On March 22nd the Seoul Dynasty had a show match with the San Francisco Shock. This was not a regulation match, as it was played on the PTR. This allowed for the players to not have role lock as well as play around with the new DPS hero Echo. The Seoul Dynasty had their three DPS players on Echo in the best of three match. Junyoung ‘Profit’ Park, Jemin ‘Illicit’ Park, and Dongeon ‘FITS’ Kim were the three Echos of Seoul. Here is the break down of their Echo play style.
Map 1: Lijiang Tower
On Map 1 the Seoul Dynasty had Jaehui ‘Gesture’ Hong, Minhyuk ‘Michelle’ Choi, Profit, FITS, Jinmo ‘Tobi’ Yang, and Youngwan ‘Creative’ Kim in. It was Profit who first stepped into the shoes of Echo. Profit had no shield’s to play behind as Gesture had opted for Hog and Michelle was on Hammond. Profit’s style was flank heavy. He would go around the map to try and surprise or secure a kill.
Round 1: Control Center:
Profit prioritized using his ult to tanks. In Control Center Profit only got one ult and used it to copy Reinhardt, but wasn’t able to obtain the Reinhardt ult. Dongjun ‘Rascal’ Kim who was also playing Echo for the Shock also only had one ult the first map and he copied Roadhog. Profit died four times, twice to Seochang ‘ANS’ Lee on McCree and twice to Rascal’s Echo sticky bombs. He was the first blood in the map. Profit was not given any credit on the kill feed.
Profit wasn’t seemingly able to do much damage. When he tried to flank around he was found by the Shock. That left the rest of the team a member down. If there isn’t a Zarya on the field for tanks then the damage is really lacking in finishing off the enemy team if Profit on Echo can’t get a kill on his flanks.
Round 2: Night Market:
The second map was Night Market. This time Tobi was on Mercy to boost and heal Profit. This looked very much like a flanking pharmacy comp. Profit had one ult compared to Rascal’s two ults on this map. Again he ulted to copy Reinhardt, but this time did get his ult. Unfortunately, he was Brig stunned out of it. Rascal, on the other hand, ulted to become Genji and D.Va. Profit was lapped on his ults, but if a team is winning they will probably have more damage to accrue that ultimate.
This second map was much better for Profit as he was killed only twice. The first time he was killed was a flash banged by ANS’ Mccree and then he fell off the map at the end of his movement ability. He did kill ANS with his beam and then helped destroy Rascal’s Echo ulted D.Va Mech.
Map 2: Junkertown
The second map was Junkertown. The Dynasty switched around their players to have Gesture, Minseo ‘Marve1’ Hwang, Profit, Illicit, Seungtae ‘Bdosin’ Choi, and Creative. Instead of Profit being on Echo it was Illicit. He prioritized being in the air more. This might be as Illicit is quite comfortable on Pharah. Rather than the sneaky flanker of Profit’s Echo, Illicit used more long-range sticky bombs and tried attacking from afar. The viewers did not get to see much as Seoul did not reach the first checkpoint. It would have been interesting to see how Illicit would’ve played Echo on the third point as it is more enclosed.
Seoul’s Attack:
Jay ‘Sinatraa’ Won was the opposing Echo. He immediately struck and killed multiple players on Seoul gaining him 70%+ of his ultimate in the first couple seconds. When Seoul was attacking, both Sinatraa and Illicit favored copying Roadhog, and Roadhog only during this map. Illicit’s first ult did not gain Roadhog’s ult and the second time he had just gotten it before getting snapped back to Echo. Sinatraa all two times did get his ult and when the round was ending he just hit his third Echo ult.
Illicit was killed five times and three of those five were because of Sinatraa. Hyobin ‘Choihyobin’ Choi killed him once with a hook and he also fell off the map when he was going after Sinatraa for a kill that was stolen from him by Profit’s Ashe. Illicit was able to snag four kills in the kill feed. Two of them were on supports (Grant ‘Moth’ Espe and Minki ‘Viol2t’ Park). The other two kills were on Sinatraaa and Choihyobin. Just like Profit, he killed most of them with the beam, but that goes with the kits and how the ability works best.
