Philadelphia Fusion vs San Francisco Shock

For our first match of the day we have a fairly exciting clash between the Philadelphia Fusion and the San Francisco Shock. This is an incredibly exciting match due to multiple reasons - mainly the entertainment value. Both teams fight their hearts out even when they don't necessarily have anything on the line. This time around though they both fighting for the playoffs with Philadelphia being two spots above San Francisco albeit with the same win-loss record.

The Fusion are entering this match after a barnburner of a series against New York Excelsior last night. It was an incredible series and a fantastic night of high level Overwatch in general. Philadelphia came out of the gates swinging on Anubis and Numbani as they almost full held both maps. It was a fantastic display of skill and synergy however when they came to Ilios things started turning around for the worse. With Pine subbed in as the resident Ilios expert Philadelphia didn't have the tools to take them down. His incredible Widowmaker on Ruins and highlight worthy McCree on Lighthouse were more than enough to shut down Carpe and the rest of the Fusion roster. They were just unable to match the tempo and as a result went straight to Junkertown hoping for the best. Even though Philadelphia had a fantastic attack they kinda off fell apart on defense as Libero and Pine did a ton of work in getting NYXL the advantage. With a tie in the map score it became eerily close to the Stage 2 finals and we were going to Oasis to settle the score.

As for the Shock they looked incredibly dominant against the Dallas Fuel a couple of days ago. The first thing that became evident was just how better Architect played with some time to further acclimate to the roster. He was the deciding factor more often than not with some incredible Genji and Widowmaker play. They were on point on almost every map, they were combining their ultimates in perfect unison and playing like a cohesive six man unit.

Two players that deserve a heap of praise but don't get it often enough are surely Nevix and Moth. They're not the flashiest of players around but they do their job incredibly well and they're the epitome of consistency within this Shock line-up. Everyone is so used to seeing Danteh pop off or Sinatraa clutch out a great "Pulse Bomb" but it's the rest of the roster that enables these players to play to their fullest potential as they always know that if things go awry that there's a "Resurrect" or a "Defensive Matrix" to help out.

Philadelphia should have the edge tonight without a doubt. Sure, they fell flat when it mattered the most against New York (twice) but they're a force to be reckoned with and when they're up against any other team their clutch factor shines bright. They never surrender and any issues that they do have can be easily fixed within a reasonable time span. The Shock are a dangerous team, especially nowadays with Architect stepping up and getting more integrated within the team but they're still ways off from reaching Philadelphia's level.