My favorite team vs. my second favorite team... I'm gonna enjoy watching this so much holy shit. Can't wait.
Winter Wonderland 2017
if this was later in the season i would agree with you hardcore.
but for now philly is a team without significant scrim time together compared to the rest of the league and with likely very few players in town for long enough to get used to a timezone shift.
Fusion might have better players on paper but Outlaws will be better prepared for week 1
PHL 1-3 HOU
Muma and Coolmatt just have so much more synergy then Frago and Poko, from what i know, at least right now. All of the other teams had time to experience the 0 ping and high tick rate etc., which the members of Fusion may not be used to, also considering the scrims they might have done must have had some ping issues that may be another disadvantage. The other teams also had time to get used to the stage and all the equiptment, that, along with the fact that philly is mostly a mitch-matched team that don't have much synergy, and that they had less scrim time, it would be hard to not give it to Houston. While the players individual may be just as good or better, Houston just have more synergy and experience as a team, maybe in the future it will be closer, but I'm going to go with a 3-1 for Houston. Who knows though, i may be wrong, we'll just have to wait and see.
Always believe in our EU mates!! But then you have Linkzr and Mendo.... oh well more EU better than less! :D
That said, I agree Huston has for sure the advantage, I'd say that skillwise, individually, they are more or less on the same level, but Huston should have better synergy and more practice/scrimming time.
I don't think lan experience/choking should be a huge difference I mean all the guys on Phillie have it, SDB, Boombox, Carpe, Fragi, etc...
The Houston Outlaws took both the Fuel and the Dynasty right down to the wire, and those two teams are supposed to be among the best. Philly didn't even play, so besides looking at the individual people, there's no way to know how good they might be. They have a good DPS pair (although secretly I never really liked SDB that much), but I feel like LiNKzer and Jake match up easily. Plus Coolmatt is a cool guy! HOU 3-1 PHL.
I actually met Fragi in the Mei event this holiday because he was stuck in EU, and when i checked his stream around new years time he was still stuck in EU due to VISA issues. If you look at ONIGOD's recent montage, you can also see that Philadelphia has been scrimming on EU with high ping. I wonder how the team is gonna perform with the short amount of time theyve been able to practice together in the same environment as the others. Could definitely see Philly have the roughest start of them all because of it.
Mr X keeps asking for Joemeister, but he ain't flat out better than Neptuno (for sure not with lack of team practice), is just that some of these NA casters don't know a thing about EU players.
Huston meanwhile thinking they had this in the bag and brought in the subs, sorry but Clockwork ain't at this level (yet?).
Spree and Rawkus were the problem, not Jake. Spree was consistently outplayed by Poko and SBD, and Rawkus died with ult way too often. In this meta, D.Va and Zen are the most important damage dealers on a team, and the Outlaws didn't have a good player at either of those roles.
Also, I'd like to remind everyone that at the end of the day, a close loss is still a loss, and none of the players on Houston except for Linkzr have ever won anything.
-Neptuno looked better than most lucio players transitioning from lucio to mercy
-Poko is a beast and always has been now he just have a spotlight on him
-Carpe and Sdburn,still a deadly af dps duo
-Fragi rein god
-Boombox showing why he is one of the best zens in the league
-Overall,good game and good showing from both teams
Summary of the press conference the Fusion had afterwards if anybody's interested.
https://www.winstonslab.com/news/2018/01/13/philadelphia-fusion-press-conference-owl-day-2/