OWL Power Rankings: April 10

This article is part of our OWL Power Rankings series.

1. New York Excelsior (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 1)

New York continued to hold their place as the titans of Overwatch with a kind of bizarre week. The Excelsior went up against their heated rivals the London Spitfire and came out of the series 4-0'ing them, making London look like amateurs. The success was thanks to New York's all-around dominant roster and with more players waiting in the wings of the XL2 Academy, it certainly looks like the New York Excelsior might soon become, "The Yankees of Overwatch. -- Christiaan Kutlik

2. Philadelphia Fusion (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 5)

Fusion may have lost to the Boston Uprising early in the week, but they look nonetheless impressive since the end of Stage 2. Their aggression continues to be their core philosophy thanks to a strong DPS core and even stronger tanks. Their one weakness? Their aggression. Despite it being a core part of their philosophy, Boston could easily sneak into the Fusion's backline, which ended up being their ultimate downfall. But while the Fusion weren't fast enough to adapt in that series, this will surely be a problem they can fix in the future. -- Christiaan Kutlik

3. Boston Uprising (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 6)

Boston was in place to have a really good stage in comparison to Stages 1 and 2. Its opening week? Taking down both Houston and the Fusion, signaling nothing but high skies and good fortunes if it kept its pace but well. That was until star DPS Jonathon "DreamKazper" Sanchez dropped a bomb on the team in the form of misconduct with a minor that led to the termination of his contract. Losing a skilled player may prove disastrous for the Boston lineup but only time will tell how the organization will bounce back and move forward. -- Steven Nguyen

4. Seoul Dynasty (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 3)

The enigma that is the Seoul Dynasty continues to confound fans and analysts alike, completely dropping the ball against the Los Angeles Valiant before taking out the upstart San Francisco Shock in dominating fashion. With the addition of new support Heo "Gambler" Jin-woo finally joining the "B team" roster, featuring flex support Moon "Gido" Gi-do and tank Koo "xepheR" Jae-mo, Seoul unveiled a shambling corpse of a team, only for the A team to come in and save the day. Time will tell if splitting time into two tank/support cores will help Seoul in the long run, but the Dynasty doesn't have a comfortable lead in the Pacific division anymore, and every dropped game or map could come back to haunt them. -- Noah Waltzer

5. London Spitfire (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 2)

London's start to stage 3 couldn't have been more disastrous for such a talented lineup. Losing to Houston was almost not surprising since they've always lost to Houston in the regular season, but in the manner in which it happened was genuinely disappointing, where every player looked like they were playing way below their usual levels and weren't really working together as a team. Even Kim "birdring" Ji-hyuk disappointed, which is extremely uncharacteristic so maybe not being able to practice over the break was detrimental to this team, and hopefully it can get back into gear but for now its just kinda sad to see. -- Steven Nguyen

6. Los Angeles Valiant (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 8)

While it's only been one week, this team already looks miles better than they did at the end of Stage 2. Gone are the strange lineups featuring support Bak "KariV" Young-seo in a DPS role, as the Valiant have stuck to traditional lineups to impressive results. The addition of support Scott "Custa" Kennedy and off-tank Indy "SPACE" Halpern have been a massive boon to Los Angeles and resulted in a 2-0 start to Stage 3, including a 4-0 thrashing of the Seoul Dynasty. Time will tell how they hold up as the Stage progresses, but early returns speak volume about the ceiling of this team. -- Wyatt Donigan

7. San Francisco Shock (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 9)

The Shock seem to be finally getting their footing as a team. Compared to Stage 2, they seem to be moving with a solidified sense of purpose. Reliance on their DPS, Andrej "BabyBay" Francisty, Dante "Danteh" Cruz, and now Jay "Sinatraa" Won, is mitigated with flex players Matthew "Super" DeLisi and Andreas "Nevix" Karlsson stepping up to the plate. This new formation is still testing its might, however, and they still need to do some more work before taking on the big dogs. -- Liam Craffey

8. Los Angeles Gladiators (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 4)

After having a red-hot second half of Stage 2, the Los Angeles Gladiators have been on a bit of a downward trend. It started when it dropped the ball and missed the playoffs on the final day of Stage 2, and then continued here into the start of Stage 3. They may have beaten the Dallas Fuel, but they looked utterly lost against the Shock earlier in the week. This team still has plenty of upside, however, as main tank Baek "Fissure" Chan-hyung is still one of the best tanks in the league and once off-tank Kang "Void" Jun-woo finally sees some starting time, this team could get even stronger. -- Wyatt Donigan

9. Houston Outlaws (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 10)

The Houston Outlaws are a good team that have lost their way. They have two of the best players in the League at their respective positions, Austin "Muma" Wilmot and Jiri "LiNkzr" Masalin, but they just can't seem to put it together like they did in their Top 3 finish during Stage 1. Don't give them too much credit for their win over the London Spitfire this past week. Houston is a team capable of taking a victory that is handed to them and boy did London just hand it to them over and over again. The 4-0 loss to Boston on Saturday was more indicative of Houston's true position in the League hierarchy -- Travis Elliott

10. Dallas Fuel (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 11)

Dallas is still hanging out in the bottom three one week into the new stage. It would be hard to expect more from a team whose main tank is its former off-tank and whose off-tank is its former flex-DPS. With Christian "Coco" Jonsson permanently warming the bench for some unknown reason, Dallas is waiting for Son "OGE" Min-seok to return from suspension this week and restore the roster to some semblance of normal. Temper expectations for the Fuel as one player is unlikely to make the team perform like the playoff contender everyone expected in preseason. -- Travis Elliott

11. Florida Mayhem (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 7)

The addition of Ha "Sayaplayer" Jung-woo has given this team a new DPS threat, but the Mayhem have yet to solve any of its major issues concerning its backline. Supports Aleksi "Zuppeh" Kuntsi and Sebastian "Zebbosai" Olsson always seem to find themselves in poor positions, getting constantly picked at the start of fights by enemy dive comps. Whether that's on them or the rest of the team is unclear, but it's an issue that must be resolved for this team to make any improvements. Their new imports help patch up their deficiencies in hero pools, but simply adding Koreans does not a top tier team make. -- Noah Waltzer

12. Shanghai Dragons (Stage 2 Final Ranking: 12)

This week the Dragon's unveiled their new power roster adding: Lee "Fearless" Eui-Seok, Cehon "Ado" Ki-hyun, and the notable Kim "Geguri" Se-yeon. There were numerous high hopes for this Chinese team, and the stars seemed to align with their first match against the Dallas Fuel. However, a couple minutes into the first map and it was easy to see that there were still several problems the Dragons need to overcome. Notably, the tanks seem to focus different targets than the rest of the team, and coordination as a whole lacked when the terms of engagement were loose. Whenever they had a solid go button, such as a big ultimate or ticking timer, the team showed potential in their ability. Next they just need to expand this across the entire match instead of periodically. -- Liam Craffey