Following the release of veteran Kyeong-bo “GodsB” Kim last week, the Hangzhou Spark have released Tank player Young-hyun “Takoyaki” Lee into the OWL free agency pool. The news broke late Sunday evening on social media accompanied by a farewell video.
Today we part ways with Tank player Lee “Takoyaki” Young-hyun as he enters free agency.
Takoyaki joined us at the start of this season, we thank him for what he has done with the Spark and we wish him a bright future ahead. Thank you Takoyaki. pic.twitter.com/aTwkKXKMW0— Hangzhou Spark (@Hangzhou_Spark) June 28, 2021
Takoyaki, unfortunately, did not get as much playing time as he probably wanted as he went into his first year in the league. The Korean Main Tank player made his Overwatch League debut early on in the season against the Philadelphia Fusion on April 24. Takoyaki would decidedly play the majority of his time on Winston, logging in just over 25 minutes in total for the season so far. After a 3-1 loss in Hangzhou’s first game of the season, the team never decided to bring Takoyaki back into the lineup. Opting instead for building chemistry between mainstay Xu “Guxue” Qiulin and his new Off-tank partner Se-won “BERNAR” Shin.
The Spark announced Takoyaki’s acquisition on November 17, 2020, citing his former Element Mystic prowess. This announcement came alongside Jeong-ho “MCD” Lee’s roster announcement just a day prior. While MCD’s rookie campaign has gone better, Takoyaki’s season was also plagued with visa issues. This, in turn, could be a major reason for his release.
Guxue was away for an interview so no pictures of him _(꒪ཀ꒪」∠)_
GodsB and Takoyaki had some visa issues and we are working on them.
Architect, BERNAR, iDK, MCD, and SeoMinSoo have already spent a week in quarantine in Hangzhou. Just one more week and we will train together!— Hangzhou Spark (@Hangzhou_Spark) January 25, 2021
In Conclusion
Hangzhou’s roster at the beginning of the season was boasted as a robust, but large group. These past couple of weeks, however, have seen the team prune their shortcomings and try and nip in the bud some–for a lack of a better term–”expendable” members.
TGH will keep an eye out if the organization decides to continue to work on its roster as the OWL’s movement deadline looms.
The Spark play their next match against the NYXL on Friday, July 8 at 2 AM PST.
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Featured Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.
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