The San Francisco Shock have signed three O2 Blast players, including Jung “kilo” Jin-woo, Oh “FiNN” Se-jin and Kim “Proper” Dong-hyun. In the 2021-22 Overwatch League offseason, this marks the first multi-player signing, rebuilding the Shock from their championship roster.
The back-to-back Contenders champs, @O2Blast_OW are joining the back-to-back Overwatch League champs.
Are you ready to shock the world?
Please join us in welcoming @SEjFiNN, @0w_kilo and @ow_proper to SF Shock! pic.twitter.com/R4vSubHoPK
— San Francisco Shock (@SFShock) October 29, 2021
Kilo, FiNN and Proper’s path to the Shock
All three of these new Shock players made their names recently for O2 Blast, the back-to-back Korean Contenders champions. But, they all came onto O2 Blast through different paths.
Kilo was the only player out of the three to play in Open Division, playing for Bravos Gaming. But after joining O2 Blast in August of 2020, he helped them on their rise to the top in Korea. Primarily a hitscan DPS, kilo’s plays on Widowmaker and Ashe helped O2 Blast reach those championships.
For FiNN, his path began on Korean Contenders team MVP Space, also known as Team MVP. Playing alongside future Overwatch League players such as Kim “Yaki” Jun-ki and Kim “Valentine” Byeong-ju, he honed his craft on heroes such as Zenyatta and Ana. After joining O2 Blast in late 2019, his steady play on support helped the team upset RunAway in the first season of Korean Contenders in 2020. Of course, staying on the team helped them reach, and maintain, their place at the top, after other key teams disbanded or got signed to the Overwatch League.
Lastly, after a couple of seasons on BlossoM and StormQuake, Proper moved to O2 Blast in early 2019. Proper is the longest-serving member of O2 Blast, from when they won their two titles in Korea. He’s helped lead them to four Contenders finals, winning the most recent two. While also handy on hitscan, such as Cassidy and Ashe, his flexibility also ranges to Echo and Tracer. Alongside kilo, they ran over opponents on their way to back-to-back titles in Korea.
San Francisco’s future
With this bulk signing revealed, the Shock add young talent with winning experience to their team. Alongside Minki “Viol2t” Park, who actually never played with this generation of O2 Blast, this team aims to contend again for 2022. Losing the veteran talent the Shock had is tough for any team to recover from, but getting three players from the best Korean Contenders team is usually a safe bet.
The only question mark with these signings is the overlap of hero pools with FiNN and Viol2t. Plus, we have yet to see if these new Korean players can work alongside American player Matthew “Super” DeLisi. The Shock team isn’t fully assembled yet but they aim to reload with top talent and win in 2022.
Published: Oct 29, 2021 02:33 pm