Going into Week 3, the NYXL are looking more comfortable with every game that passes. After a shaky first few games, the Excelsior are looking like the dominant team fans loved in the inaugural season. In their next two matchups, the team looks to maintain their win streak.
Last week, the NYXL had a hard match against the Los Angeles Valiant. The Valiant’s strong tank line gave New York a very hard time on control point maps, while the Excelsior seemed to dominate on payload maps. In the tiebreaker, New York seemed to finally have their heads back on the right way and after a five-map-long series, the Excelsior came out on top 3-2 over the Valiant.
Tae-Hong “MekO” Kim’s dominant performance on D.Va saved team fights left and right for the Excelsior. Landing game-saving self destructs one after the other, MekO was named the player of the game by the NYXL coaching staff, and rightfully so. The dominant tank main was easily one of the most integral pieces to the NYXL’s narrow victory over the Valiant.
In this series, New York showed fans that they are still the same smart and dominant team that they rooted for in season one. With their tight control of space and strong team synergy, the Excelsior were able to secure a 4-0 victory over the Outlaws. Against Houston, it was looking like the NYXL were finally getting a handle on how to deal with the issues 3-3 compositions have been giving them thus far in stage one.
Dong-gyu “Mano” Kim’s issues leading up to this series largely surrounded his positioning and awareness. This match, he looked like he had worked very hard on his situational awareness and only strengthened the NYXL’s already incredibly strong tank line.
Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
The Defiant are coming fresh off of a win against the Los Angeles Valiant. Having tied on map two, the match against the Valiant looked to be similarly intense for both teams. With the Excelsior finally getting a good grip on their playstyle in a time that the league is run by 3-3 team compositions, the fights between them and other teams that rely on GOATS are bound to be less close.
The Seoul Dynasty have just come off of a clean 4-0 victory against the Chengdu Hunters — a team that has been vastly underestimated in ability and strength. The Dynasty certainly look clean and aggressive, but the NYXL are only growing in synergy with each game that goes by. This isn’t to say that this won’t be a close match up; Seoul is certainly here to put up a fight.
NYXL DPS: Yeon-kwan “Nenne” Jeong
Player to Watch: Yeon-kwan “Nenne” Jeong is proving himself to be a very very impressive rookie in the Overwatch League. His Zarya is consistently able to churn out game-saving graviton surges and stay at near-maximum energy no matter what. His growth as the season moves forward will be interesting to keep an eye on.
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