Houston Outlaws vs Philadelphia Fusion

For today’s last match, we have a rather exciting battle between the Houston Outlaws and the Philadelphia Fusion. Now, both of these two teams rarely cease to amaze us, but it also depends on a lot of factors -- the meta being the main one. Houston improved leaps and bounds as the Stages progressed, whereas Philadelphia had serious ups and downs as time went on.

The meta has changed considerably which means the game is in unpredictable state right now -- to say the least. we don’t know what will happen in the future and everything we knew about these teams doesn’t apply any longer. We’ve seen some of the best teams the League has to offer fail miserably, and on the other hand, we’ve seen some teams that we would never count on dominate in all assets of play. The only thing left is to observe everyone's play and build an opinion based on their adaptation to new two-two-two meta.

The Houston Outlaws have pretty much been amazing recently -- albeit still inconsistent, as was expected. They are entering the second week of the final Stage with an insane amount of hype and momentum behind their backs. Their story is a fascinating one. They fell all the way to last place in Stage 2 and eventually climbed to the playoffs. That's a commendable feat, to say the least. They have entered the final Stage on shaky ground by losing to the Paris Eternal (1-3) on day one but managed to pick themselves up and dominate against the Los Angeles Gladiators. Both matches had somewhat unexpected outcomes, which means Houston are as unpredictable as possible at this point in time.

The boys in black and green are aware that there is no more room for error. They simply cannot afford any hiccups. We've seen their highs and we were not left indifferent. Every time they played to their win conditions they were able to eke out a win. But even when they failed to get their hands raised, they rarely went down without a fight.

We can blame the loss against the Paris Eternal on the instability of the meta right now, but their match against the Los Angeles Gladiators was definitely deserved. The Gladiators didn't need much time in order to read Houston and capitalize. Their astounding offensive overwhelmed the Outlaws and they easily captured everything they needed. Regardless, the Outlaws always present a complex, layered challenge. Their tanks are doing an amazing job at protecting their back lines and their cohesion is on an enviable level. All things considered, they're a tough nut to crack in this meta and should be a worthy opponent regardless of who's put in front of them.

On the other hand, we have the Season one finalists -- the Philadelphia Fusion. They are generally considered as one of the stronger teams in the League but their inconsistency often got in the way (this year, at least).

Their DPS duo will definitely be able to shine and put up a show in the current meta, but whether or not the rest of the team will be able to step up and adapt still remains to be seen. Having flashes of brilliance is simply not enough at this point of the season.

By their previous week’s performance we could see that they haven’t adapted exceptionally well to the new meta, which was a bit surprising considering the DPS depth within their line-up. Losing to both the Guangzhou Charge and the Chengdu Hunters was a relatively big shock, all things considered. They seem to dominate right from the get-go but often fall apart once the opposing team starts mixing things up. An important question remains -- will they be as strong as they once were, or is it too late for them to leave a mark?

In the end, we have to side with the Houston Outlaws, seeing just how fast they've managed to adapt to latest role-lock meta. They were nearly perfect in all facets of play and were commanding with even the slightest of leads. Their flexibility and sheer bravado should be enough to win against a vulnerable Philadelphia Fusion. That said, this is far from a safe bet, and it could, in theory, go either way.