The first story line from Stage 3 was if Shanghai would beat Dallas to get their first win of the season. Dallas has been under such turmoil that they seem like the most likely candidate to lose to Shanghai. Unfortunately, Dallas still have some highly skilled players who can still take over and they were able to beat Shanghai 3-1. Not much has changed for the bottom 3 as Shanghai, Dallas and Florida stay in the bottom 3 as they have in previous stages. A bunch of teams had rough starts to the Stage and were never able to recover including previous playoff contenders London, Philadelphia and Houston; Seoul also joined this group in the middle. The biggest movers between Stage 2 and Stage 3 came out with a 6-4 record were the San Francisco Shock, but were edged out by with the Los Angeles Gladiators on map differential. San Francisco are now fielding their strongest lineup after a few of their players came to age. It's crazy how some of the best players in the league or world even are barely 18. Joining the Gladiators in the playoffs are their Los Angeles rivals, the Valiant. The Los Angeles Valiant had a bumpy Stage 2 and bounced back in Stage 3 with a 7-3 record. A few major mid-season trades have helped the Valiant become contenders again. Custa came over from Dallas and is now the vocal in-game and out of game leader. Bunny also came over from Seoul and filled in the much needed Tracer role. This stage saw 4 teams qualify for the stage playoffs, so there was going to be 2 stage semifinals. And there was a collision course set up for the Top 2 teams, Boston and New York. Boston beat New York earlier in the stage and also became the only team to beat all 3 Korean teams. New York have shown signs of taking it easy throughout the stage, but when they want to, they can turn it on by winning a lot of 3-2 matches. Similarly, Boston had this aura around them that allowed them to become the first team to complete a perfect 10-0 stage.
A new kink to these stage playoffs was that the 1st seed could pick their opponent for the stage semifinals. Boston decided to pick the 4th seed in the Los Angeles Gladiators, who were the weakest team out of the 4 playoff teams. This setup New York to face the Los Angeles Valiant in the other semifinals. The local Los Angeles crowd heavily cheered for the hometown teams, but it wasn't enough as both the Gladiators and the Valiant fell short losing to Boston and New York. New York made their 3rd consecutive stage finals and this time it was against a Boston team who beat them earlier in the stage. This form of motivation helped London win Stage 1 and the reverse as New York beat London to win Stage 2. I don't actually think it is actually a thing, where the losing team has extra motivation. New York came into the stage playoffs to show everyone that they were still the best teams even if they were taking it easy earlier in the stage. Boston showed their resilience and were able to put up a tough fight against New York, but it was not enough as New York were able to wrap up the best of 5 series in 4 games. New York become back to back stage champions and are the clear cut favorites in Stage 4 and in Season 1 overall. Congratulations to Boston for completing a 10-0 stage but they fall short of the truly perfect 12-0 stage champions.
Last Week: 11-1
Total: 126-54 (.700)
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