Overwatch League 2020 Week 12: New York Excelsior's Top Plays, Prize Money

After six weeks without any matches, the New York Excelsior are back. And the star players from their inaugural season are back too, fueling a triumphant return.

Over the first few weeks of this season, NYXL messed around with its DPS lineup and suffered mixed results. While the rest of the roster remained consistent, each of its four damage-dealers was rotated in and out sporadically.

But this weekend, facing the Chengdu Hunters and Guangzhou Charge, the Excelsior mostly kept to their Season 1 DPS duo: the hitscan-proficient Saebyeolbe and projectile-specialist Libero.

As their team-named weekend MVP, main tank Mano, confirms: It was a good weekend for New York.

Here's how the weekend shook out and how NYXL got two easy sweeps, helping its quest to clean up the OWL's $5 million prize pool for this season.

Saturday, April 25

Seoul Dynasty 3-0 Hangzhou Spark

Guangzhou Charge 0-3 Shanghai Dragons

New York Excelsior 3-0 Chengdu Hunters

Atlanta Reign 0-3 Philadelphia Fusion

San Francisco Shock 3-0 Los Angeles Valiant

Sunday, April 26

Hangzhou Spark 3-1 Chengdu Hunters

Shanghai Dragons 3-0 Seoul Dynasty

Guangzhou Charge 0-3 New York Excelsior

Florida Mayhem 3-0 Boston Uprising

Houston Outlaws 2-3 Dallas Fuel

Full schedule and standings available here.

Saturday: SBB Is Back, Baby

Saebyeolbe is a fan-favorite and with good reason. Aside from his inimitable Tracer play, the veteran DPS has aim as deadly as his knowledge of New York slang is endearing. Against the Hunters, SBB came out on Soldier and cleaned up every hero that Libero's Sombra hacked.

Then, he brought the Wild West to the Middle East by using McCree to delete the Hunters on Oasis.

The iconic Tracer was subbed out for the niche Paris map, but that move proved reasonable by WhoRU's performance as the crafty Mei—with the rookie DPS trapping and freezing nearly all of Chengdu.

Sunday: Mano Takes Charge Against Guangzhou

NYXL's second match cemented what has been an eternal truth of the Excelsior: the dominance of their tank and support lines. Mano, wielding his trusty hammer, simply laid waste to an outclassed Guangzhou.

In earlier seasons, New York's playstyle was marked by defensive, passive engagements. But, in 2020, the team has pivoted to a more flexible, oft-aggressive rhythm. Mano, long known as one of the league's steadiest main tanks, amped up and took full advantage of this bullying evolution in Week 12.

But none of that would be possible without the back-line presence of JJoNak, Season 1's MVP. As demonstrated by an absurd, long-range sleep dart against his Guangzhou mirror, the Excelsior are at their best when their octopus aficionado can lay his hands on high skill-cap, aim-intensive supports.

Next week's schedule is unlikely to be released until Monday or Tuesday, but we're hoping that New York gets thrown back into the mix. While Chengdu and Guangzhou aren't bottom-tier teams, seeing the Excelsior face a team like the seemingly indomitable Dragons would put each team's standing in truer context.