Boston Sports Extra

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Sadly Stage 3 was pretty awful for the Uprising. Games weren’t close at the start of the stage, and everything looked uncharacteristic of Boston. Thankfully this nightmare is over, and we can look back and use this experience as a learning opportunity. Just like any good math class, you need some numbers in order to learn! Let’s recap the past stage with some good, bad, and fun stats!

Overall Record: 1-6

Good enough for 16h in Stage 3. Unfortunately this rough stage also dropped Boston from 11th in overall season standings to 17th.

Map Record: 7-22-1 Map Diff: -15

At -15, Boston had the 4th worst map differential – just beating out Florida (-19), Toronto (-20), and Washington (-22).

Stage 3 Superlatives

Most Likely to Die First: blasé

It’s a tough life to be the Brig player in GOATs. When the enemy Graviton Surge comes in, you only have a small shield to help protect yourself. Sadly, most of the time it just can’t the job done. blasé was responsible for 22% of the first deaths in team fights this stage. Some of those were due to aggressive initiations as Doomfist, but a lot of those deaths were in Brig-Jail.

Player	# of Times Player Died First in Team Fights
blasé	63
Fusions	56
Colourhex	52
rCk	47
AimGod	22
Kellex	22
Perisa	19
Alemao	12
Axxiom	0

Most Likely to Get the First Pick: blasé

When blasé is out of Brig-Jail, he often finds a way to give Boston a man advantage. Doomfist and Bastion were blasé’s main tools of success in finding the first kill, notching 24% of Boston’s first eliminations.

Player	Recorded First Elimination in a Team Fight
blasé	58
Colourhex	52
rCk	44
Fusions	43
AimGod	17
Kellex	17
Persia	8
Alemao	5
Axxiom	0

Most Likely to Ult First: rCk

As the Sombra specialist on the team, rCk often has one and only job: get his EMP ASAP. This ult is vital to the success of the Sombra GOATs compositions, so it’s no surprise rCk would account for 24% of the team’s first ultimates used in a team fight.

Player	Ultimates Used to Start a Team Fight
rCk	56
blasé	45
Colourhex	39
AimGod	26
Fusions	23
Persia	18
Kellex	16
Alemao	13
Axxiom	0

Most Ultimates Used: rCk

Between Sombra and D.Va, rCk managed to lead the team in ultimates used. What is more interesting is how AimGod managed to gain 25 more ultimates than Persia, while playing one less match.

Player	Ultimates Used
rCk	119
blasé	113
Colourhex	105
Fusions	89
AimGod	78
Kellex	58
Persia	53
Alemao	36
Axxiom	0

Most Lethal: Colourhex

Most Deaths: blasé

Man I’m happy to see our DPS grabbing the most eliminations. Seeing our boys deal damage again as Widow, Pharah, Junkrat, and Doomfist was a pleasure for fans and I only hope we see more in Stage 4.

Playing aggressive DPS characters can be a double-edged sword at times. Clocking in at 205 deaths, blasé became quite familiar with the re-spawn timer. Not far behind, Fusions also hit the 200 deaths mark this stage, with exactly 200 deaths. Seems as though Brig shield and Rein shield aren’t doing a whole lot, as together they account for 37% of the deaths on the Uprising.

Most Healing: AimGod

Most Damage: rCk

With AimGod playing a whole bunch of Ana and Zenyatta, he takes the crown as top healer for Boston this stage. Strangely enough, rCk was able to edge out Colourhex on the total damage output. Maybe the stat is skewed from the burst damage of D.Va bombs, but damage dealt is still damage dealt.

Boston’s Stage 3 Team Stats

Total Ultimates Used as a Team: 651

Even though the average of ults per game would be 92, the majority of ultimates come from the matches against Paris. Between the two, Boston amassed 275 ultimate abilities – almost half (42%) of all ultimates used. The roughest match was against Houston, where Boston generated only 54 ultimates.

Winningest Team Comp: Bunker

At 52%, Boston found the most success using a Bunker composition. Whether it be the play making ablility of Kellex on Baptiste, or teams not ready for the blasé Bastion, there was just something magical about Boston’s bunker.

2-2-2 was Boston’s true highest win percentage team comp, but it came in 1 map on 1 push to win 3 out of 4 team fights. We also saw a little bit of Mei GOATs against the Fusion, with some moderate success winning 33% of those fights. Boston also ran a 3-2-1 composition just once – they lost that fight.

