michr leaves OWKings to be replaced by Clown

michr, the Lucio support for OWKings, has stepped down from the team citing a clash of styles as his reason for leaving. He has been replaced by Clown, who was seen playing for the team in their recent matches. OWKings hope to unify their team under a single strategic approach after this change and manifest their potential, while michr is looking to form a new roster with a German base.

OWKings eventually managed to qualify for the Final 16 of the ESL Atlantic Showdown two days ago, after falling flat the first three times. They had been stumped on previous occasions by ANOX, Northern Gaming Blue, and 2sTroNk; in a sense the team had been unlucky to meet 2sTroNk in the third qualifier as the two strongest teams in that group, but avoided disaster by knocking out Le Mixx at their last opportunity and making their way through to the Final 16.

This performance is not quite where the team want to be. At the beginning of July, before their role changes, OWKings were ranked 5th on GosuGamers European rankings. The team is packed full of individual talent, enough to crack into the European elite, but have slowly been slipping over the course of the month. They are now ranked 12th in Europe by GosuGamers, mirroring their placement in the ESL qualifiers.

On the face of it, it seems reasonable to ask questions of the role swap we saw at the beginning of their decline. When OWKings made the decision to move ADETONIAN from support to dps and bring Likely in, they were expected to have a temporary rough patch. These are natural for teams undergoing serious roster switches, but OWKings do not appear to have recovered.

With literally no sabermetrics and only a handful of their games streamed, it is difficult to point the finger at any one factor from the outside. There will certainly be those who wave a vague hand towards the roster moves and draw correlations, but michr offers a more detailed insight into the potential causes for OWKings’ slump:

After a great journey together I have decided to leave OWKings. It has become very clear to me in the last months that despite amazing potential of all the players in the lineup, the team lacks leadership and direction on the server. Being the Lucio this would normally fall into my territory, however, the team wanted to play a completely different style of playing and utilize a way of calling than I was comfortable with, which lead to quite a few on the server disagreements. This became even clearer with our recent roster change, as we brought in yet another strong mind with his own ideas in Likely. It just made the most sense for both parties to part ways, as despite our best attempts, we couldn’t solve our on the server differences. I’m very thankful for the time together with the boys and hope that they can play to the fullest potential together with their new recruit. Additionally, I would like to thank Shameless, Stefan and caseyfoster for the support given our time together. As for my personal future, I will continue playing and try to build a new lineup with a solid german core.

Despite his reassuring words and genial attitude towards the remaining members of the team, there remains a feeling that michr has just paddled away from a sinking ship. It is eminently possible that OWKings will bounce back to challenge the top teams again, perhaps thanks in part to another McCree-friendly patch, but so far the roster has failed to match the onward march of their opposition. There is no doubting the star talent of key players on the roster, but the team as a whole is not delivering to their potential.

A team in a similar position recently was Misfits. The team had all the talent they needed but lacked leadership and a guiding presence from support. When they finally got that, in the shape of Zebbosai, the team skyrocketed upward to become the best in Europe. OWKings need that kind of snap improvement to realise the potential in their roster, otherwise they are likely to slump further downwards.

How OWKings performs in the rest of the ESL Atlantic Showdown will give an indication of whether they have gained that singular ethos and leadership. The improvement does not have to be as dramatic as Misfits’ was, but it must be improvement for OWKings to stay afloat.

OWKings announced the signing of Clown, saying:

It is with great pleasure that we can announce that the renowned Enemy Territory legend Jānis “Clown” Zagrebins will officially be joining the team. We’re incredibly happy with Clown joining our squad and we’re excited to see what he brings to the team. We’d like to thank Michr for all he’s done for our team and we wish him the best of luck with finding a new organization to play for. We’re sure it won’t take long.

The roster for OWKings is: