The offseason normally brings a feeling of excitement for teams. A new year, new players, coaches, a chance for a team to reset and make a push for a championship. Unfortunately for the Florida Mayhem this may end up being a very similar year to last year.
Season 1 Recap
Season 1 was rough for the Mayhem. Luckily, the Shanghai Dragons existed otherwise the Mayhem would have finished at the bottom of the league. They finished the year 7-33 with a map record of 42-120-5, which was a map differential of -78 and good for 11th in the league. The one good thing they had last season was their introduction dances, which were always top tier.
Stage 1
Right from the start everyone could tell this team was going to struggle. This was not always the case though. Before this stage many thought that the team’s cohesion would be enough for them to win some games. Sadly this was not the case.
The Mayhem would be good enough to take maps here and there but other than a 4-0 over Shanghai and a 3-2 loss to the Fusion this team could not seem to get past one map win. They finished 1-9 with a map record of 9-31-1.
Stage 2
This was easily the teams best stage. They were 3-7, winning games against the Fuel, Valiant and Shock. Their cohesion looked like it was finally paying off and had they played Shanghai that stage it is likely they would have had a 4th win. They would finish with a respectable map record of 15-27-1 and many thought that they might be turning a corner or would at least continue to finish somewhere closer to the middle.
Stage 3
While they finished 10th again this stage, their results weren’t better but instead the Fuel’s got worse. The Mayhem were able to beat the only two teams to finish lower than them, the Fuel and the Dragons, and had a close game against the Uprising. That said this team looked destined to continue to struggle but it was around this time that they were starting to be known for their incredible introductions.
Stage 4
Stage 4 was where they nearly went 0-10. Their only win came against the Shanghai Dragons and they only won that one by the skin of their teeth, 3-2. Their map record was 7-34-1 and the only game they were competitive in outside of the Dragons game was against the Dynasty where they lost 3-2. After this stage it was abundantly clear that even with additions like Sayaplayer, this team needed to make major changes.
Returning Roster
The Florida Mayhem have nearly a completely new roster.
Head Coach: Vytis “Mineral” Lasaitis
Performance Coach: Robert Yip
Analyst: Albert “yeHHH” Yeh
Main Tank: Sung-hoon “SNT” Kim
DPS: Kevin “TviQ” Lindstrom
DPS: Jeong-woo “Sayaplayer Ha
New Pickups
Assistant Coach: Marvin “Promise” Schroder
Streamer: Annie “AnneDro” Dro
Flex Tank: Jae-mo “xepheR” Koo
Main Tank: Sang-Won “Swon” Yoon
DPS: Damon “Apply” Conti
DPS: Sang-Bum “BQB” Lee
Support: Hyeon-woo “HaGoPeun” Jo
Support: Jun-Soo “Kris” Choi
Coaching Background
Mineral is a Swedish coach that has been a part of the scene since the beginning of the game. He has also been a part of the Misfits organization since early 2017 and was a player before he began coaching. During the Overwatch World Cup he was the coach of team Sweden. Although the team had a rough Season 1 they are bringing him back for Season 2.
Promise has also been brought back with the org but promoted from Mayhem Academy. He has spent his entire career in Overwatch as a coach and was with Young and Beautiful before joining Misfits late in 2018. His tenure with the Academy team was short and the team struggled during season 3 of contenders.
The hope for this squad will be that they either pick up a translator or a Korean coach for all of the Korean talent that is on the roster. Last season Mineral fit well with the mostly European roster that featured four Swedish players. Now only TviQ is back and Mineral will need to rely on his experience from last season to try and help the team succeed.
Player Background
There are only three players returning this year in TviQ, SNT (formerly aWesomeGuy) and Sayaplayer. While SNT and Sayaplayer returning is not a major surprise due to performance and the team’s goal of having a mostly Korean roster, TviQ surprised many. It is possible that his relationship with Mineral is what is keeping him around or the team is expecting him to rebound with better players around him.
