With the start of the Pacific Division, we will cover five teams based in China and South Korea and five in North America. Starting off will be the Dallas Fuel, a rock solid team on paper that turned into a nightmare, and the San Francisco Shock, a team that thinks tank players and support players are overrated but still got amazing talent in all categories. First up is the Dallas Fuel!
Dallas Fuel
The Dallas Fuel was the formed from Team EnVyUs (now Envy or NV), one of the best non-Korean teams out there, especially with the disbanding of French team Rouge. The Fuel showed promise during the preseason, especially having popular streaming personalities on the team, but as the first stage rolled around, the Dallas Fuel rolled over. EFFECT, a damage role player, temporarily left for home due to his mental state. But after having players suspended, players added and traded, and certain doom on the horizon, the Fuel got their eggs in a row and had a positive record in the final stage of the season, but their past mistakes took a tole on their overall record of 12-28.
Coaching and Management
The Dallas Fuel is co-owned by Team Envy's CEO Mike "Hastr0" Rufail and investor Hersh Interactive Group's Ken Hersh. After an abyssal start, the staff traded head Coach KyKy (now coach for Paris Eternal) and replaced him with Aaron "Aero" Atkins, former coach for notable teams such as Immortals, FNRGFE, and Fusion University - the Tier 2 team for the Philly Fusion. Under his leadership, the team turned around and became the team everyone thought they could be. After the first season, Aero acquired Justin "Jayne" Conroy - a Twitch personality and lower tier team coach -and moved Christian "cocco" Jonsson from a player position to assistant coach.
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| Aaron "Aero" Atkins |
Players
Tank
Starting the list of Tank players is Min-seok "OGE" Son. OGE was originally signed to play in the first season, but was suspended due to being affiliated with an account boosting business - where highly skilled players will be paid to artificially boost a client's account in a game. While he did not see a lot of success on Nc Foxes and CONBOX, OGE has become one of the best main tank players in the League. The second tank player is Thai player Pongphop "Mickie" Rattanasangchod, and no there is not a typo in that name. Mickie was originally a stand-in for Team Envy, only seeing playtime when another member suddenly left the team due to the playing environment. The final tank player is a new addition to Season 2's roster: Finnish player Richard "rCk" Kanerva. Before joining the Fuel, rCk was - as nearly all Finnish and Swedish players was - a member of Team Gigantti and and ENCE eSports. He saw many first, second, and third place titles while playing for those teams.
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| Pongphop "Mickie" Rattanasangchod |
Damage
The Fuel has an impressive roster when it comes to the Damage role. Starting the list is Timo "Taimou" Kettunen, a Finnish player who is the exception of not playing for Team Gigantti. Instead, he played for IDDQD, a team that would later become Team EnVyUs, and saw much success on IDDQD and EnVyUs. The second player is Hyeon "EFFECT" Hwang. EFFECT played for the Meta franchise on Athena and Bellum, and saw many first place victories, before being picked up f by EnVyUs. As mentioned earlier, EFFECT had to leave the League temporarily due to his failing mental state. He would later announce his return to the League long after the first season had concluded. The third talent on the roster was a mid-season pickup during the first season of OWL, French player Dylan "aKm" Bignet. AKm played on the French team Rogue, before being picked by the Dallas Fuel four months after Rouge's dissolution. The final player is a new pickup for the second season. Zachary "ZachaREEE" Lombardo was originally from team Renegades, but was picked up by Fusion University after Renegades was disbanded. ZachaREEE's time on Fusion University let him see many tournament wins, but in my opinion is a lackluster player that cannot compete with the other players on the roster.
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| Timo "Taimou" Kettunen |
Support
When IDDQD was purchased by EnVyUs, Jonathan "HarryHook" Tejedor was a player that tagged along with Taimou. HarryHook came from the Team Fortress 2 scene before entering professional Overwatch. Also coming from team Rouge, Benjamin "uNKOE" Chevasson was originally picked up by the LA Valiant. UNKOE was traded midday way during the first season and is a mainstay on the roster now, helping them find the Fuel find their way out of the darkness near the end of the season. The final support player is Won-sik "Closer" Jung, a newly traded player from the London Spitfire. With being on the London Spitfire, Closer came from GC Busan following his transer from MVP Space.
