The Florida Mayhem will be, for the first time in Overwatch history, coming into this week as favourites in both of their matches. Florida has gone 2-1 in their last three matches, only losing to the desperate Valiant team in a very close match. The Mayhem’s opponents are also both out of playoff contention. However, they are both showing less promise than the Mayhem heading into next season. Especially so, if they both lose to the Mayhem this week.
Match Details: Maps:
Florida Mayhem vs Boston Uprising Ilios
Thursday Hanamura
August 15th Hollywood
7:00 P.M ET Route 66
Florida Mayhem vs Toronto Defiant Busan
Sunday Hanamura
August 18th Blizzard World
6:30 P.M ET Route 66
Florida Mayhem vs Boston Uprising
Two teams following completely different trajectories at the moment. Faith in the Mayhem squad is gradually building as faith in Boston continues to plummet. They both come into this week of matches with little to play for other than their pride.
The Boston Uprising is on a four-game losing streak and are looking quite disjointed as a team. The rumours continue to buzz of possible of internal turmoil being the cause of the team’s issues. If this is the case, then Boston fans shouldn’t expect the team to begin to perform better in any of their remaining games this year. In the meantime, Yang “Persia” Zi-on needs to be playing at a higher level than he currently is to warrant his place in the starting roster over teammate Min-seok “Aimgod” Kwon.
It’s not just at the flex support position that Boston find themselves struggling, it’s also at the off-tank spot. Last week they had Jeffrey “blasé” Tsang play D.va and Roadhog on each map instead of their traditional off-tank player Richard “rCk” Kanerva. It would seem that Boston is forcing this change to be able to play their new DPS player Lee “Stellar” Do-hyung whilst retaining the important communication brought to the team by blasé. However, this sort of roster inconsistency is never going to be of any benefit to an already struggling team.
Prediction:
-Florida Mayhem 3 – 1 Boston Uprising-
The Mayhem were a team that not so long ago had a rotating roster themselves, and now look to crush Boston with their newly solidified starting six.
Florida Mayhem vs Toronto Defiant
These two teams will be facing each other in the second match in as many weeks. In the match last week, the Mayhem were able to win by a score of three maps to one and often looked without competition. Despite this, the Defiant showed that even with being out of playoff contention, they aren’t a team that will take their foot off of the gas in their remaining matches.
Honestly, it would be difficult to argue that Lee “Gargoyle” Beom-jun has not been one of the best performing tank players in the league this stage. Gargoyle is everything a Florida Mayhem fan would want in a flex tank player and against the Defiant last week, he was an x-factor on both D.Va and Roadhog. There hasn’t been a noticeably weak link on this team as of yet and the team cohesion seems to be quickly building.
In last weeks series between these teams, it was a generally even contest when both teams were playing the Mei + Reaper composition. However the Defiant were simply outclassed on either the sniper or slightly more dive centric compositions. Considering the four maps that are going to be played in this series, the Toronto Defiant may have to again wander outside of their comfort zone. On maps such as Busan and Route 66, there’s a lot more room to play ranged compositions. This means that Andreas “Logix” Berghmans will have to have an impressive series if they do not want to be blown away once again.
Prediction:
-Florida Mayhem 3 – 1 Toronto Defiant-
Whether it is Gargoyle’s beautiful Roadhog play in a Halt Hook composition, or Ha “Sayaplayer” Jeong-woo carrying on the Widowmaker, the Florida Mayhem has the upper hand in every meta composition.
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