It is worth noting that the Hackfist comp took a nose dive in win percentage in the match against San Francisco. Boston won just 2 of 21 team fights against the Shock.

Team Composition	Team Fight Win Percentage (10 Team Fight Min)
Bunker	0.52
Triple DPS	0.46
Reinhardt GOATs	0.44
Sombra GOATs	0.37
Winston GOATs	0.30
Hackfist	0.26

Most Played Comp: Reinhardt GOATs

With a whopping 32% play rate, Rein GOATs was still the go-to method for Boston in Stage 3. The Uprising played traditional GOATs in 120 team fights out of a total of 363. In the matches against London and Paris (week 1), Boston played GOATs in 92 team fights, spending the entirety of the match against London on the same team composition. Note: that tiny little slice is the one time Boston played a more traditional 2-2-2 comp featuring Genji.

Team Stats vs Opponents in Stage 3

Below are the total eliminations and deaths for Boston against specific opponents. It is worth noting that our only map wins came against Philly and Paris, so naturally we would have more elims in winning scenarios. In the only win in the stage, Boston had 587 elims against Paris in week 3. This can be attributed to the Uprising playing a Triple DPS comp in 49% of the team fights, with a 50% win-rate in the match.

In case you were wondering why Fusions called the Houston match the “rock bottom” for the Uprising, it’s because they had the fewest amount of elims in the stage, and had the most deaths of all the 0-4 losses.

Here we have the total damage dealt along with the total amount of healing put out through the stage. Again, when Boston played Triple DPS, the damage numbers skyrocketed. Boston dealt more damage in the losing match against Paris oddly enough, rather than the winning match

Grab Bag Stats

Different Support Lineups: 4

Axxiom AFK?

Sadly, Axxiom was the only player not to have playing time this stage. Will we see him more moving into a 2-2-2 role lock? Only time will tell.

World Travelers

Boston was the only team to field a lineup from six different countries for the entire stage! While Dallas did have a lineup with six unique nationalities, it came in Week 3 against the Spark (Harryhook subbed in for uNkoe)

Player	Country – Opponent
AimGod	South Korea – Paris(W1), Paris(W3), Philly(W4)
Alemao	Brazil – London, Paris(W1), San Fran
Axxiom	South Korea – 🙁
blasé	United States – All-Season
Colourhex	New Zealand – All-Season
Fusions	United Kingdom – All-Season
Kellex	Denmark – Houston, Philly(W2), Paris(W3), Philly(W4)
Persia	South Korea – London, Houston, Philly(W2), San Fran
rCk	Finland – All-Season

Whew! What a whole lot of learning! Stage 3 was certainly something special. As we get ready for Stage 4 and beyond, let’s hope Boston can take away some important lessons from their past to succeed now.

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

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

Well, Stage 3 sucked.

Maybe my hopes in my last Strength of Schedule article were a little too high going into Stage 3, and I set myself up for failure. I was completely wrong about how the stage would turn out for Boston and I am admitting that now. I, like many fans, was pretty blindsided by the strange coaching decisions, and wasn’t expecting new lineups each week. We also weren’t expecting an absolute turn around from the Outlaws, and two close matches against the Eternal.

But that’s all in the past now, and it is time to begin looking forward and upward for the Uprising!

Stage 4 is finally here and Boston has a small, but very real chance of sneaking into the season playoffs. Boston is one of six teams that are 8-13 or 9-12 sitting on that 12th place bubble. Then there are teams like Dallas, Philly, and Shanghai that are comfortable now, but must have a successful Stage 4 to ensure their playoff birth. Despite their dangerously low position in the standings, Stage 4 bears a lot of promise for the Uprising.

Stage 4 Schedule

Boston plays a couple of new teams this stage, and with new opponents comes new challenges. They start the stage against a red hot Charge team, looking to prove they can play with top teams just as Hangzhou did in Stage 3. Following up are the Hunters, a team capable of upsetting the San Francisco and the London Spitfire. Luckily for Boston, their schedule contains only one top-8 team in the NYXL. Unluckily for Boston, the NYXL are one of the most dominant teams in the league, having only lost twice, both times to Atlanta.

