On Wednesday October 10th, The Broncos took on Florida Atlantic in the ECAC. Their starting line-up consisted of Brian “Playto” Krahn, Kellen “Kell” Mcgurkin, Garrett “Frost” Strickler, Mark “Maksal” Thanakomsirichot, Artemis “N3rdyBird” Rainn, and Jordan “ALargeBagel” Whyte.
The first map, Lijiang Tower, was predetermined by the ECAC League. The Bronco’s rushed onto the Control Point of Garden, with Maksal playing the titular role of Symmetria. Enabling the team a fast teleport onto The Objective. To the dismay of the players Florida Atlantic knew how The Broncos liked to play on this point, and selected a composition that was a direct counter to the comp The Broncos had started on. Recognizing this, Kell called for a full composition swap away from the Sombra Dive the team had begun on. Starting the next fight The Broncos were on Reinhardt, D.va, Tracer, McCree, Lucio, and Baptiste. At this point Florida Atlantic had successfully held the Control Point for 36 seconds, totalling 36%, with little pressure from The Broncos. The team was going into this fight with an Ultimate disadvantage because of the composition swap they had to do. SobaMask’s Baptiste, and Kyler’s McCree from Florida Atlantic already had their ultimates ready at the start of the second fight, and used them in tandem to hold off The Broncos assault. JZB300’s Junkrat had their ultimate come online as the fight progressed, without the point flipping possession until after both tanks for Florida had been eliminated, and JXB300’s RipTire had been detonated without casualties. Kell’s Self Destruct rounded out the fight by eliminating JZB300’s Junkrat and Helpfulminer’s Lucio. When the point possession was finally turned over to The Broncos Florida had a whopping 69% captured. From here, The Broncos remained in control of the point for the next 100 seconds, and three fights, by cycling their ultimates and jumping on Florida Atlantic during their rotations. The second map in the Lijiang Tower series was the Night Market. With The Broncos opening up The Spawn Doors using their standard Symmetra Teleport from Maksal onto the point. Kell has swapped onto Winston for this point, and Frost had chosen to jump in on Doomfist. Florida Atlantic had a similar strategy in mind, but without utilizing their compositions ability to disrupt and boop The Broncos out of position The Bronco’s managed to easily capture The Objective. After three short fights The Broncos won out the round without giving a single percent over to Florida.
Florida Atlantic was able to select the next Payload map. They chose Havan, a map introduced in The Storm Rising event, the waters were getting rough for Florida Atlantic, and a storm was on the horizon. The Broncos decided to defend first. They set up directly on the Payload, after five members successfully pushed Kell on D.va into the shop to limit the amount of noise the team produced while getting into position. A feight they’d been practicing to pull off for a few days up until this point. The rest of this close hold composition was made up of Reinhart, Widowmaker, Mei, Lucio, and Baptiste. After three minutes and fifteen seconds of staggered fights at their Spawn Doors the Florida Atlantic managed to turn the tide against The Broncos to start pushing The Payload. They had over thirty seconds of uncontested Payload pace before the next fight began. Both teams traded ultimates attempting to gain the upper hand, but the waters were still pushing back against The Broncos as the clock spilled into overtime. 17.25 meters away from The First Check Point the waters receded allowing The Broncos to send two members of Florida Atlantic back to their spawn and rest off The Payload and out to sea as the overtime bar sank to zero. For their attack The Bronco sailed out of their Spawn Doors on Roadhog, Sigma, Pharah, Hanzo, Mercy, and Baptiste. They had anticipated a close hold attempt from Florida as they had done. Florida decided to position on the high ground to allow SobaMask on Zenyatta, Kyler on Ashe, and Helpfulminer on Baptiste to get optimal value. Utilizing the cover provided by The Payload and buildings of the map, The Broncos avoided the majority of the damage being thrown at them by the enemy team. By the time the Payload had reached the first corner no eliminations had been traded, and only twenty seconds had ticked off of The Bronco time bank. Florida had been forced to meet The Broncos face-to-face on the ground in order to start contesting the progression of The Payload. This gave Maksal’s Pharah the upper hand. Playto’s Roadhog with a damage boost from N3rdy’s Mercy was able to find the first elimination onto Bearstephan’s Sigma. As N3rdy jumped to help Maksl, Kell found himself throwing a rock at Kyler’s Ashe and eliminating them. Boosting Pharah, Maksal and N3rdy eliminated Sobamask’s Zenyatta, Kell took out Helpfulminer’s Baptiste, ALargeBagel used his Ultimate Amplification Matrix, to distract the remaining two members of Florida Atlantic as N3rdy resurrected Playto’s RoadHog. In the process ALargeBagel managed to take out JZB300’s Junkrat, leaving only Electron’s Orisa standing. All members of The Broncos collapsed onto Electorn’s shield as Frost delivered the final blow. With no members of Florida Atlantic in sight The Payload had 8.23 meters left until it reached its final destination. In a last ditch effort to halt the progression of The Payload, Bearstephan attempted to anchor onto the point with hopes of pulling off the ever popular Spin To Win Stall Tattacktic with Wrecking Ball. Playto, N3rdyBird, and AlargeBagel all hit Bearstaphan before they could get in range of stalling. With Maksal taking out Kyler’s Tracer to close out the round.
The third and final map choice of Assault, commonly known as Two Capture Point (2CP), went to Florida Atlantic. They decided on the Japan map of Hanamura. One that has a hard to break first Choke Point at the gate with three small openings above it, and opening high to one cornerner. Sticking with their trend, The Bronco’s opted to Defend first. When their Spawn Doors dropped, The Broncos ran to their battle stations around The First Capture Point with Orisa, Sigma, Pharah, Torbjorn, Mercy, and Baptiste. Florida Atlantic decided to completely bypass The Choke Point by using a Symmetra Teleporter to get their team onto the point. Unfortunately, not all members managed to use the teleporter before The Broncos destroyed it, leaving Florida Split between The Choke Point and Objective A. Beastephan’s Zarya was alone at choke and evaded damage as their teammates fell one by one until all the damage was pointed at Zarya. Every fight thereafter Florida was down one or more members by the time they reached The Choke, as The Bronco were steadfast in maintaining control of the game’s tempo. Despite The Bronco’s best efforts, Florida Atlantic managed to get 64.3% of Objective A Captured. But could not round out the meter before the timer hit zero. On their Attack The Broncos had been tasked by their Coach, Chris “Doc” Haskell, to use a Symmetra Teleporter to get onto the high ground. The team was up for the challenge, and Maksal took on the role of point for this fight, opting to play the key character of Symmetra. Though, they did not hold up every rule presented by Doc in his challenge, as Playto and Kell on Reinhardt and Zarya entered the point. Doc had requested that they not go into the doorway, dubbed “The Kill Box” by the team and coaches. This caused Playto and Kell to both be trapped on point and separated by a JZB300’s Mei wall from their team. Both tanks managed to survive. Frost found the first elimination of the round on Electorn’s Reinhardt, followed by Maksal taking out Bearstephan’s Zarya and JZB300’s Mei. Plato’s hammer connected with Sobamask’s Baptiste, as N3rdyBird’s sound waves made contact with the head of Helpfulminer’s Ana, and Maksal microwaved Kyler’s Soldier 76. In just under forty seconds The Broncos captured 64.4% of Objective A, winning the round and the match.