A new stage dawns and the Florida Mayhem are going into it as underhyped as always. Over the break, Florida acquired Koo “Fate” Pan-seung from the Los Angeles Valiant and Seong “Byrem” Joo-lee from San Francisco Shock’s Contenders team. Both of these players are strong and should help the Mayhem build some semblance of a deep and flexible roster. The Florida team will have some synergy to build before they can show the full power of their new players. However, if they can feign team synergy, the schedule for the first few weeks of Stage 3 may allow for some very competitive matches.
Seoul Dynasty, June 7th (7-7)
The Seoul Dynasty are a tough team to get a read on. They are the team that beat the New York Excelsior in the Stage 1 playoffs behind excellent play from Choi “Michelle” Min-hyuk on Sombra. However, they are also the team that finished the last stage with only three wins. One of those wins came in a nail-biter against the struggling Los Angeles Valiant. The Seoul Dynasty have not made any roster changes over the break and are looking to come into this stage relying on the solidarity of their roster. The meta still seems to be heavily dominated by tank compositions, whether it be the Goats or Bunker variants. Whilst this may not be Seoul’s bread and butter, Kim “Fits” Dong-eon has shown to be amongst the best Zarya players in the league. Because Zarya is so important in this meta, this should allow Seoul to always remain competitive. The flexibility of Michelle and Kim “Fleta” Byung-sun also ensure this team never becomes predictable or stagnant. The Dynasty should be strong favorites in this match.
Florida will have a tough time in this match if they play the same way they did in Stage 2. Koo “Xepher” Jae-mo has proven time after time that he is not quite at the league standard on D.va. Lee “BQB” Sang-bum has also been very inconsistent on Zarya. It may be in the Mayhem’s best interest to play Xepher on Zarya. This allows BQB to flex onto other characters. BQB is very well known in Korea as a strong Sombra player. Sombra Goats could be the new identity of this team.
Contenders teams such as Australia’s ORDER and Trials teams such as Korea’s BM Hawk have experimented with compositions including Ashe. Both of these teams have had great success. Considering Ha “Sayaplayer” Jeong-woo’s prowess on heroes such as McCree and Widowmaker, he could have great success on Ashe as well.
These are just some examples of how the Florida Mayhem might surprise teams in Stage 3. However, the true test of how good they can be is in the impact of Fate. Fate was one of the best Main Tank players in Season 1 of the Overwatch League and may turn out to be the biggest acquisition of the year if Florida can steal some wins this stage. Although they are still heavily favored to lose here.
Key Player: Fate
Prediction: Seoul Dynasty 3 – 1 Florida Mayhem
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