Opponent	Head-to-Head Record
Guangzhou Charge (12)	0-0
Chengdu Hunters (12)	0-0
Washington Justice (19)	0-1
Florida Mayhem (20)	5-0
Los Angeles Valiant (14)	3-1
New York Excelsior (2)	2-3
Atlanta Reign (11)	1-0

Although Boston has the lead in the head-to-head, the LA Valiant are not the same team from Season 1. The Valiant have cemented themselves as a top tier team in the league after massive wins against the Titans and the Spitfire. If Boston wants to have a chance in the playoff race, they will need to have their best games against the Hunters, the Charge, and the Valiant. At 9-12, 9-12, and 8-13 respectively, each team needs every map win they can get.

But what teams have the best shot at improving that ever-so-crucial map differential?

Strength of Schedule

Rank	Team	Average Opponent Map Win %
1	Shanghai Dragons	0.577
2	Chengdu Hunters	0.557
3	San Francisco Shock	0.539
4	Dallas Fuel	0.542
5	Los Angeles Gladiators	0.539
6	Hangzhou Spark	0.525
7	Guangzhou Charge	0.523
8	Seoul Dynasty	0.518
9	New York Excelsior	0.511
10	Vancouver Titans	0.499
11	Philadelphia Fusion	0.489
12	Paris Eternal	0.480
13	Los Angeles Valiant	0.479
14	London Spitfire	0.452
15	Florida Mayhem	0.446
16	Houston Outlaws	0.443
17	Washington Justice	0.439
18	Boston Uprising	0.430
19	Atlanta Reign	0.409
20	Toront Defiant	0.398

With the 3rd easiest schedule in the league, Boston has an excellent opportunity to secure their spot in the season playoffs. They even have help from their opponents schedule difficulty, as Chengdu, Dallas, and Shanghai all are in the top 5 for strength of schedule. Each map matters for Boston, so games against Washington and Florida need to be 4-0’s in order to maximize their chances. Games against Los Angeles and NYXL just need to be crazy upests.

Match Predictions

Guangzhou Charge (9-12)

This team is extremely talented, but struggled in the past. Unfortunately for Boston, they have looked increasingly better as time has passed. Nero and Happy are starting to play real DPS, and people should be scared. Let’s hope Colourhex and blasé are up to the challenge, because if they can perform like fans know they can, Boston should come out on top.
Prediction: Boston 3-2

Chengdu Hunters (9-12)

No one knows what the expect from this team, except crazy DPS oriented strategies. Jinmu and YangXiaoLong have looked incredibly impressive, and the Hunters have played well when they play well. Look for the support lines to be the defining match-up in this game, as Yveltal has slowly adopted Neptuno’s blood-thirsty Mercy play style. AimGod and Kellex will have to truly bring it this time around.
Prediction: Boston 3-2

Washington Justice (2-19)

Boston is 0-1 against the Justice, and cannot afford to make it 0-2. Stratus has arrived for Justice in a big way, but they weren’t able to close out games at the Atlanta Homestand. Boston is a better team than the Justice, they just need to perform like it.
Prediction: Boston 4-0

Florida Mayhem (2-19)

I can’t stress how important it is for Boston to 4 – 0 the weekend they play both Mayhem and Justice. While the Mayhem was able to tie a map with the NYXL, they still haven’t looked good enough to beat even mid-level teams. Unless of course you’re Houston.
Prediction: Boston 4-0

Los Angeles Valiant (8-13)

Boston’s first upset game is here, against a team with the same record after Stage 3. The Valiant have looked amazing and it pains me to say Boston is not favored in this one. Kariv and Agilities have come into their own as hard-carry players in the support and DPS role.
Prediction: LA 3-1

New York Excelsior (19-2)

The complete opposite of Florida, New York is the toughest team Boston plays in Stage 4. The silver-lining here is that Boston does historically perform well against New York. Not sure if its the deep-rooted rivalry between the two cities that causes Boston to step up, but they will need to come up big one more time.
Prediction: NYXL 3-0

Atlanta Reign (9-12)

Boston needed to reverse sweep Atlanta the last time these two teams met, but Atlanta looks revitalized after their Homestand weekend. This one will absolutely come down to the wire, as the last game of the Stage (and potentially season) both teams will leave nothing on the table – well, desk rather.
Prediction: Boston 3-2

I know some of these are a little gracious to Boston, but I believe this team will make massive leaps forward now that they have settled the support line and embraced more DPS comps. At 13-15, Boston will need some serious help from other teams to help sneak them into that last 12th seed. From now until the end of the season, Boston will be taking the underdog role. Let’s hope the boys in blue can make some magic happen.

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