As after seeing the end of the Overwatch League’s 2019 Season, it’s time to reflect on the year. In this series, I will tell the story of each of the 20 OWL teams, then go over what to change for next year.

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Hello everybody and welcome to Episode 3 of Season 2 Stories! For this edition, we’re going to be chronicling the tale of the Toronto Defiant. Although they started out strong, everything went downhill from there, finishing the season in 18th place.

Last Season’s Leftovers

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The Toronto Defiant was officially announced as one of the eight Season 2 expansion teams on September 7, 2018, revealing their branding on October 24. Shortly after, on October 27, they began to announce their roster.

The theme for the Defiant’s newly announced roster seemed to be “last season’s leftovers”. Indeed, out of the Defiant’s 8 players, 3 had previously been on OWL teams: flex support Sehyeon “Neko” Park from the Boston Uprising, hitscan DPS Junseong “Asher” Choi from the Los Angeles Gladiators, and off tank Kangjae “envy” Lee who had previously played with the LA Valiant before joining Meta Bellum. In addition, the Defiant signed ex-London Spitfire head coach Beomjun “Bishop” Lee as head coach and ex-Seoul Dynasty coach Yunho “Bubbly” Cho as an assistant coach.

The rest of the lineup came from the core of O2 Ardeont, a mid-upper tier Korean team: DPS duo Seunghyun “Ivy” Lee and Donghyun “Stellar” Lee, main tank Gyeongmu “Yakpung” Jo, and main support Jooseong “RoKy” Park, who had only been on O2 Ardeont for a week before getting signed, previously playing for X6-Gaming and Seven. Rounding up their roster was main support Jaeyoon “Aid” Go, previously of GGEA.

Looking at their roster on paper, the Defiant didn’t look like anything special. Despite the established skill of the “leftovers”, O2 Ardeont was far from an elite team in Korea, and the Defiant didn’t even have O2’s best player, flex support Minki “Viol2t” Park. However, some did see a lot in this team. Neko was one of the best flex supports last year, envy had looked very good on the Valiant before being released, Asher was a star Tracer and McCree player on the Gladiators, Ivy and RoKy had shown a lot of promise in Korea, and Bishop had previously led the Spitfire to win Stage 1 in 2018. Content creator Michael “TheFortniteGuy” Padilla even went as far as to put the team in 6th place in his preseason power rankings, above any other expansion team. “I really do like Bishop as a head coach for them,” TheFortniteGuy said. “I like Neko, he’s a really good Zenyatta; I like envy… Overall I just like this team, I don’t know why, I have a gut feeling about them.”

Coming Out Swinging

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The Toronto Defiant kicked the season off against the Houston Outlaws, winning 3–2, making the match the first reverse-sweep of 2019. Neko, having been suspended for 3 matches, was forced to sit out and let Aid play as flex support, but nonetheless, the Defiant looked good. Despite losses to the Atlanta Reign and New York Excelsior, the Defiant was able to defeat the Los Angeles Valiant, Boston Uprising, Chengdu Hunters, and Hangzhou Spark to finish Stage 1 at 5–2 +5, tied for third place with the Philadelphia Fusion.

As it turned out, the Defiant quickly cemented themselves as one of the top dogs of Stage 1. Ivy’s Zarya, Neko’s Zenyatta, and envy’s D.Va and Sombra rose to among the top in the League, and Bishop’s coaching received a lot of praise as well. Yakpung, Stellar, and RoKy all had solid showings, and Aid looked fairly decent during his short off-role stunt as flex support. Even when their playoff hopes were quickly slain by the eventual runner-ups, the San Francisco Shock, the Defiant had proven the haters wrong: they belonged at the top.

A Problem Rises

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To the surprise of many, the Defiant announced the sudden retirement of Stellar in the short break before Season 2. However, Defiant fans had little to worry about. Stellar’s Brig play wasn’t groundbreaking by any means, and they had another world-class DPS in Asher on the bench, not to mention that they could always sign someone new.

Indeed, the Defiant soon announced that their new player would be Jinui “im37” Hong, a former streamer who had recently speed-ran the Path to Pro after getting recognition from popular streamer Felix “xQc” Lengyel’s stream. im37 was known to be a talented hitscan DPS that could fill in for Stellar’s shoes, and he was already available in North America, but there might have been another reason he was signed.