Seoul’s Defense:
When the Shock were attacking both Sinatraa and Illicit each only had one Echo ult. This time neither were tanks. Sinatraa’s ult was to copy Tracer where he was able to earn two tracer ults off of farming damage on Marve1’s Roadhog. Illicit copied Widowmaker but also able to get Infrasight. This time around, Illicit tried to push the backlines more to varying levels of success.
The defense was quite short as Seoul didn’t get to the first checkpoint. Illicit only died once towards the end of the round to ANS’ Widowmaker. That could be seen as revenge as earlier Illicit did kill ANS with his sticky bombs.
Map 3: Horizon Lunar Colony
On Lunar Colony the Dynasty again switched up their roster to include Gesture, Marve1, Profit, FITS, Bdosin, and Tobi. Of the three iterations of the team comps seen this was the most effective. It was FITS who jumped on Echo duty. FITS preferred to play alongside the team in a more conservative playstyle.
Seoul’s Attack:
When Seoul was attacking Namjoo ‘Striker’ Kwon and FITS both got three Echo ults each. 5 of the 6 were ults to become Reinhardt. FITS’ first Echo ult was of Roadhog. During this round FITS died 5 times. 4 of those times were because of the DPS on the Shock (2 for Minho ‘Architect’ Park and 2 for Striker) and the other time was to Viol2t’s Ana. On the flip side FITS got 2 kills. One on Choihyobin via the beam and Striker with the sticky bombs.
FITS seemed to be using the mobility of flight much less than the other Echos of Seoul. He played with the team. He would a couple of times get picked off first. Just like the issue with Profit flanking, if FITS goes down first that is half of the damage output down. Though he was able to get off his three ults he didn’t make any impactful plays with them.
Seoul’s Defense:
When it was Seoul of the defense it was Architect that moved onto Echo. This was the only time during the whole match that a Seoul Dynasty Echo player was ahead in the Echo Ults. Architect ulted three times to become D.Va, Tracer, and Ana which shows the versatility of his kit. FITS stayed to his pattern ulting into Winston twice and Rein once. All three times FITS ulted as Echo he was able to attain the tanks’ ult that he changed into.
FITS died 5 times on the defense. 3 of those 5 times were from tanks, while the other two were Striker on Tracer and Viol2t on Ana. If they lost FITS many times that team fight they would also lose. He destroyed Choihyobin’s Mech twice and killed three. He did have an impressive 180 shatter as Reinhardt that netted him the kill onto Moth. The point of this show match was to show off Echo. FITS could have been much more impactful with other DPS heroes such as Doomfist in this match up.
The Three Echos of Seoul
Of the three Echos of Seoul all had their own unique style. Profit has the most potential on the hero as he is so flexible and his hero pool is so large. Today he did not show up to that potential. He favors that flanking style, which Season 1 Tracer Junhyeok ‘Bunny’ Chae preferred. The team has changed a lot since that, but back in Season 1 the Dynasty went with the more team-based Tracer in Sangbeo, ‘Munchkin’ Byun.
Illicit and Fits seem to fit the old style of team play that the Dynasty favored. Of the two both played more with the team. Illicit used the movement capabilities much more than Fits. He went for more aggressive combo plays of Echo’s kit. Fits hung back more and focused on sticking with the team. He tried not to over commit on Echo and played her conservatively.
Overall, based on this small window of play, Illicit seems to be the best choice to play Echo. Though with a new head coach, and three old London Spitfire players their team play could have transformed in the offseason. If they do play more in the Spitfire Season 1 and 2 playstyle then Profit’s Echo would be more advantageous for them to utilize.
Echo Overall
As this was a show match, there are no assurances that Seoul will opt to play Echo during regulation matches. It was easy to see that this was a brand new hero. Illicit, Profit and even Sinatraaa fell off the map because of misjudgment of the mobility of the hero. The Seoul Dynasty players did not show as good of combinations of Echo’s abilities, unlike the Shock DPS players. This could be that they didn’t want to show all the strategies or they hadn’t practice on Echo much.
The Tiger Nation greatly enjoyed seeing the DPS players all flex onto the new hero. Hopefully, they all practice their tank ults as that seems to be, across the board, the favorite category of hero to copy for Echo’s Ult. There is still no news when the first official match for the Seoul Dynasty will be, but whenever Echo is added into the hero pool, if these matches are any indication of what is to come, it will be explosive.
You can watch the show matches here.
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