The Florida Mayhem might be the most perplexing team in the Overwatch League’s West Division right now.
They’re sitting at 10th place overall with a 4-8 match record, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But take a look at the team’s roster, and you’ll be taken aback by all the talent you see there – especially in its support line.
Flex support Kang “Gangnamjin” Nam-jin and main support Kim “SLIME” Sung-jun are two players whose skill and accomplishments can’t be denied. Both are graduates of RunAway, a South Korean team famous for their ability to produce outstanding talent, even though their time there didn’t overlap. SLIME was part of the wildly successful Vancouver Titans roster that swept through the 2019 Overwatch League season. Gangnamjin joined the league a year later in 2020 but immediately impressed with his carry potential, shooting to the top of the Ana rankings in his very first match.
It’s safe to say that, at least on paper, the two of them have the potential to be one of the strongest support lines in the league. And though the Florida Mayhem have experienced ups and downs this season, Gangnamjin and SLIME have remained a consistent bright spot for the squad.
Though they’d never played together before, it didn’t take a lot of time for them to develop the kind of synergy that makes for a great support duo.
“When we started out, we weren’t like, ‘Hey, let’s sync up and work on our chemistry,'” SLIME said. “We just kept playing together and got used to each other’s playstyles, and we naturally just synced up from there.”
The two have been part of illustrious support duos in the past. The aforementioned 2019 season Vancouver Titans were a true force of nature, and much of that was because of their solid support line. It was usually composed of SLIME and Lee “Twilight” Joo-seok, who currently plays for the San Francisco Shock.
“Twilight has a very individualistic style,” SLIME said. “He plays very flashy, so I had to adapt to that.”
It’s not just SLIME who’s had experience adapting to a support partner with a devil-may-care attitude. Gangnamjin’s support partner on RunAway was Lee “LeeJaeGon” Jae-gon, a main support famous for his flashy, aggressive plays.
“I started off playing with LeeJaeGon, and he just does whatever he feels like doing, so I always had to keep up and change my playstyle to adapt to him,” Gangnamjin said. “But as for SLIME, I’ve never really felt like I have to change or that he’s changing his style to match mine. We just fit together naturally. Things just kind of clicked.”
Gangnamjin and SLIME are both highly adaptable support players, so it makes sense that their flexible playstyles would mesh, even with a mercurial team like the Florida Mayhem.
“Not only am I very comfortable with Nam-jin already, but he also has the highest clutch potential in the most crucial moments of the game,” SLIME said.
The two are also good friends outside of the game, which helps them feel more at ease when playing together. When asked about his overall goal for the season, SLIME said he wanted to win as much as possible and be first place in the IBM Watson Power Rankings for support players. Gangnamjin said the same thing, leading to some bickering over which Florida Mayhem standout would actually be first.
“Why don’t we take turns?” Gangnamjin suggested finally. “Every week, we’ll just let the other person take first place.”
The two clearly feel comfortable with each other and are capable of forming a solid foundation for the rest of their team. It’s a good thing, too – the Mayhem are going to need as much stability as possible as they enter the Countdown Cup and make big changes to try and pull their match record back. It’ll be their last opportunity to secure the League Points necessary for a chance at play-ins.
“Our team performed pretty poorly in the last tournament cycle, but my focus is solely on the grand finals,” said SLIME. “That’s what matters in the end – winning the entire thing.”
“We still have a lot to work on,” Gangnamjin said. “I think the most important thing is to try and end on a good note.”
