It was a fun time in the Overwatch League for Daniel “dafran” Francesca, but it seems to have come to an end. Dafran has retired from the Atlanta Reign and the Overwatch League. This announcement came out just earlier today, with the Reign tweeting this notice.
Atlanta Reign Announce the Retirement of Daniel “Dafran” Francesca from the @overwatchleague. pic.twitter.com/FEkR8cNyvw
— Atlanta Reign (@ATLReign) March 28, 2019
Why did he retire?
This is disappointing for most fans, as we rarely got to see Dafran play the heroes he was most known for: his Tracer and McCree. However, this timing does make sense for one thing: training and commitment. He played the entirety of the first stage of season two, mainly playing Zarya. Not only did he play well, he also led the league in final blows for a while. But from the start, from the signing of Dafran, people were questioning how important he was going to be. Would his emotional side show? Would he have issues?
As we saw on stream, he didn’t have issues. But this is an honest retirement due to simply not wanting to play professionally as other Overwatch League players do. As someone who was a streamer, Dafran must see the league as something that just isn’t for him. His popularity on stream and his obvious skill will still go on, but no longer in the Overwatch League.
What now for Dafran?
However, on the bright side, he was clearly happy with the experience and excited that he did well with the chance he got. Here is a more detailed tweet about his retirement from Dafran himself:
Retiring from OWL
Read: https://t.co/egvVGgrBQn
— Farmer Dafran (@dafran) March 28, 2019
In this twitlonger, Dafran mentions that “being a part of OWL has been one of the best experiences in my life and it is something to really look up to and strive for, if you are trying to go pro in Overwatch. It is so well done and it is way better than you would expect, it was for me at least.” It is clear he is done with competitive Overwatch, but ending on a much better note than he did with Selfless Gaming. But he isn’t done with the Atlanta Reign organization completely, as he’s signing on to become a streamer for the team.
It is sad to see Dafran go. He is known for his insane tracking and Tracer/Soldier play, and we didn’t get to see much of that in stage one. Stage two was proving to be weirder than stage one, with the classic three tank three support becoming less meta. There was a chance that Dafran would finally be able to play his favourite heroes at the top level, on stage in front of hundreds of thousands. But now, we truly will never see Dafran playing Tracer against other top-tier tracers except for on his streams, on ladder.
In conclusion…
As disappointing as this is, you have to accept Dafran’s decision. He is the only person who truly knows how he is feeling, and as much as he liked playing in the league, it’s obvious he missed his streams. He missed his fan-base, his old emotes, and his old schedule; not having to train as hard for Overwatch specifically. No matter what, he tried and did very well in the league.
Trending
