The Overwatch League regular season has ended. Following up on my series of previews of OWL teams from earlier this year, let’s now review every team that didn’t make it into the playoffs. From the bottom to the top in order, we come to second last. The Boston Uprising went from an underdog capable of surprising many, to a team that just got worse as the season went on. There isn’t much positive to say, but at least they weren’t last.
[irp posts=”30478″ name=”Season 2 OWL team review: Florida Mayhem”]
From playoffs to second last
Boston, unlike the Florida Mayhem, had a great inaugural season. Yes, their stage four was questionable, but their overall season was great. A perfect stage, a stage finals appearance, and always reverse sweeping teams – you could never count the Boston Uprising out of a series, ever.
But after a lot of drama, a lot of trades, and few big-name acquisitions, people were skeptical about Boston’s season two. Their starting roster ended up almost entirely changing by season’s end. And unlike the Mayhem, they seemed to struggle equally in every stage, always facing issues.
Meta recap
Normally, I would go stage by stage and review how this team did. With how weird this season was, though, it feels more accurate to judge by meta. In this case, the most prevalent three were GOATs in stages one and two, Sombra GOATs in stage three, and most recently the Orisa/Hog meta. So, let’s start with the Uprising’s first two stages.
GOATs
In their first game against the Excelsior, Boston showed promise. They took the game to the last map, just barely losing to a good team. But as the stage went on, even with the addition of GOATs specialist Cameron “Fusions” Bosworth, they couldn’t string together wins. Plus, they were the first team to lose to the Shanghai Dragons ever. And adding insult to injury, their former main tank, popular player Young-jin “Gamsu” Noh, won against them for the Dragons. They did get some good reverse sweeps in, plus an interesting trade with off tank Lucas “NotE” Meissner leaving, but they still didn’t show much promise.
Sombra GOATs
In stage three, the Uprising only won once against a poor-looking Paris Eternal squad. Their team composition in this meta wasn’t great, seeming to be just a poor version of what most teams were running. There isn’t much more to say about them in this meta.
Orisa/Hog
While on paper this meta seemed better for the Uprising, this was the meta and stage they ended up going win-less. One of the most questionable decisions made this stage was the removal of Minseok “AimGod” Kwon from their roster. He was always considered one of the best players on the team, but something occurred off stage that led to his benching. Even more surprising was the introduction of his replacement: Zion “Persia” Yang. His play was pretty poor in the short time we got to see him.
Conclusion
Much earlier this year, I made an article previewing the Boston Uprising for season two. In retrospect, I overestimated them there. Yes, that article was written before both tanks were traded, but I still thought they would’ve done better than they did. The meta switches were unfortunate, and the trades just didn’t work out. Richard “rCk” Kanerva was as invisible as he was in this article. And I am happy that at least I got this right in my preview post:
“I don’t see them getting anywhere close to third overall in season two.”
The team does have a chance to recover for season three of the Overwatch League, but they need to make changes for the better.
