The beginning of the road

On the 17th of January of 2017 the Second Season of OGN’s Apex tournament began. RunAway was in the tournament for the second time. They had participated in Season 1 but they were eliminated in the group stage with only one win. This time, they surprised everyone and nearly completed an extremely impressive run to the title. Lunatic Hai (whose core became Seoul Dynasty) were their last opponent and beat them in one of the most intense finals Overwatch has ever witnessed. Runaway was winning 3 to 1 in a best of 7 and eventually lost 4 to 3 in a classic comeback from the team lead by Esca and Ryujehong.

Overwatch was very different back then. There were only 23 heroes in the game and the meta was based around Lucio and Ana, the only heroes with more than 90% pick rate in this tournament. Widowmaker, Zenyatta and Mercy were barely played even though they are so popular nowadays. There is a parallel that I want to point out though: DPS duels are not a new thing. In this first season of OWL we heard the casters and analysts mention the Tracer and Widowmaker duels a lot. During Apex Season 2 we had a different duel that was present in nearly every single game, the Genji duel.

Genji, the original duelist

Genji was a very big deal during this period, especially in Korea. The western teams hadn’t really invested a lot of time into the cyberninja, with previous winners Team EnvyUs (the core of Dallas Fuel) not even picking it during the entire tournament. Koreans were very focused on Genji though. A lot of the big players that were coming from the ladder were Genji one tricks and the hero became a big talking point. “Who is the best Genji in Apex? Is it Haksal? It is WhoRU? Is it Fl0w3r? Is it Birdring?” In an interview with InvenGlobal, Saebyeolbe (the now famous NYXL dps star) was asked what he thought of Haksal’s improvements ahead of the Semifinal match between RunAway and LW Blue. This was his answer: “ I think the entire RunAway improved in general. I don’t care as much about him because our paths do not cross so often. I am sure, however, that Fl0w3R will never lose in the Genji duel.”

It wasn’t about how deep your hero pool is, how quickly you change your pick to adapt to what your enemy is playing. There was no Brigitte to swap onto when your enemy picked Genji. And during this time, your enemy was picking Genji extremely often. When he did, you just had to play the ninja too and be better than him. The most played DPS heroes were Genji,Tracer, Soldier and McCree. DPS players also often flexed onto Zarya and especially Roadhog since his hook-left click combo hadn’t been nerfed then, so he used to one shot every 200 Hp or less hero. In the finals of Apex Season 2 RunAway met Lunatic Hai and two of the youngest and most proficient Genji players face off in a duel to the death: Haksal and WhoRU.

The WhoRU-Haksal magic

At the time, WhoRU was 15 and Haksal was 16. You need to be 18 to play in Overwatch League, so two of the protagonists of the Apex finals would be years away from being eligible to join the League. During this final Genji was played for more than 89% of the close fought 7 game series. The match revolved around Ana and Genji as a combo on both sides. The fights were played around the cooldowns of the Nanoblade and Lunatic Hai survived a lot of those due to amazing Sleep Darts that RyuJehong landed on Haksal during his ultimate. The game ended with the more experience and extremely clutch Lunatic Hai winning their first big tournament. The MVP of the match was WhoRU. The impact his Genji had on the last two maps especially was phenomenal. Maybe if Jehong hadn’t landed so many sleep darts negating Haksal’s impact, he would be the one winning the MVP award and taking his team to the title.

On the 11th of August of 2018, Runaway won the Second Season of Contender’s Korea. Only Stitch, Haksal and Bumper remain from the team that nearly beat Lunatic Hai more than a year before. Runaway is a completely different team, Overwatch is a completely different game and especially Haksal is a new and much improved player. In the finals of this recent tournament, we saw him play a lot of different heroes. He still looks amazing on his Genji, but now he can play most of the DPS heroes and looked especially impressive on the Doomfist. WhoRU has evolved into an amazing player too, but there is one big difference: while he is still 17 until August of 2019, Haksal will turn 18 in the 7th of October of this year, making him eligible to join the Overwatch League.

What can he bring to the Overwatch league?

Haksal will not be an amazing Tracer or Widowmaker star player, at least not at first. What he brings to the team that gets him is variety and flexibility. After watching the first Season of the Overwatch League the fans might remember well the amazing plays of Pine, Saebyeolbe, Birdring, Carpe, etc on the aforementioned heroes, but I want to remind you of the MVP of the OWL finals. The DPS player that showed up when it mattered the most: Profit. The star DPS of the London Spitfire played nearly every single DPS hero available in Overwatch in that finals. Haksal will be a similar player in terms of his use if he gets picked up by a Overwatch League team.

He can play a very consistent Brigitte with little to no mistakes, or he can pull off his amazing Doomfist and wreak havoc in the back line, destroying the low mobility healers and DPS heroes that are used most often in today’s meta. With Ana’s rise in popularity again and with the new hero Hammond coming into the battlefield, a highly mobile Genji with the Nanoblade might be a very good combo with the hamster’s CC. Likewise, with the new hero being such a mobile nuisance, CC coming from heroes like Brigitte and Doomfist might play a crucial role in negating the Wrecking Ball’s impact. Overwatch is a constantly evolving game, with new heroes coming out every few months, old heroes being reworked and the meta changing so hard that forgotten heroes come back into the battlefield. The more the game evolves, the more options the teams will have when it comes to hero and composition choices. If you want to have a long list to choose from in the hands of a impressively experienced 18 year old, Haksal might just be what you need.

The image credits are in the captions.

I used https://www.winstonslab.com/ for the stats.