A couple of days ago we took a look at some of the top offseason signings of the 2020 OWL offseason, up until this point. But, with Thanksgiving now over and the rest of the holiday season in full swing, it seems a perfect time to be cynical and look at the other side of the coin: The offseason’s worst moves (or lack of a move).
This first one isn’t a poor move by just one team, but rather a slight on the league as a whole. There are several teams still in need of depth at certain positions and plenty of players in the semi-pro Overwatch scene that can fill those holes. In particular, Mads “fischer” Jehg, Jeffrey “Vizility” de Vries and Sang-hoon “Kaiser” Ryu are all among players who have solid LAN experience and proven results against OWL-level talent. If these three, among many other T2 players, aren’t picked up midseason it will be a huge disappointment for Contenders supporters worldwide.
Many of the Outlaws moves this offseason have been nothing short of brilliant. But this one just doesn’t make sense. With players like Jacob “JAKE” Lyon and Dante “Danteh” Cruz on the roster, Jeffrey “blasé” Tsang just doesn’t make much sense, outside of potentially being better at one or two projectile DPS heroes. Overall, it seems that this roster spot may have been better suited for depth at main tank or main support, rather than an additional projectile DPS. Time will tell.
Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
From top to bottom, this has been a puzzling offseason for the Valiant. They’ve shipped away most of their talented, iconic players to other teams and have replaced them with relatively unproven talent, all while claiming budgeting issues didn’t play a part. If the latter is true, it’s hard to make sense of this offseason for the green and gold, who are stacked up to be a potentially bottom-tier team in 2020.
Like Houston, the Fusion have had an overall amazing offseason, with the exception of two key areas: The signing of Philip “ChipSa” Graham and the lack of signing a player to rotate at main tank with Su-min “SADO” Kim. The Fusion have the DPS to win games without ChipSa, but the same cannot be said assuredly about SADO at main tank, who has had clear struggles in the last two seasons. With some stellar main tank options still out there (TiZi, Bumper, Kaiser, etc.) the Fusion should have no reason to secure depth at this spot at some point.
From playing in the Grand Finals to one of the most puzzling offseasons in the league, the Vancouver Titans have had fans across the league scratching their heads since late October. At support, the Titans have brought in Overwatch veteran Jehong “ryujehong” Ryu to play alongside 2019 MVP candidate Jooseok “Twilight” Lee, meaning that ryujehong will likely be on the bench quite a bit.
Then, at tank, the Titans release both of their proven main tanks and sign Chan-hyung “Fissure” Baek, a skilled main tank that has essentially removed himself from his two former teams. Overall, it seems the Titans took a stable team with proven synergy together and shuffled in two players that have the risk of endangering an otherwise proven ecosystem of success.
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Featured Image Courtesy of Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
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