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For this weeks player preview, I originally wanted to discuss Philadelphia Fusion’s star DPS Carpe. I wanted to talk about how the transition from a DPS meta to the GOATS meta has drastically affected Carpe’s play making ability.
But then Houston beat San Francisco so I threw all that nonsense out to discuss Danteh and his Sombra. I was sitting at the bar when I tuned into the games on my phone, and I could not believe what I was watching.
2-2? Is it that late that I would be seeing things? And did I just see the Outlaws of all teams, smack the Shock around on Illios?
Naturally I checked Twitter to confirm that I didn’t go off the deep-end, and sure enough it was all real. The lowly 3-12 Houston Outlaws, the same team that went 0-7 last stage, had beaten the Stage 2 champs. San Francisco’s win streak had ended at 11 games.
Houston’s Turnaround
What did Houston do that gave them the opportunity to topple a much better team? They did what most winning teams do for a change: minimize their own mistakes and weaknesses. Attempting to play GOATs against one of the best GOATs teams in the league is quite the feat. Realizing the massive gap between their skill levels, Houston brought out new and interesting team comps to combat the Shock. We even got to see the “HackFist” comp come out on Nepal. While they didn’t stick with it for the whole round, it showed how weak the Shock are to unconventional comps.
The real star of the match was Danteh on Sombra. His hack selection was incredible, starting almost all fights with a pick on a San Francisco support. In the crucial map 4, Danteh hit a 5-man EMP to relieve the pressure the Shock had at the Outlaws spawn.
Danteh also created openings for the Outlaws by focusing ChoiHyoBin to prevent the San Francisco D.VA from defending Super. The strength of the San Francisco Shock is their amazing tank synergy between Super, Sinatraa, and Choi. By taking one of the pieces away from that front line, Houston was able to punish the D.VA and allow Linkzr free reign on San Fran.
How Does Boston Stop This?
What does this mean for Boston? Well, in the past Boston has had some serious issues dealing with talented Sombras. A specialist like Danteh would certainly force the Uprising to play around him. The good news is that Houston is a team that makes a ton of mistakes.
In the same match against San Francisco, Houston played a DPS-centric comp that actually had the off-support Rawkus play Solider:76. While cheeky, the Shock won a single fight and took the map. The large mistake was thinking a single Mercy was enough healing to sustain against GOATs. Even though Danteh was able to kill several attackers in hopes to stop the push, the rest of the Outlaws failed to follow up on the advantage.
Boston needs to be ready to fight in these prolonged fights, because Sombra doesn’t deal nearly as much damage as other DPS characters. Even if Boston trades one or two players, fights are still winnable as long as Sombra does not have EMP.
Whats the key to defeating Danteh? A clear organized game plan, with communication that gets things done. In their back to back reverse sweeps in Stage 2, Boston was able to thwart other Sombra players, so I hope to see that same strategy come through Friday night.
Be sure to follow Brock on twitter for more breakdowns and analysis #BostonUp