The additions of HaGoPeun and xepheR should help bring some experience to the squad. While they did not play much they were both a part of solid teams in the Spitfire and Dynasty respectively. The hope will be that they are able to come in and show why they were on those teams in the first place.
As for the rest of the crew, they will be looking at their first Overwatch League action. All of them have experience in Contenders North America or Korea and were on teams that generally performed well. That said, none of them have played together. Most teams have brought in players who were on the same team but the hope for the Mayhem is that this group will come together with time.
Team Schedule
Locked in and ready to #BringTheMayhem! 🌴💣#OWL2019 pic.twitter.com/WDsW8BX5ij
— Florida Mayhem (@FLMayhem) December 13, 2018
The Mayhem have a tough schedule for season 2 with them being in the Atlantic. With the new format of the schedule, there are 28 games, playing against every team at least once.
These are the teams Florida faces one time this season:
- Chengdu Hunters
- Guangzhou Charge
- LA Gladiators
- Shanghai Dragons
- Dallas Fuel
- Seoul Dynasty
- San Francisco Shock
- Hangzhou Spark
- Vancouver Titans
- LA Valiant
What To Take Away From This
These are all of the Pacific teams. Having the Hunters and the Charge early on may give the Mayhem a chance to get used to playing together against teams that many how low expectations of. The same cant be said for the last half of their season where they will face off against the Shock, Spark, Titans and Valiant, all teams that are expected to perform well.
The Florida Mayhem, will face these teams twice during season 2:
- Atlanta Reign
- Philadelphia Fusion
- Houston Outlaws
- Boston Uprising
- Washington Justice
- London Spitfire
- Paris Eternal
- New York Excelsior
- Toronto Defiant
What To Take Away From This
This is where the team will face a true challenge. When teams get to play against each other more than once they can learn from past experiences to improve their chances of winning. This will be especially true in stage 4 where the Mayhem play the Defiant twice. Hopefully Florida will adapt well and make the changes necessary to help them win.
The Atlantic should be tough again this season with the Fusion, Spitfire and Excelsior in the division. This will be especially true for Florida when they play all three teams in stage 2. Stage 1 should be the easiest stage for the Mayhem, so if they want to have a good season they will need to perform well during that stage.
Player To Watch
The player to watch this season will be HaGoPeun. He is coming over from the reigning champion London Spitfire so he should have plenty of experience and a winning mentality to bring to a team that desperately needs it. This team has very little experience in the league and with each other, so they will be leaning on him to answer questions they may have and hopefully keep them in the right mentality.
As for HaGoPeun himself, he will be looking to show the Spitfire that they made a mistake in not playing him more. He only played in 31 games last season and was not seen after stage 2. He definitely had his rough games but also had plenty where he produced. From what everyone could tell he was just left on the outside once the team decided on the six players that were going to start. The rest, including players like Rascal, were given the opportunities to go make impacts on other rosters. HaGoPeun will need to play well for this team to succeed.
Playoff Potential
It is hard to see this team making the playoffs this year let alone not finishing in the bottom three teams. They have a lot of inexperience and with everything that has been happening behind the scenes it would take some major surprises for this team to squeak into the playoffs. That said, it is not completely hopeless.
The Mayhem have brought in talent from the most talent filled region in the world, South Korea. Sayaplayer, HaGoPeun, xepheR and SNT specifically should be able to come together and show that this team is much more talented than last years iteration. If Mineral is able to find a way to communicate well with the team, if the Korean players are able to meld together (also with Apply and TviQ) and if they get a good start in stage 1 it is possible that the Mayhem could make some noise.
If nothing else, hopefully this new group will continue the tradition of the Mayhem having the best introductions in the league.
Need More?
You can ‘Like’ The Game Haus on Facebook and ‘Follow’ us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles from other great TGH writers along with Robert!
“From Our Haus to Yours”