You see, the Defiant was notoriously known for their lacking fanbase in Stage 1, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Compared to the other expansion teams, they had almost nothing going for them. They didn’t have the raw star power or moving storylines of the Vancouver Titans. They didn’t have any fan-favorite players or exciting personalities such as the Chengdu Hunter’s Menghan “Ameng” Ding or the Atlanta Reign’s Daniel “Dafran” Francesca. They didn’t have the Hunters’ fun, meta-breaking playstyle, or the Reign’s infamous Reddit plays, or the Titans’ hyper-aggressive flank Earthshatters. Their branding was uninspired and boring compared to the electric pink anime references of the Hangzhou Spark. Other than the “As a Toronto representative…” joke they had practically zero memes about them. Their social media game was weak against the Spark’s match posters or the Titans’ graphics. They didn’t even get the pity-fans or 2018 Shanghai supporters that the Washington Justice got. There was practically no reason to root for the Defiant: they weren’t bad, but there was always someone better. With im37’s large fan base thanks to xQc, as well as all of his “speedrunner” memes, he could have been exactly what the Defiant needed to get more fans. Even if he wasn’t up to par with the level expected of the League, there was always Asher on the bench. What could go wrong?

Disaster Strikes

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The Toronto Defiant started Stage 2 against the bottom-tier Washington Justice. After a decent hitscan showing from Asher for 2 maps, im37 was brought in and was able to make a big impact in the game on his Widowmaker, leading the Defiant to a 3–1 victory. In addition, his dominant microphone grab from League interviewer Danny Lim gave the Defiant just what they wanted: publicity. im37 would then play all 5 maps against the Boston Uprising, but the Defiant couldn’t quite pull through and ended up getting reverse-swept.

Things only got worse from there, however, as the Defiant found themselves losing to the mid-tier Philadelphia Fusion and Dallas Fuel as well as the top-tier San Francisco Shock and Vancouver Titans. And although they lost as a team, it wasn’t hard to see where the Defiant was lacking: im37 might have brought in the publicity the Defiant needed, but he looked grossly unqualified to be in the League. Things were made even worse when the Defiant attempted to switch the roles of im37 and Ivy, moving im37 to Zarya; all this accomplished was putting their top-tier Zarya player in Brig jail. Despite a win over the struggling Paris Eternal to end Stage 2 at 2–5 -7, in 15th place. It was clear where they went wrong: Stellar was a much more valuable part of the roster than what people thought, and im37 turned out to be a Contenders-level player at best. Evidently, the Defiant had to make some big changes during the mid-season break.

Big Changes?

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While Neko went as the Defiant’s sole representative at All-Stars, the Defiant went for one of the biggest changes of the season: to go from a full-Korean team to a mixed roster. With Bishop and im37 being fully bilingual, as well as Aid and the “leftovers” having previous mixed-roster experience, it wasn’t a bad idea. The Defiant promoted Western tank duo Normunds “Sharyk” Faterins and Daniel “Gods” Graeser from the academy team and set off to start Stage 3 as a mixed team.

However, the Defiant ended up facing some other troubles. After playing only two maps for the entire season, Asher fully retired from professional Overwatch to return to Korea and pursue a career in music. Then, just two games into Stage 3, envy left for the Shanghai Dragons. With envy, arguably their best player in Stages 1 and 2, gone, there was no going back for the Defiant. Their new mixed roster had to succeed.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The Defiant ended up going 0–7 in Stage 3. Even with promising new pickups in hitscan DPS Andreas “Logix” Berghmans and projectile DPS Liam “Mangachu” Campbell, the Defiant still looked bad. Due to RoKy’s lower proficiency in English, he was benched for Aid, who looked noticeably weaker as a main support. Similarly, Ivy was also benched for Mangachu, who also struggled. Gods was decent at best, Neko looked considerably worse than he did when comming in Korean, and neither Sharyk nor Yakpung looked particularly strong on main tank, with Sharyk being consistently average while Yakpung was wildly inconsistent. Logix’s star power on Widowmaker wasn’t enough to save the team, and the Defiant finished Stage 3 tied for last place with the Washington Justice, their only win being Mangachu’s Torbjorn hammer 1v1 against Dafran in Atlanta.

Not Enough

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Although technically still in playoff contention, the Defiant needed a lot to happen to redeem themselves in Stage 4. Luckily for them, 2–2–2 role lock was implemented in Stage 4. Hopefully, the Defiant’s star DPS could carry them through the new 2–2–2 meta.

