New York Excelsior vs Florida Mayhem

For our first match of the day we have a pretty underwhelming clash between the New York Excelsior and the Florida Mayhem. Now, this match-up isn't exactly screaming "top-tier must-watch" play, but it should be a fun skirmish regardless.

The New York Excelsior are currently riding high with a spotless 3W-0L stage two record -- they've taken down the Philadelphia Fusion (4-0), the Shanghai Dragons (3-0), as well as Washington Justice (4-0). They're looking like one of the best teams in the entire League, but that was expected. They're an insanely talented roster with a ton of innate talent, but they never seem to be able to play as well as they should once push comes to shove -- and that's in the playoffs. That's when they have to step up the most and do the heavy lifting. The same happened last stage as well -- they had a perfect record and were entering the playoffs as the heavy favorites. There wasn't an Overwatch League analyst that didn't have NYXL as the favorites to win the whole thing, and yet they were outclassed by Seoul Dynasty in a match that left no one indifferent.

Fortunately for the Excelsior, Florida Mayhem are no giants, and this match is far from a playoff one, importance-wise. This is just another negligible block in their path towards the stage two playoffs, and they have the right tools to completely decimate Florida regardless of the map and state of the meta.

Florida Mayhem, on the other hand, have been rather underwhelming throughout their sophomore Overwatch League season tenure. Perhaps that's even an understatement. They were able to get only a single win throughout stage one, and have recently taken a map off of Paris Eternal. Not that impressive, regardless of the way you look at it.

There's not a lot one can say about the Florida bunch. They're trying, but in the hyper competitive Overwatch League landscape, they simply don't have the tools at their disposal in order to go blow-for-blow with even the mid-tier gatekeepers of the League. That's a problem, and they don't have a high skill ceiling/ample potential either, so their mediocre (at best) position is set in stone at the moment. Could it improve with time? Perhaps, but don't bet your money on it.

Even if they do improve over the next couple of months, they have one of the biggest and capable Overwatch League giants in front of them tonight -- the New York Excelsior.

In the end, we simply have to side with the boys in black and blue. Their road towards redemption is a long and treacherous one, but they should be more than capable at taking Florida Mayhem down with relative ease. Expect a one-sided shellacking.