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Team Fight Tuesday: blasé Hard Carries Boston

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New to Overwatch? Get caught up on everything Overwatch League by reading our introduction.

Welcome back to Team Fight Tuesday here at BSE. What a weekend for the Uprising huh? Sure they got smacked by San Francisco, but who really had the Uprising winning that match anyway?

Yeah, you’d have to be really brave or really dumb to have the Uprising upset the shock.

The real story here is the amazing match against the Paris Eternal on Sunday. Starting the match 0-2, it looked like just another moment in rock bottom for Boston. Except the map that Paris had to win was none other than Boston’s home court – Eichenwalde.

Boston’s Second Eichenwalde Attack

Even though Boston is 2-2 on Eichenwalde, it has been the map where Boston likes to start their reverse sweeps. Against both Toronto and Atlanta, Boston was able to turn the matches around on this map. It’s only fitting that after a rough skid Boston would find their groove where they play best. And in true Boston form, the Uprising decided to wait till the very last moment to win the map.

The first attack was dominated by Colourhex and his amazing display of Pharah play. His 4 kills alone won them the point and left Paris reeling. However, it seemed as though Paris was ready for Chex the second time around. They opted for a Dva over the Sombra for their defensive setup. Though Sombra is quite the pain for Pharah, Dva brings much more utility and sustain in a high-pressure situation like this defense.

With an early sleep onto Colourhex Paris immediately halts the Boston assault. Shortly after both AimGod and blasé are killed. The attack appeared to have failed, and Boston would have to settle for another match loss.

That is, until Kellex revives blasé, who proceeds to put the team on his back. Time to track how hard blasé carries this fight.


blasé Punches His Way Through Paris

As blasé comes back, Paris makes the mistake of using a sleep dart to try and sleep Fusions rather than blasé. Sleep dart has an 12 second cooldown, giving blasé a large window of opportunity for aggressive play. Now the only hard crowd control Paris has left is Brigitte’s shield bash. Naturally, blasé is aware of this as well, and focuses NiCOgdh first.

Doomfist Hard Carry MeterLow

The second mistake was trying to fight a Doomfist inside close quarters. As blasé escapes to wait on his cooldowns, Kruise and Finnsi attempt to finish off Boston’s low health Doomfist. What Paris did not expect, was for blasé to punch away Finnsi and one-shot Kruise.

Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
blasé survives this.
Doomfist Hard Carry MeterMedium

Meanwhile on point, BenBest uses shatter to stun Fusions and rCk in hopes to gain a player advantage over the Uprising. Altough rCk does die, Fusions manages to live and continue contesting the point. NiCOgdh swaps to Tracer to race back to point, leaving Paris no hope for a Brig rally.

Now that two of the supports are down, it only makes sense to focus down the last one. blasé catches Greyy off to the side of point, split away from the Paris tanks. A quick auto attack and an uppercut sends the Paris Ana back to spawn. 3/3 on healers for blasé.

Doomfist Hard Carry MeterHigh

With the help of Kellex to keep him healthy, blasé then turns back towards point to pick his next victim. A half health Danye sits on the point, and blasé slams him into house behind point. blasé 4, Eternal 0.

Doomfist Hard Carry MeterGonna need a Chiropractor

Hackfist Demonstrating its Strength against GOATs

Keep in mind, this entire skirmish happens in just under a minute. It isn’t until blasé is hard focused by the two remaining tanks that his killing spree ends. Although they kill the Doomfist, the rest of Boston is back from spawn to clean up the mess blasé left.

This fight is a prime example of how Boston’s use of the Hackfist comp will propel them to the next level. As teams lean on GOATs to be their crutch, the chaos that Doomfist and Sombra create causes the GOATs composition to play sub-optimally. Spreading apart healers and tanks allows other DPS characters like Pharah to focus down isolated targets.

Ana is isolated. Image courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
BenBest may have killed AimGod, but he left his own Ana exposed.

