Overwatch League 2020 Week 2: Carpe's Top Plays, Prize Money

Overwatch is a team game, but individual performances can sometimes determine the momentum. Or, as evidenced by the Philadelphia Fusion's Jae-hyeok "Carpe" Lee, sometimes an individual performance can dictate an entire weekend. 

"Having Carpe on Fusion is unsustainable for the team. He will eventually bring the rest of the team down. No matter how much Fusion invests in this team, they will never be able to afford the aquarium to keep Carpe at optimal performance. It is the sad reality of signing a fish, but Fusion will soon learn."

As the legend goes, Carpe is blessed with production so monumental that it is unsustainable. And, following a dominant 2018 season, Twitch-chat prophesying proved true as Carpe was forced into unimpressively tanking on Zarya during the plague of GOATS in 2019.

But shields have fallen, so McCree is back and Carpe's performance is once again optimized.

In 2019, Carpe's Zarya exuded malaise, and his ambitious flanks preached spite for a meta whose shields and stuns shrouded his one true love: clicking heads. This season's meta is much less restrictive, with role lock disabling the triple-tanks of 2019 and the OWL's latest patch, nerfing most shields in the game.

This weekend—the first matches held in Philadelphia since the Overwatch League's historic transition to a geolocated format—proved how cataclysmic role lock and shield nerfs have been for hitscan specialists.

In front of hundreds of thousands streaming on YouTube, thousands attending live in the City of Brotherly Love's first 2020 home game and, fittingly, just a day after Valentine's Day—Carpe was reunited with his beloved headshots.

The Houston Outlaws, meanwhile, played without their own hitscan specialist (Jiri "LiNkzr" Masalin, unable to play because of the flu) and were dominated by the Florida Mayhem and Washington Justice—each of whom have their own designated snipers: Jung-woo "Sayaplayer" Ha and Corey "Corey" Nigra, respectively.

But, as talented as each team's hitscan aficionados appeared against Houston, neither could touch Carpe this weekend in their own 0-3 losses to the Fusion.

Saturday, February 15

Florida Mayhem 3 - 0 Houston Outlaws

Washington Justice 1 - 3 Philadelphia Fusion

Sunday, February 16

Washington Justice 3 - 0 Houston Outlaws

Florida Mayhem 0 - 3 Philadelphia Fusion

The Fusion's first map in their game against the Justice was the best-of-three, king-of-the-hill map, Nepal. With each team tied at 99 percent in the tiebreaking round and with the Fusion already down one teammate in the fight, Carpe swapped to Widowmaker and completely changed momentum.

First he outdueled Corey's McCree, and then he hunted and eliminated Washington's second DPS, its main support and its flex tank. In just 25 seconds with the game on the line, Carpe sniped his way to a clean 4K and a full momentum shift.

For the rest of the game's maps, Washington devoted resources, in double-teams and positioning, to try and deny Carpe's prized dinks. In return, the ever-cocky headhunter swapped across nearly every hero, took obnoxious flanks, waved and sprayed to his heart's content.

He was already in Washington's head and, after one clutch, just had to be alive and look spooky somewhere while his team won a distracted fight elsewhere. 

As a testament to the impact of Carpe taking up residence in his opponents' heads, the Fusion's main tank, Su-min "SADO" Kim, racked up 21 final blows on the Temple of Anubis map—the most ever and the fourth-most for a Reinhardt on any map in Overwatch League history. Regarded unfavorably by the masses over the past two seasons, SADO (and his hammer) took full advantage of Carpe's distraction all weekend. 

Carpe went into Saturday's match with a simple, albeit loud message on Twitter: "WE PLAY." He closed that circle after the match: "WE WON."

Other pros had their own reactions, as the Atlanta Reign's Dusttin "Dogman" Bowerman alliterated "the classic Carpe clutch," the Paris Eternal's Damien "Hyp" Souville tweeted "oooh my goooooood Carpe" and the LA Gladiators' main tank, Min-seok "OGE" Son, capped it all off with a succinct "Ur god."  

By the time Carpe lost a Widowmaker duel, it was already Sunday, his team was up 1-0 and he had just confirmed the two kills necessary to ensure a 2-0 lead.

For a team whose history with hashtags has been less than ideal, the Fusion's new slogan seems apt. Philadelphia is no longer memeing its mistyped "#Pdomjnate," now it seems comfortable with the ode to the head-clicker with strong shoulders: "#FusionCarry."

As the old saying goes, Carpe's performance is too large to be sustained by even the most expensive aquarium. But shields have fallen and Philadelphia has unleashed the league's most dastardly fish unto 2020's $5 million prize pool. 

And, if this weekend is any indication, he smells blood.