New York Excelsior Comes Out On Top In OWL Playoffs

On Sunday, the top teams of the Overwatch League faced off in Stage Three playoffs. The day started with semifinals, featuring the Boston Uprising against the Los Angeles Gladiators and the New York Excelsior against the Los Angeles Valiant. It came down to a battle between Boston and New York for the crown and the $100 thousand prize.

Boston Uprising was undefeated in Stage Three and on a 15-match win streak coming into playoffs on Sunday. But Excelsior was able to kill that streak and come out on top as OWL Stage Three champs.

Despite Uprising being the only team to take down Excelsior this stage, New York dealt quite the blow to Boston in its 3-0-1 playoff victory. Even though New York hasn’t achieved such an undefeated streak as Boston’s, they do lead the league with their 27-3 regular season record and now have two stage titles to their name.

Excelsior came out strong in the very first map of the series, Route 66, pushing the payload with ease before stalling at the final checkpoint. Uprising pushed back hard, but fell short in the end. Nepal saw some awesome play from Boston, but they were outplayed by New York.

The third map gave Uprising somewhat of a home field advantage, given that the team was undefeated on the map this season. However, Excelsior seemed unfazed by this and captured the map with just over three minutes left in their time bank. Uprising fought back to earn an even faster attack time, but it wasn’t enough to win the map and the round resulted in a tie.

New York then brought the series to a close on Numbani after a hard fight from Boston.

Excelsior’s Park “Saebyeolbe” Jong Yeol, who took man of the match honors, said in a post-game interview that he is “the best Tracer in the world.” This was a lighthearted stab at Uprising’s own Kwon “Striker” Nam Joo, who is often touted as best in class.

New York’s team chemistry and versatility is what really set them apart this stage, with three separate DPS players putting out world-class Widowmaker performances and Kim “Libero” Hae Seong getting multiple multi-kill clips on Volskaya. The key to their success, though, is the space created by Excelsior’s strong tank and support lines, which really make the opponent work for every single kill.

Since playoffs, some shifting has been going on in the Overwatch League among coaching staffs. Boston’s own Park “Crusty” Dai-hee has moved to the San Francisco Shock, replacing San Francisco’s head coach, Brad Rajani. Shock is also pulling up Kim “Ninek” Bum-hoom from NRG Esports’ academy squad to join the Overwatch League coaching staff.

However, Boston did not name a replacement for Park and neither team gave any detailed reasoning for these changes. Uprising said only that “it became apparent” in recent weeks that a coaching change was needed for the squad, despite their excellent undefeated performance in Stage Three.

Stage Four will kick off on May 16, when the San Francisco Shock will take on the Los Angeles Gladiators. Boston will face the Philadelphia Fusion the following day. Stage Four will be the last stage before season playoffs.