Know Thy Enemy

Week 1 - Part 1: The Florida Mayhem

Week 1 Match: February 15th, 2019, 8:30 PM EST.

The wait is finally over! At last, The Overwatch League 2019 Opening Week and The Atlanta Reign's inaugural season is upon us! After months of anxiously waiting, our dreams of seeing The Reign in meaningful action are mere days from being fulfilled. Matches will begin on Thursday and last through Sunday, with Atlanta getting its first action on Friday, the 15th (8:30 PM EST). The team will conclude Week 1 on Sunday against the Philadelphia Fusion. There could hardly be a more varied expectation between two matches, but for now lets take a look at the first opponent to see what we can expect from The Florida Mayhem on Friday.

A Brief History

Season 1 Results

Placement: 11th

Record: (W-L-T) 42-120-5

Map Differential: -78

It's easy to see that The Mayhem struggled quite a bit in Season 1. The factors for this vary, but the general consensus was placed on the coaching staff and management. The Mayhem decided to ride out the season with only one head coach and six players on their roster. With the grueling grind of a lengthy season, this proved to be a detrimental decision. Players just didn't seem to be able to hold up as the season wore on. No subs. No breaks. This philosophy of budget-minded decisions permeated the Mayhem's organization. On match days one of the players, Tviq, had to drive the team to and from the Blizzard Arena. These are the kind of things that just wear down the morale of a team over the months of a grueling season.

Entering this year's off season the Mayhem admitted they needed to make some changes. They shuffled their roster cutting most of the European players in favor of Korean ones and overhauled its coaching staff. Only a month before the beginning of Season 2 Mayhem announced they would be firing their head coach Hyun-Jin "R2der" Choi and brought in Vytis "Mineral" Lasaitis as head coach, as well as Marvin "Promise" Shröder as assistants. This move drew an understandable amount of flak from the Overwatch Community because it seemed to go against the teams off season philosophy of roster rebuilding. All of these coaches are European, not Korean. However, the team recently brought back Sung-hoon "SNT" Kim (aka: "aWesome Guy" who is still an eligible player substitute) and added Young-su "Yeah" Jung as assistant coaches, both of whom are indeed Korean. This type of overturn a month before the start of Season 2 could result in a rough Stage 1 for a team looking to bounce back from a disappointing show during its first season. Maybe these changes will be beneficial for the team in the long run, but only time will tell.

The Roster

DPS

Jeongwoo "Sayaplayer" Ha

If The Mayhem have a "strength", it would probably be their DPS. And by strength I mean the strongest part of their team, not necessarily how they compare to the rest of the League. The stand out here without a doubt is Jeongwoo "sayaplayer" Ha. Sayaplayer is a hitscan who specializes in Widowmaker, and is arguably the best member of the team to return from last season. When given the space, his Widow play can quickly swing any round in favor of the Mayhem as he can easily go on a 3 kill streak if he gets hot.

Alongside Sayaplayer the team has added another hitscan DPS player from X6-Gaming (Contenders: Korea), Sangbum "bqb" Lee. Bqb has a controversial history outside the game for his expressed opinions when it comes to player boosting, but in game he is most known for his Sombra play. If he can avoid suspension, BQB could help to provide some more consistent DPS to this roster and take some of the pressure off of Sayaplayer.

Lastly, in DPS we have the long time staple in competitive Overwatch, Kevin "Tviq" Lindström. The projectile DPS specialist is the only remaining remnant of the Misfits (Contenders: Europe) that formed the original line up for Mayhem. He doesn't set the world on fire, but he is a solid teammate known for his "locker room" presence. He's the type of personality that elevates those around him, and his experience from season 1 could prove useful in the development of the younger, less experienced players.

A notable mention here is the two-way player Damon "Apply" Conti who showed well for the Mayhem Academy team in Contenders Season 3. Though Mayhem Academy didn't see much success this season, Apply displayed a notable upside and would be a great candidate for promotion if the team should need him. Two-way players have limited game eligibility, however, and it's more than likely Apply is relegated to Academy duty for the time being, barring some unforeseen issue during the season. Look to him in the future, though, if he continues to shine in Contenders.

Support

HyeonWoo "HaGoPeun" Jo.

The Mayhem are entering the season with only two support players on their roster. A risky choice, but considering they only had six players on the entire roster last year, I can't say it's surprising. What they do have is a serviceable Main Support in HyeonWoo "HaGoPeun" Jo. HaGoPeun found himself backing up one of the best support duo's in the League last season, and as a result was cut by the team. This is a perfect example of "one man's trash is another man's treasure". HaGoPuen is an above average to good support player in my opinion, and deserves a chance to play in the League. Kudos to Mayhem for picking him up. Can he carry the load of being a starting support, though?

To round out this category the team decided to acquire Sayaplayer's and SNT's former Meta Athena (Contenders: Korea) teammate Junsu "Kris" Choe. Granted, Meta Athena didn't even appear in Contenders this past season, so it's hard to be optimistic about acquisition. Nevertheless, Kris brings notable Lucio play to this roster and reuniting him with his former comrades could add some much needed cohesion to this highly altered roster.

Tanks

Sung-Hoon "SNT" Kim

Here we have one of the last returning players from Season 1, Sung-Hoon "SNT" Kim (aka "aWesomeGuy). SNT who was brought in mid-season last year to take over Main Tank duties for the Mayhem. His addition was met with enthusiasm, but his play wasn't enough to correct the struggles the team was experiencing. In response, Florida added two more Korean players Jaemo "xepheR" Koo and Sangwon "SWoN" Yoon. XepheR is an interesting prospect. Formerly of the Seoul Dyanasty, xepheR found himself in a similar situation to HaGoPuen. He was relegated to backing up one of the best Off-Tanks in the League, Zunba, and didn't see a ton of playing time. Again, the question here being is he good enough to handle starting duties? As for SWoN, they've dubbed him the starting Main Tank, but what we've seen from him on NRG during Contenders Season 3 doesn't exactly inspire me to believe he's an upgrade over SNT.

Conclusion

As far as teams from Season 1 go, The Florida Mayhem will be the least recognizable. Not only the team, but the staff as well looks completely different. Often when teams struggle the way Mayhem has, change becomes inevitable. After analyzing their roster moves a theme begins to emerge: build around Sayaplayer. To do this they have added former teammates and shifted to a heavily Korean roster. Will that be enough, though? In my mind the problems facing Mayhem doesn't stem from the roster, it starts at the top. The way this team is managed is simply sub par, and the results from last season are a byproduct of their money pinching philosophy. I expect Atlanta to play around Sayaplayer and expose the deficiencies of Mayhem's front line. GOATs should remain a prevalent team comp in Stage 1, and it's hard to believe Mayhem will thrive in that environment. It's opening week, however, and teams have fresh strategies to deploy. It's possible that Atlanta is caught off guard, but the same could be said for Mayhem. Friday should answer a lot of questions hovering over these squads, but in the end I think ATL earns their first win over an organization struggling to find their way.