Even then, though, it wasn’t enough. The issues with the tankline remained, and although Aid’s Baptiste was better than his Lucio and Mercy, he was still a problem. Neko had fallen down to just an average flex support, Gods was relatively quiet, Logix has some flexibility issues, and Mangachu had little to no impact on any hero except for Pharah. Halfway through the stage, the Defiant released their head coach, Bishop, leaving coaching duties to the assistant coaches. Everything was going downhill.

Despite a promising win over the Stage 3 champions, the Shanghai Dragons, the Defiant ended Stage 4 at 1–6 -11, tied with the Dragons in 17th place. Overall, the Defiant’s final standing was 8–20 -33, in 18th place. After 5 wins in Stage 1, the Defiant had only managed to win one game over the entire second half of the season. They had truly fallen from grace, down into the depths of defeat.

Looking Forward

Image from Toronto Defiant on Twitter

As I haven’t been able to push these pieces out as quickly as I would have hoped, I’m a little late making suggestions for the Defiant’s 2020 roster, as it already seems to be locked in. Instead, I’ll just review their recent roster moves.

With Bishop gone, the Defiant promptly released all of their assistant coaches save Dennis “Barroi” Matz, best known as the creator of the statistical website Winston’s Lab. As a new head coach, the Defiant signed Felix “Fefe” Munch, previously the head coach of the Paris Eternal. Considering the Eternal’s similar struggles under Fefe’s lead, it was certainly a skeptical pickup, but Toronto fans have no choice but to hope that the Defiant’s management saw something special in Fefe. To compliment Fefe, the Defiant signed Alban “Albless” De La Grange as an assistant coach, previously the Eternal’s manager. Ex-Team Gigantti main support David “Lilbow” Moschetto was also brought in as another assistant coach, completing the Defiant’s French trio of coaches.

The Defiant also let go of most of their 2019 roster, releasing Gods, Yakpung, Aid, Sharyk, im37, and Neko, as well as trading Ivy to the Philadelphia Fusion, leaving only Logix, Mangachu, and RoKy on the team, RoKy now as a two-way player. Of the players released, only Ivy and Aid have found new homes as of now, the former with the Fusion, the latter as an assistant coach for the Eternal.

The Defiant soon picked up a multitude of new players. Interestingly, the Defiant seems to have kept their “leftovers” theme, signing 5 new players from other OWL teams. Although last year’s team started out as fully Korean, the new signings are mostly Western.

As the Defiant have started to embrace their Canadian identity, they picked up Mangachu’s DPS partners from Team Canada: hitscan DPS Lane “Surefour” Roberts from the LA Gladiators and projectile DPS Brady “Agilities” Girardi from the LA Valiant. Along with Agilities came his BFF, flex support Youngseo “KariV” Bak from the Valiant, the only Korean among the new pickups. From the Boston Uprising came main support Kristian “Kellex” Keller, who recently had a very good showing on Team Denmark at the 2019 Overwatch World Cup. In return for Ivy came main tank Adam “Beast” Denton from the Fusion’s academy team, Fusion University, and the Defiant wrapped things up by signing Swedish off tank Andreas “Nevix” Karlsson from the San Francisco Shock.

With no more reported signings, here’s the Defiant’s roster as of now:

DPS: Surefour, Agilities, Logix, Mangachu

Tank: Beast, Nevix

Support: KariV, Kellex, RoKy (two-way)

Head Coach: Fefe

Assistant Coach: Albless, Lilbow, Barroi

Looking at the roster, I would project them to be a middle-tier team. Their DPS are obviously the standout, and I expect very strong showings from them, especially Surefour. Their supports look very strong as well, and I think they have the potential to be one of the best support lines in the league. I do have some doubts about the tanks. Beast came fresh off a disappointing performance with Fusion University in Contenders Korea, not even making the semifinals, and while Nevix has a very good reputation, I can count the number of games he played last year on one hand, making him a question mark. I would feel a lot better if they had backups, but so far, nothing has been reported. Meanwhile, as I said before, I have doubts about Fefe, making the coaching aspect another question mark. If everything goes smoothly for this team, they have the potential to make playoffs. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up being a lower-tier team again.

But hey, that’s just my opinion. And with that, this edition of Season 2 Stories comes to a close. Thank you for reading!