This week we go to the Houston, Texas homestand hosted by the Houston Outlaws and while the matches this week weren’t quite as entertaining as the ones from the last week there are a few worth talking about. Let’s get into it.
Talent and Production
Soe was out sick this week and was replaced by Uber and honestly he did a great job corralling the peanut gallery that is Custa and Reinforce. Hope you get better soon Soe!
Though I would like to call out one thing from the Houston homestand, the fan made signs and how nobody was keeping an eye on them for shit like this:
Come on y’all, please do better.
The Games
Since this was Houston’s homestand, all eyes were on them to finally break their 5 match losing series and get a victory in front of their very enthusiastic home crowd. When I say enthusiastic, I mean it, I loved the energy Houston.
London Spitfire vs Houston Outlaws
This was Houston’s first chance to get a victory but this series is honestly in some ways a tragedy. London looked dominant in the first two maps and Jmac had some very nice shatters. After the half however, Houston started to rely on their comfort picks like Blase on Doomfist and Linkzr on Widowmaker and they were to able to bring the series to a map 5 tiebreaker. However, Schwi’s Pharah play proved too much on Ilios well and the London Spitfire were able to clinch the victory.
While the Outlaws weren’t able to win this series, the squad look much improved over weeks previous and more comfortable with their strategies and plays.
London Spitfire vs Florida Mayhem
This series was the clown fiesta of the week, both teams seemed equally matched. There was a tragic comedy of errors on the second map where the Spitfire C9ed the first point and then Yaki filled to kill Jmac just before point B and the Spitfire were able to hold there. Just hilarious honestly.
The highlight of this series was really the tiebreaker map and especially the last fight on Oasis which was an absolute brawl. The MVP of this series in my eyes was definitely Glister of the London Spitfire who had an absolutely stellar performance on McCree throughout the series.
As a support main, I would also like to shoutout to Gangnamjin on the Mayhem for doing a great job with the heals and the nades.
Toronto Defiant vs Houston Outlaws
This series had me in mixed feelings, on one hand I wanted my team the Defiant to win the series and on the other hand I really wanted the Outlaws to get their first win this season in front of their home crowd.
As map 3 went on I gave up on the Defiant winning this one because the Outlaws Hackfist composition with Blase on Doomfist and Danteh on the Sombra proved too much for the Defiant and they were decisively defeated on maps 3 and 4 giving the Outlaws their first win of the 2020 season.
As a Defiant fan, I hope they learn from this series and improve their obvious weakness to the Hackfist composition because other teams are going to try and exploit it. The Defiant tried to match it in map 4 but it seemed like they weren’t well practised on it enough to counter the Outlaws.
Also:
Oof.
Concluding thoughts
Overall, this was a better week than I expected. The Outlaws actually did well at their homestand and it was lovely to see. It just wouldn’t haven’t been the seem if the Outlaws still performed poorly.
Next week, hero pools are in effect and it will again prove to be a very exciting week because we don’t know quite yet what sort of compositions teams are going to bring out. I already can’t wait to write next week’s post.