For example, as blasé punches Greyy away from the fight, he removes a healer so that Danye can’t keep pressure on Fusions. This forces Finnsi and BenBest to fall back onto point to defend the Zarya, but this rotation is too slow. Without a shield or defense matrix, Colourhex is free to deal damage to a defenseless Danye. By the time the Paris tanks reach Danye, he is already below half-health and is one-punched by blasé.

He Does it Again on Dorado

Just to prove it wasn’t a fluke on Eichenwalde, Boston runs back the triple DPS composition for point C of Dorado. After an ineffective barrage from Colourhex, blasé ults onto point in hopes to find a pick. Because rCk is actually able to hack Danye (who is also on Sombra), blasé is given a free shot to kill Danye.

Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

Again, look how split apart the Eternal are in this fight. NiCOgdh is miles away because he was punched over a wall. BenBest panics and ults in hopes to hit blasé, but instead only hits Fusions. Finnsi is de-meched from the barrage earlier, and is running around trying to get his mech back. On the other hand, Boston is grouped around the cart getting heals from Kellex’s ultimate. The high mobility of Boston’s entire comp allows them to quickly flank and then group up again. Paris does not have that luxury, and severely pay for it.

blasé continues to hard carry Boston, as he goes to roll over Finnsi, BenBest, and NiCOgdh. Another fight, another four kills for blasé on his signature hero. Let’s check in on that carry meter once more.

Doomfist Hard Carry MeterPlease don’t sell blasé

Welcome Back DPS

While I may be highlighting blasé this time around, I can’t stress enough how well each member of Boston played. Even though the first half of the match was a wash, the second half had heroic plays from each Uprising player. Chex was insane the entire time on Pharah. Kellex and AimGod got an incredible amount of picks on the enemy support line. rCk hit some amazing EMPs on Dorado and Nepal. And of course, Fusions’ shatter on Eichenwalde was the reason he received player of the match from the OWL desk.

I love this team on DPS characters because it shows the rest of the world what Huk saw in these guys. With that said, that’s going to be it for Team Fight Tuesday! This week we have our last match up of the stage against Philly, so hopefully the momentum from this match carries into the next.

Be sure to follow Brock on twitter for more breakdowns and analysis #BostonUp

Team Fight Tuesday: Hackfist is Finally Here

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New to Overwatch? Get caught up on everything Overwatch League by reading our introduction.

Welcome back to Team Fight Tuesday! Even though the weekend as a whole was devastating for Boston, we finally got some winning team fights to discuss! For this week, we are going to talk about the Uprising’s use of the new-hotness going around both OWL and contenders – the comp known as “Hackfist”.

What is Hackfist?

The “Hackfist” team composition is based around the two characters Sombra and Doomfist. Popularized by the Korean Contenders team Element Mystic, this setup aims to create chaos against GOATs and capitalize on the disruption. The combination of Sombra’s hacks and Doomfist’s stuns create the opportunity for early fight picks. This is powerful against a 3-3 team, because 3-3 comps rely so heavily on coordinated group play. If a player in GOATs is unable to use abilities to save an ally, or is knocked away/stunned before they can ult, the rest of the squad is very vulnerable.

If things make more sense to you in video form, here’s a great video from Akshon Esports. They describe more of the intricacies and nuances of the comp.

Why Did Boston Run It?

One of the toughest aspects of a GOATs heavy meta is that talented DPS players are often pushed to the wayside or forced to play tanks. After a terrible string of losses playing with and against GOATs, Boston decided something needed to change. It was also at this time Boston remebered they have one of the premier Doomfist players in the league with blasé. With rCk’s Sombra on hand, it was only a matter of time that Boston would bust out their latest strat.

The comp also allows Fusions and Kellex to stay on their comfort picks in Reinhardt and Lucio respectively. Colourhex gets to gain more practice on Zarya for when the team needs to default back to GOATs, and finally Persia is given the duties of playing Ana.

