Back in November, the Philadelphia Fusion agreed to a contract with then-17-year-old Simon "snillo" Estrom. Due to league rules, snillo was not eligible to compete in the Overwatch League until March 2, his 18th birthday.
On March 15, snillo made his debut in a match against the Shanghai Dragons -- which the Fusion won 4-0. After his debut, the Fusion went 19-8 on maps overall, including 12-0 when snillo played.
According to Winston's Lab, snillo was the best overall Tracer player in Stage 2. He led all Tracers in kills per 10 minutes (11.4), fight win percentage (64 percent) and player rating (1,219) among players with at least an hour played.
This begs the question -- why then, per Winston's Lab, did snillo play only a combined 32 minutes, 13 seconds across the playoff matches the Fusion had Sunday?
If the answer is he is a specialist on one map with one character, perhaps it could be worth expanding his play. In Stage 2, his Tracer rated 100 points better than any other Fusion DPS player-character combination (Josh "Eqo" Corona's Genji was second). His Tracer was nearly 200 points better than teammate Jae-hyeok "Carpe" Lee.
The lack of better DPS play cost the Fusion its title match against the Excelsior, whose support line was able to go to work.
To this point in the Overwatch League, Sung-hyeon "JJoNak" Bang's performance on Zenyatta is a prime candidate for the best by any player on any individual character. His 1,238 player rating, according to Winston's Lab, is the highest for any player on any individual character (minimum five hours played).
Knowing that New York had an elite offense-capable support on its side, it is worth considering that Philadelphia's best counter would be a hard-to-hit, mobile DPS -- such as Tracer. However, the Fusion stuck to its original plan and snillo was limited to one map. Over the course of the match, JJoNak picked the Fusion apart, posting a 1,322 player rating.
If Philadelphia is to be a threat to claim the overall championship at the end of the season, snillo might have to become a bigger part of its DPS composition.
New York stands as the favorite
Through Stage 2, the Excelsior stands far above the rest of the league. New York has a three-game lead in the standings and has been 11 maps better than the rest of the league (plus-46 map differential). The Excelsior is sitting at the top of the standings for notable reasons.
1. They are keeping it simple
After juggling its lineup in Week 1 of Stage 2, Excelsior had one of the most consistent lineups in the league the rest of the way. Since Week 2 of Stage 2, according to Winston's Lab, New York played the same five players in every match on every map (Tae-hong "MeKo" Kim, Jong-yeol "Saebyeolbe" Park, Hye-sung "Libero" Kim, Yeon-joon "ArK" Hong and JJoNak). That ties Florida for the most players to play every minute for their team in that span. However, unlike Florida, all five of New York's players had a rating above 1,000 -- compared to none for Florida.
2. Zen state of mind
According to Winston's Lab, Zenyatta has been the highest-picked support hero through two stages of the Overwatch League (82 percent), and no team has picked him more than New York Excelsior (90 percent).
The reason for this is the play of JJoNak, who as was discussed earlier, might be the league's MVP.