In a tight series against the Valiant, the Excelsior were able to achieve their third win of the season and continue their winning streak. The NYXL took this series by the skin of their teeth, and it’s looking more and more like a stage dominated by a 3-3 team composition is giving them a lot of trouble.
Courtesy of Gamepedia.
With the Valiant’s aggressive tank line, the NYXL had a lot of difficulties on both Shrine and Village. On Shrine, the NYXL had a good hold on the point for a little bit, but after a little bit of flip-flopping the Valiant were able to capitalize on the Excelsior’s messy mistakes and take advantage of their aggression.
On Village, the Valiant’s dominant tank line and were able to hold the NYXL off team fight after team fight, making for a sad map loss on the part of NYXL fans. While the Excelsior went into this map aggressive and ready to see some blood, the team was playing messily and players consistently were caught out of position and picked off early.
With the NYXL on defense first, the team was able to fend off the Valiant for the majority of the first round. Tae-Hong “MekO” Kim landed a massive D.Va bomb that took out three players on the Valiant and Yeon-Gwan “Nenne” Jeong’s dominant Zarya was able to hold off the team as he was consistently high-charged and playing aggressively but most importantly, playing smart. However, the tide changed when Tae-Hong “Mano” Kim was caught out of position, costing the Excelsior a team fight and earning the Valiant the point and the payload. However, the Excelsior were able to keep the Valiant from even pushing the payload through point A.
The NYXL looked equally as dominant on their attack, capturing the payload after only one team fight and quickly pushing the payload through the map without much of any issue.
Volskaya Industries. Courtesy of Blizzard
In an embarrassing display, the Excelsior seemed to throw away point A after Seonghyun “Jjonak” Bang fell early on. The Valiant take both points after the NYXL held control for nearly five minutes. The Excelsior ran a quadruple DPS team composition on attack, which they refused to switch off of despite being shut down time and time again. The team was ultimately full held by the Valiant.
The Excelsior seemed to have finally gotten their heads back in the game on Rialto, playing aggressively and being able to fend off the Valiant fight after fight. MekO’s dominant D.Va bombs saved the match multiple times and on their defense, the NYXL were able to hold the Valiant off just before the second point.
On attack, the NYXL were able to quickly take point A and with a little bit of work, were able to tie up the series in an intense overtime battle.
On Lighthouse, the Valiant took control of the point first due to the NYXL’s passiveness again. However, MekO was able to come back with another D.Va bomb and the Excelsior were able to kill every player on the Valiant. When the NYXL lost the point at 95%, things looked grim with the Valiant having their hold on the point until Overtime, until the NYXL were able to retake control and ultimately take the round.
On Well, the Valiant took control of the point first again. With some flip-flopping, the teams gave each other a run for their money. With Nenne and MekO playing the same dominant tanks they have been the entire round, the team was able to push the Valiant off of the point for long enough in overtime to take the map and the series.
With the NYXL going into their third game of the season, these matchups are consistently looking tighter. The Excelsior seem to be having a lot more difficulty against other teams than they would’ve in the inaugural season, and part of this is due to players having been caught out of position repeatedly. With single players falling early, team fights are consistently lost and these small moments are what cost the NYXL maps. In such an aggressive META, the Excelsior need to concentrate on tightening up their positioning and continue setting up Nenne and MekO to make the huge plays that have been game-saving up until this point.
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