Boston decides to run this on Illios most likely for a few reasons. First being Illios has plenty of high ground positions and natural cover. When blasé dives in he has the ability to get out safely, thanks to Doomfist’s highly mobile kit. His flanking routes can come from any of the tall buildings or alleyways behind Philadelphia. Second, Boston wants to punish the over-aggressive nature of Philadelphia’s main tank Sado. Catching out the Reinhardt in a GOATs comp is one of the best ways to win the fight. Using Doomfist’s Rocket Punch and Uppercut blasé should be able to displace Sado and create separation between him and his back line, leading to an easy kill.

The Final Fight on Illios

I love this fight because it demonstrates all the advantages Hackfist gives to Boston.

Hackfist in all its glory

Starting from the start of the clip, we can already see blasé setting up on the high ground looking for a kill on a support. He uses Seismic Slam to jump into the Philly Team, and an Uppercut to shoot Sado into the air. Once Carpe bubbles the Reinhardt, blasé jumps right back out to the opposing high ground to safety.

These first five seconds are why Doomfist can be so obnoxious to deal with. Not only is he attacking from a unique angle, he has an amazing quickness that enables him to make riskier plays but come out alive. After his first engage, blasé has now set himself up for another high ground flank.

All while this is happening Sado is hacked by rCk, forcing Philadelphia to commit resources to keep him alive. Eqo uses Rally to keep their team alive, and Carpe uses both bubbles before the fight even starts. Expending these abilities so early in a fight leaves Philadelphia in a difficult situation. Because these cooldowns are used, they have to make a difficult choice. Philly can either back up and wait for more ults (which seems bad because no one is close to one), or push hard and be the aggressor.

Surviving the the GOATs Aggression

For a moment, the aggression pays off as Philly is able to take down Fusions. Normally this would be a lost fight for Boston, however they aren’t playing GOATs this time around. The hidden benefit of Hackfist is that Fusions is no longer the focal point of the team. Of course him being alive is better than dead, but a Reinhardt death in Hackfist does not immediately signal “lost fight”.

10 seconds into the clip, Sado pushes towards Fusions to clean up the kill. But if you notice, Philadelphia is completely surrounding the remaining Boston players. blasé jumps onto the Ana, and rCk lands a hack onto Sado to essentially trap him between Kellex, Colourhex and himself. You can see the moment Sado is hacked and Boombox is killed, the remaining Uprising members collapse onto him. Boston splits him from the rest of the team, leaving him in a position to receive no healing or support.

Sado out of Position Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

Once Sado dies, the fight devolves into a series of solo battles between players. Poko runs off to the side to kill Persia but is pressured by rCk. blasé charges in to focus down Eqo, pushing him towards Colourhex and Kellex. Then finally rCk EMPs one more time to secure the point for Boston. Even though Persia is the only one that dies in the prolonged engagement, Boston’s comp is much better suited for this chaotic moments.

Own This Comp and Perfect It

As Boston looks forward to Stage 4 and beyond, they really need to find their style. With 2 stages worth of evidence, I am confident to say that Boston is not a GOATs team. While they may have the ability to run it and beat worse teams, GOATs itself is constantly evolving, and Boston has reacted too slowly to grow with the league. However, something like this can set Boston apart from other mediocre GOATs teams. Sure enough, Philly is one of those meh GOATs teams that Boston can beat with Hackfist. Unfortunately, the moment they swapped back to 3-3, Philly took over the series.

To make a point short – Boston needs to swap back to a 2-2-2 set up, specifically specializing in the Hackfist composition. Teams have discovered that Boston is significantly reliant on Fusions, resulting in Fusions dying first in almost every fight. It’s time for Boston to remove the pressure from their main tank, and place a bit of it onto their DPS stars.

If its any indication from their twitter, it may seem like the Uprising already have the right idea.

That’s it for Team Fight Tuesday! Next weekend we have a tough one against San Francisco and a rematch against Paris. Maybe one punch is all we need to turn this stage around.

Be sure to follow Brock on twitter for more breakdowns and analysis #BostonUp