Dragons and the Florida Mayhem. Winning against the absolute bottom teams doesn't really go a long way, nor does it build any concrete momentum. While they are sitting with four wins and two losses they're far from a strong and consistent team right now.

They're too inconsistent and they have too many holes in their game. When you compare them to a team above them - the San Francisco Shock - the level of play, coordination and flexibility is night and day. They had a pretty easy schedule so far and they were able to best the absolute worst teams in the League. Three of their four wins came against the bottom three teams and the fourth was against a struggling London Spitfire that failed to adapt to the meta in week one.

Make no mistake, Houston is struggling and it starts with the way they draft and structure team comps all the way to how they play on an individual level. LiNkzr has really good and really bad days and how well he performs impacts the probability of Houston winning and their support line hasn't been doing a lot of work in-game, with Rawkus having a couple of very rough games overall.

This is a very tough match to predict. Both teams showed a very good understanding of the meta but the Outlaws have lacked in execution more often than not. You could argue that Dallas' tank line is performing a bit better at the moment, they're more capable of creating the right plays at the right moment and they're far more flexible. With Taimou stepping up a considerable amount LiNkzr is going to have a very hard time especially if he's not well prepared.

Houston should be heavily favored on King's Row especially with how well they're running double sniper team comps but Hanamura, Lijiang Tower and Dorado are all up in the air. We can't really judge Dallas' map win rates as they're heavily impacted by their previous performances.

We're going with Dallas but it could essentially go either way possibly in a five map brawler. They're riding a lot of momentum and their new coach Aero really did wonders ever since Stage 4 began especially in crafting team-specific counter strategies so they should have the edge this time around as well.