Now, time to look over the west-Canadian Overwatch League team. This time, the team is a lot easier to dive into, but what exactly is this team preview?
Up until February 14th, I’m going to go over each team and what’s changed since the inaugural season. Each team will have it’s own article, going over which players and coaches left, and who has replaced them. After going over the changes and my opinions on them, I’m going to rate them much like I did in my weekly series last season. This rating will be a little more in depth, considering I have more time than a week to look over the teams, especially the new ones.
But out of all of the new expansion teams, this team has the most experience together and has notoriety on their side. This preview is on the Vancouver Titans.
Roster
Much like last week, I’ll be going over each section of the team separately, from tanks to supports. What makes this easier for me this time is the lack of new players to the roster. For those who don’t know, the entire roster (besides one player) is taken straight from Korean Contenders team RunAway. This team just won the title of best Korean Contenders team in Season 2 before they got signed, joining in on a high. People following that scene were curious to see how they would perform in the Overwatch League, and now we will be able to. Starting with the DPS:
Damage players (DPS)
The DPS players on the Vancouver Titans are Hyo-jong “Haksal” Ki, Dong-eun “Hooreg” Lee, Min-soo “SeoMinSoo” Seo, and Chung-hee “Stitch” Lee.
RunAway was known for their great DPS depth, and that doesn’t change for the Titans. One name that immediately pops out is Haksal, an eighteen-year old player whose been playing on RunAway since their creation. Along with Bumper, their synergy has clearly developed a lot over the years, playing together for two years now on the same team. Known for his Genji and Pharah, he will be played in most compositions.
Another name that people might recognize is Hooreg, the only player on this roster who used to play in the Overwatch League. He played for the London Spitfire up until mid-Stage 4 (May 22), being on the roster as a substitute when they won the Stage 1 playoffs. After a lot of inactivity, he left and ended up joining RunAway on June 15. He ended up helping them reach the finals and win, even though he was still a substitute. Hooreg is extremely flexible, playing Tracer, McCree and Widowmaker when I saw him play; essentially a perfect substitute.
Their third DPS player is SeoMinSoo, a regular roster player along with Haksal and Stitch. One of the most recent acquisitions into the RunAway roster, he only played for them in their second season in Korea. His previous results in competition seem mediocre, but his performances with the team also show good synergy with his tanks and supports. He seems to main more projectile DPS heroes (Hanzo and Pharah), but also can flex onto the Zarya or Brigitte.
Last but not least is Stitch. Also being very experienced on this team, he’s been on it since APEX Season 2 in April of 2017. Being mainly a Tracer player, he played a lot when she was a meta hero, but he has been swapped a lot recently due to meta changes. He also playa Soldier: 76 and Widowmaker. I could see him starting due to experience, but depending on the meta, one of the substitutes might play more.
In conclusion, I think the starting two DPS players for this team will be Haksal and SeoMinSoo. We saw these two play a lot together in the finals of Korean Contenders, and if the meta doesn’t change, I would expect the same. But, if Tracer comes back into meta, or tank/support isn’t as good, Stitch might come back into the spotlight with Haksal. Either way, these DPS players are all great in their own way, and we don’t need to worry about synergy with these guys.
Tank players
The tank players on the Vancouver Titans are Sang-beom “Bumper” Park and Hyeon-Woo “JJANU” Choi.
For those who don’t know, RunAway is one of the independent, older teams from the Korean Contenders scene. Bumper is one of the most experienced players on the team, along with Haksal. Being on this team since 2016, having synergy with his team is a given. Onto JJanu, he also has great synergy with the team. He hasn’t been on the team as long as Bumper has, but his skills are in consideration for ‘Best D.VA in Korean Contenders’. He also helped RunAway win the second season of Korean Contenders, as did all his teammates on this squad.
This tank duo is very interesting. Clearly work well together, experience and flexibility, and trophies won. One of their DPS players might need to play tank for the tank/support composition that is meta now, but this tank duo is pretty good.
Support players
The support players on the Vancouver Titans are Sung-jun “SLIME” Kim, Lee “Twilight” Joo Seok and Jung-geun “Rapel” Kim.
Both Slime and Twilight joined RunAway for both seasons of Korean Contenders, developing a great starting partnership. Slime playing the heals of Mercy, Lucio and Ana, while Twilight played Ana or Zenyatta. Not only were they flexible together, but they worked together very well to help win them Season 2 of Korean Contenders. They were the league’s best support duo.
But that leaves us to the only player not from RunAway, Rapel. He played for Element Mystic from July of 2017 until Vancouver signed him as a substitute support. Zenyatta is his best hero. As a substitute, Twilight and Slime are very flexible and might allow a Twilight-Rapel duo in the future. I feel as if this signing is just in case if tank/support composition is still happening, so they can have three support mains playing at once if needed.
Even with Rapel, I still can’t see their support line not being Slime and Twilight. They have great synergy with both each other and the rest of the team. Rapel will be a good sub, but their support duo is staying the same as back on RunAway.
Starting Team Prediction and Rating
So, to complete my guesses, their starting lineup should be Haksal and SeoMinSoo on DPS, Bumper and JJanu on tank, and Slime and Twilight on support. But how will this Contenders roster perform in the Overwatch League?
For those who don’t know my grading, I will give a rating out of 10, like my old reviews. Here’s a link if you want to read it, but it’s a bit different now that I’m grading teams based on how their team was built without any game experience.
I’m giving this team a solid 7.5/10. While in theory this team is very good together, there a couple question marks. Will they play as well as they did in Contenders? Is the Overwatch League another level over Korean Contenders or not? Will this team become another Seoul Dynasty of season 1; a whole team moved over who under-performs? Only time will tell.
Agree with my opinion? Think I’m completely wrong? Leave a comment with your ideas.
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