It seems that, with the Overwatch League off-season in full swing, lots of players getting released. Even players under contracts are becoming free agents and looking for new opportunities. But a lot of teams are reanalyzing their rosters and releasing players accordingly. One of these teams was the London Spitfire, as we wrote about earlier this week. However, another under-performing team, the Florida Mayhem, has now released five players and a coach.
The Mayhem have released Hyeon-woo “HaGoPeun” Jo, Jae-ho “RaiN” Park, Jae-mo “xepheR” Koo, Yong-joon “Creature” Choi, Seong-won “Swon” Yoon, and coach Kim “KH1” Hyung-Il.
Third time’s the charm in Florida…
These releases mark the third time the Florida Mayhem have made their roster from scratch. This time, much like last year, they kept a few players to build off of. In last year’s dismantling, the only players that remained were HaGoPeun and Jung-woo “Sayaplayer” Ha. Now, HaGoPeun’s departure leaves Sayaplayer as the only remaining player from Florida’s inaugural season.
Going over all the players who left, only three made impacts in the starting roster this season. XepheR’s play was mediocre at best, and he was benched and outplayed when stage four came around. HaGoPeun was clearly one of the better players on the team, but he wasn’t able to impress like he did on the Spitfire in the inaugural season. And Swon held the main tank duties before the trade for another main tank happened, leaving him on the bench. Both Rain and Creature didn’t see play much this season, if at all.
And last but not least, the coach. KH1 was the assistant coach of the Florida Mayhem. With their last-place finish and poor play in every stage except the last, there isn’t much to say positively about him.
…or is it?
This is where questions start to arise about the Mayhem. They started with a full team roster from Europe, then moved to integrating Korean talent while stating “we will not be a full Korean team” in the first season. Come season two, they ignored their past words and became a full Korean team while still being one of the worst teams in the league.
The Mayhem are telling their fans: don’t worry, we’ll be better now. But while there are positives to look at, the past shows trouble at the helm for the Mayhem. They did get rid of their general manager recently, and the players they kept are starting caliber. Both Pan-seung “Fate” Koo and Beom-jun “Gargoyle” Lee have performed when the team needed it. But can we trust the Mayhem to fill around Fate, Gargoyle, and Sayaplayer well?
With how many players are hitting free agency and looking to join new teams, this opportunity is the best the Florida Mayhem will have. They need to grab some proven talent from the League and build a solid starting roster. Win some games early on in 2020 and show us that they aren’t a joke team anymore. Until then, however, the Mayhem will still be known as the funny walkout team and not much more.