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| Jonathan "HarryHook" Tejedor |
San Francisco Shock
The Shock was lack luster in the first half of season one with a 6-14. But with some mid season pickups, the Shock was able to finish out the season with 11-9, making a grand total of 17-23. Though they boast the youngest roster, the Shock has many young talents that can compete with the seasoned vets of the other teams. The Shock were teased about their roster due to the increasing amount of damage players. The mid season picks and new blood joining for Season 2, the Shock has been doing fairly well currently.
Coaching and Management
The San Francisco Shock is owned by Andy Miller, Chairman and founder of Texas based NRG Esports. The Shock was able to acquire Boston Uprising's coach Da-hee "Crusty" Park. Joining Crusty is Bumhoon "NineK" Kim, former coach of NRG Esports, and former coach of Toronto Esports Jae "Junkbuck" Choi.
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| Da-hee "Crusty" Park |
Players
Tank
Starting the tank roster is Matthew "super" DeLisi. Super was a long time competitive player being on Hammer Esports and LG Evil before being picked up by the Shock. Next on the list is Andreas "Nevix" Karlsson who saw repeated success on team Misfits before being traded to Cloud9's European team, and from there, he was traded to the Shock. Myeong-hwan "smurf" Yoo is a new pickup that was a substitute on the team Ardeont and a main tank player for GGEA. Since GGEA was the Houston Outlaws' farm team, the organization traded smurf for Danteh, a damage focused player from the Shock's main roster. The final tank player is Hyo-bin "ChoiHyoBin" Choi, a Korean player formerly of X6-Gaming.
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| Matthew "super" DeLisi |
Damage
Known for his fantastic tracking and mechanical skills, Jay "sinatraa" Won was rumored to have one of the highest paying contracts of the Inaugural season of Overwatch League. The former Selfless Gaming player had to sit out for half of the first season due to not hitting the League's age minimum of 18 years old. Min-ho "Architect" Park was a mid-season pick up from the Shock and they could not have made a better choice at the time. Architect was also picked from X6-Gaming and known for his flexibility and hero pool. Dong-jun Kim, also known as "Rascal" had a long history with the League; being a part of KongDoo Panthera, his team was turned into the London Spitfire. He was released from the Spitfire due to some rumored behavior problems and was picked up by the Dallas Fuel. These problems seemed to persist, because he was released from the Fuel two months after being signed. From the Fuel, he went on to play for NRG Esports. From NRG, he went to the San Fran Shock as soon as another player signing window opened. New to the Shock this season, but a familiar face to Season 1 viewers is Nam-joo "Striker" Kwon formerly of the Boston Uprising. This trade does not make much sense to me since Striker was one of the Uprising's better, more consistent players. The final player is Andrej "babybay" Francisty, BabyBay had an off-and-on seat at his former team Kungarna, but he also played for teams such as Splyce and Ghost Gaming, seeing good results for Splyce and Kungarna early in his career.
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| Jay "Sinatraa" Won |
Support
Hopefully this section is not as long as the previous one. The Shock only has three players in this category, but these three are more than adequate to be on the team. Starting us off is Nikola "sleepy" Andrews. Originally from Tempo Storm's North American roster, sleepy was only in the competitive scene for a short amount of time before being picked up by the Shock. Grant "moth" Espe was a mid season pick up from the Shock. Coming from Toronto Esports, moth was part of the new lifeblood that helped the Shock pull through the latter half of the Inaugural Season. New to the roster and this season is Min-ki "Viol2t" Park. Viol2t is one of the few players to have numbers in their usernames. Viol2t saw early success in his previous teams of the O2 franchise and Showmanship7 before being signed to the San Francisco Shock.
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| Grant "moth" Espe |
With the start of the Pacific Division, next up will be the battle for LA: the LA Gladiators, and the LA Valiant!
The 2nd Season of the Overwatch League has started and can be watched
HERE on Twitch.tv. Games go from Thursday to Sunday, with four games per day. You can also watch past games
HERE on YouTube. The Overwatch League has its official merchandise located
HERE in the event you find a team that's worth cheering for.
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