The Florida Mayhem showed off the many possibilities of this new meta, fielding all sorts of compositions and characters that were missing last stage. The London Spitfire on the other hand, might as well have played on the last patch, as a majority of their time was spent on some variant of GOATS. While GOATS proved dominant today, fans should be optimistic for London to change their playstyle against stronger teams as the stage continues.
The Spitfire stumbled out of the gate on Night Market, giving Florida the first point capture. Once they regrouped, though, London looked unstoppable. They took the point handily and kept control until overtime. After a brief backcap from the Mayhem, London swiftly picked off Florida to finish the point take.
Garden was a more back and forth map than Night Market. The 3-3 composition London ran was initially successful against the Mayhem’s 3-DPS composition, but failed to maintain point control for long. After flip-flopping the point, both teams fielded Winston-GOATS lineups. London looked more dominant over Florida on this composition, taking the point to win Lijiang 2-0.
Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
London started Hanamura running Hanzo-Pharah into Florida’s bunker composition. They initially looked lost trying to counter the high-sustain composition, but managed to take point A after a well placed Dragonstrike from Junyoung “Profit” Park and self-destruct from Junho “Fury” Kim. Point B was a similarly slow advance, with Florida’s bunker stalling out London’s attempts at taking the point. After dislodging Sang-bum “BQB” Lee’s Bastion, London managed to finally make some point progress. They completed the capture with 31 seconds remaining in the timebank.
London ran a more standard 3-3 composition on defense. Unfortunately for them, Florida was able to steamroll the point with a 3-3 of their own. While London held them off for one push, Florida built six ults for their second point B engagement. They quickly took the point, earning 4:38 to use in their next attack round.
London were unsuccessful with their one minute of attack time, struggling against the same Florida defense they faced in round 1. Their initial defense against Florida’s attack looked strong, but a pick onto Ji Hyeok “BIRDRING” Kim unfortunately spelled doom for the Spitfire’s defense. Florida took 1 tick on point A to secure their Hanamura win.
Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
London’s point A defense was quickly melted by Florida’s first offensive push. Staggered deaths let the Mayhem take a great deal of free payload distance, with only two team fights occuring on point B’s street phase. London started to gain composure on point C, but ultimately failed to prevent Florida from finishing the map.
London’s offense was more impressive than their defense, using Winston-GOATS to effectively dismantle Florida’s 2-2-2. While their point B offense wasn’t quite as fast as Florida’s, they still made decent time, coming into point C with 3:30 on the clock. While they were briefly stalled, they successfully punished an overaggressive push from Florida to complete the map. Unfortunately, the timer just barely ticked into overtime, meaning London could only hope for a tie. Thankfully, that’s just what they got; a swift pick onto Seong-won “Swon” Yoon left the rest of the Mayhem vulnerable to Jaehui “Gesture” Hong’s earthshatter, resulting in a team kill to end the map in a draw.
Sang-Bum “BQB” Lee (Photo courtesy of Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment)
Florida led on Gibraltar with another Orisa-Bastion-Baptiste bunker as they did on previous maps. This time around though, London looked prepared. By dislodging the Bastion and forcing Florida to unsuccessfully run GOATS, London cemented a strong hold just before point A.
Aggressive positioning from Florida on defense caught London off guard initially, but they made decent progress once they dislodged the Mayhem’s high ground players. Though they were stalled for a bit due to a well-timed graviton from BQB, London were ultimately successful in taking the map to win the series 2-1.
While this wasn’t a totally one-sided win for the Spitfire, they showed off their 3-3 skills effectively against the unique compositions that Florida ran. It was also a welcome return for BIRDRING back into the core lineup; hopefully London is able to use his DPS skills more as they develop new strategies in their upcoming matches. Fans should keep an eye on how the meta develops to gauge how London’s roster and playstyle might shift with changes in this new patch.
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