Vancouver Titans announce new Overwatch League roster

UPDATE – May  at 6:40 PM

The Vancouver Titans have announced their new Overwatch League roster with some surprising new additions. As previously reported, a majority of the roster came from the Contenders team Second Wind with Randall ‘Roolf’ Stark, Dalton ‘Dalton’ Bennyhoff, Atbin ‘Shredlock’ Shirvani promoted from the Tier-2 squad to OWL.

Additionally, Samir ‘Tsuna’ Ikram, Carson ‘CarCar’ First and Saudi Arabia’s Alhumaidi ‘KSAA’ Alruwaili were announced for the team.

Original story below

The Vancouver Titans have officially parted ways with every Overwatch League player and coach on their roster and are set to sign a whole new team, according to sources.

The 2020 Overwatch League season hasn’t been kind to any of the teams, but things seem to have completely imploded for the 2019 runner-ups, Vancouver Titans.

A few players and staff had already left the team before the announcement on May 6, which officially cut ties with the remainder of the Titan’s roster.

Due to the ongoing global situation, the Titan players had gone back to Korea and the team was planning on competing in the Asian division until “technical challenges” got in the way.

“The time difference made it difficult for management and the home fanbase to connect with the team,” said Tim Holloway, Director of Esports for the Titans. “Technical challenges for the players playing from home further exacerbated the situation.”

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“With the organization unable to meet the players’ expectations in Korea, and after much deliberation and conversation with the players, the difficult decision was made to move the team back to the North American division. Both the players and management agreed that finding a new home for the players would be in everyone’s best interest.”

Robert Paul/Blizzard Entertainment

The Titans were defeated by the San Francisco Shock in the 2019 Grand Finals.

The full list of players and staff leaving the Titans on May 6 is as follows:

• HyoJong “HakSal” Kim
• Minsoo “Seominsoo” Seo
• Seongjun “Slime” Kim
• Chunghee “Stitch” Lee
• Juseok “Twilight” Lee
• JeHong “RyuJeHong” Yu
• Yangwon “Yang1” Kweon (coach)
• Jae Hong “Andante” Hwang (coach)
• The team has also released Chan Hyeong “Fissure” Baek.

While we still don’t know all of the details behind the collapse of the Titans, RyuJeHong tweeted shortly after the announcement that he was happy to be “free” from the team.

We don’t know what the now-former Titans players and staff plan to do but as they’re all still very skilled Overwatch players, finding a new team shouldn’t be too big of an issue. We do know, however, that Vancouver already has another roster lined up to sign.

According to Emily Rand of ESPN Esports, the Titans will be picking up five players from the North American Contender’s team, Second Wind.

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“There were a lot of teams the Titans were looking at,” Rand said during a May 6 Twitch broadcast. “But basically they’re signing the five players from Second Wind that are age-eligible to play in OWL.”

Titans fans, however many remain after losing all their star players, will have to get used to seeing some new names playing in the green and blue, like Abtin “ShRedLock” Shirvani and Dalton “Dalton” Bennyhoff, just to name a few.

What makes this move particularly upsetting for fans is that the core of Vancouver’s now-former roster was made up of Korean Contenders team RunAway, which was widely considered as one of the best squads to ever play the game.

We will continue to bring you the latest information about this massive roster change as more details become available.