On Oct. 10, 2016, a newly turned 16-year-old shuffled out onto an elevated stage at a television studio for his first time on camera. The teenager was pushed aside by his team's captain, Yoon "Runner" Dae-hoon, trying to get the youngster in the correct position for the camera to catch the team in its pregame huddle. The team was in their matching navy T-shirts, the logo "RUNAWAY" hastily plastered on the front of it as if they were printed just minutes before heading to the studio.

This was the debut of the Overwatch team RunAway and Hyojong "Haksal" Kim, a player with the sky as his limit and a team that could probably never get him there. RunAway was an amateur team playing their first match in OGN Overwatch Apex, the professional league set up in South Korea for the popular and recently released first-person shooter from Blizzard Games. Haksal impressed on his signature hero Genji, his online play transitioning to the professional competitive scene.

Three years after his debut, Haksal is a couple weeks away from turning 19. His makeshift RunAway jersey has been replaced by that of the Vancouver Titans, and he will be taking the stage at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia for the Overwatch League grand final. They'll be the underdogs to the San Francisco Shock. It's nothing new for them.

Since Haksal began playing, he and his team have always been underdogs. When they first started, they were the mutt of the South Korean circuit, an amateur team without any major sponsors. After ultimately asserting themselves as a contender, the narrative shifted to RunAway being a team that was good enough to get close to a title but never actually obtaining it.

By the time Haksal grew into a full-fledged player known for more than just his Genji dives and slices, hoisting a domestic title in his home country, the proverbial goal posts were moved. RunAway were good for South Korea, but times had changed with the introduction of the Overwatch League in 2018. RunAway were considered a minor league team as the top talent in the world was thought to be playing in Los Angeles at Blizzard Arena.

Prior to this season, the expansion Vancouver Titans made a deal with RunAway that brought over their championship roster, including Haksal, to compete for the Titans in their first season in the Overwatch League.

RunAway-turned-Titans, led by Haksal on Brigitte -- a hero who was the antithesis of his reliable Genji -- once more fought the stereotype of being a team that just didn't belong in the big leagues. That perception was soon doused in the opening weeks of the 2019 regular season, with the Titans running through the rest of the competition, most of whom had played the previous Overwatch League season.

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The first stage of the season ended with Vancouver flipping the script on the underdog storyline, finishing with a perfect 10-0 record (including the playoffs) and beating the San Francisco Shock in the Stage 1 final. Even then, a path of destruction left in their wake, the Titans were underestimated.

The storyline shifted from Vancouver not being good enough to hang in the Overwatch League to what would happen if the prevalent triple-tank, triple-support meta that had become stagnant in the professional ranks ever changed. Haksal did his diligent and thankless work of playing the central cog in the beefy composition, but the Titans' constant wins started to become attributed more to their dominance of the meta than how good they were. Come the Stage 2 final, they dropped their first match of the entire year, losing to the Shock in a rematch of the Stage 1 final.

Eventually, the meta did shift, first with teams starting to include the more damage-focused hero Sombra in their team compositions before Blizzard officially ended the triple-tank, triple-support meta by announcing the role lock. This forced teams to deploy two damage dealers, two tanks and two supports at all times, in what was believed to be an effort to allow players like Haksal who made their names on damage heroes to finally play what they were signed to do.

The Overwatch League's Rookie of the Year, Hyojong "Haksal" Kim, is hoping to lead the Vancouver Titans to an OWL championship. Ben Pursell For Blizzard Entertainment

Since the role lock, the Titans have still been one of the best teams in the league, laughing away any notion they were a world-class side due to their mastery of the triple-tank, triple-support team composition, but they haven't been nearly as dominant. The Washington Justice's Corey "Corey" Nigra blew out the Titans all by himself in a 4-0 shellacking in Stage 4, and in the playoffs, the Titans have had more than one close call.

And yet, the Titans made it through the winners' bracket of the playoffs without losing a match. They lost a few maps to the Los Angeles Gladiators and New York Excelsior, the NYXL even pushing them to a decisive seventh map. Still, here they are, on the cusp of a championship having dropped only five matches all year.

The team itself is made up of some of the best players in the league today. Lee "Twilight" Joo-seok was an MVP candidate and has put himself in the conversation for the strongest flex support in the world. Seo "SeoMinSoo" Min-soo, Haksal's right-hand man in the DPS line, has transitioned from being one of the league's leading Zarya players to being the team's stalwart Reaper player. And when the team was forced into a tough decision with their starting lineup before the playoffs, they didn't hesitate to pull the trigger, switching out overaggressive main tank Park "Bumper" Sang-beom for a safer choice in Hwang "TiZi" Jang-hyeon.

San Francisco, though, will enter the Wells Fargo Center as favorites. Although they dropped into the losers' bracket in a surprise first-round upset to the upstart Atlanta Reign, it has been smooth sailing ever since. The Shock mowed through the lower bracket, winning all four of their elimination matches with a combined 16-0 scoreline.

"[It'll be an] easy 4-0, just like every other team," the Shock's Jay "Sinatraa" Won said in a postmatch interview about the upcoming final against the Titans.

Haksal might have been awarded the Rookie of the Year award, but Sinatraa, a similar player in how his franchise built around him, was given the Most Valuable Player award.

It wouldn't be the same if the Titans weren't the underdogs, regardless of the name. The jerseys might be of better quality and the salaries might be higher, but still, three years later, Haksal and the Titans remain in the same position as the underdogs.

Haksal didn't make his name on Brigitte or in compositions where he was the designated battering ram. He made his name through his Genji and being the X factor that could take an amateur team to the top of the world. In Philadelphia, the last obstacle, those final shreds of doubt will be his challenger.

Haksal and the rest of the Titans, experienced in silencing critics, aren't running away now.