ESPN report Lunatic-Hai to take up residence in LA for OWL after APEX

tamagao

August 15, 2017

According to a report by Jacob Wolf for ESPN, Lunatic-Hai is expecting to temporarily move to Los Angeles once the current season of APEX finishes up. While the deal with KSV Esports, the owner of the Seoul franchise spot, isn't official yet, both sides are simply waiting for the deal to be approved.

The team will be able to finish APEX and move to Los Angeles just in time to settle down before BlizzCon, in which much of the roster will be competing as members of Team South Korea. The players will not be taking up permanent residence in Southern California, instead making the move back to South Korea once Overwatch League teams begin playing in their home cities rather than at the Los Angeles site.

As the best team in the world, according to over.gg's official world rankings, and back-to-back APEX champions, it was widely speculated that Lunatic-Hai would end up on an OWL team and specifically the Seoul team. However, adding further fuel to the flames of speculation, one sentence stuck out in ESPN’s report regarding additional Korean teams in the Overwatch League:

"This likely won't be the only South Korean Overwatch team to take a deal with one of the Overwatch League organizations, sources said."

It is expected that Overwatch League teams field the best rosters in the world, and since Korea is widely-regarded as the best Overwatch region in the world, it has already been speculated that Koreans would be fielded as a part of OWL rosters across the world. Despite there currently being only one Overwatch League team based in Korea, it seems to be increasingly likely that there won't be just one team of Koreans participating in the league.

Comments:

Threaded Linear

#1

KuroiRyuu9625

5

Frags

+

–

Some links about it:

Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/6tye72/espn_sources_lunatichai_roster_to_join_overwatch/

Actual article:
http://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/20353712/sources-lunatic-hai-roster-join-overwatch-league-relocate-temporarily-la

Munchkin rumor:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/6tuij6/munchkins_stream_chat_possible_leaks/

No word on if the roster would stay as-is or if modifications would be done to it since they just added Taejun.

#2

Guinea

1

Frags

+

–

Hm, not sure I understand why they have to play in LA first? Does anyone know?

#3

Admirable

7

Frags

+

–

The first season(s) of OWL will be on location in LA. Later seasons will supposedly embrace the geolocation more with some kind of world tour (no one knows)

#4

tamagao

4

Frags

+

–

To add further context to what Admirable said, they are playing the first season or two in LA to give teams time to build infrastructure for hosting matches back at their home cities.

#17

One_Punch_Man

1

Frags

+

–

wasn't there an article here that said they were building an arena down around staples center?

#18

tamagao

1

Frags

+

–

I don't remember the exact quote, but that would have been Immortals. Teams like C9 in London and EnVyUs in Dallas won't have places to play yet and need more than a few months to build it.

#5

Guinea

1

Frags

+

–

I see. I guess it makes sense, but they could have just established the "infrastructure" before the league starts.

#6

hugo

3

Frags

+

–

I'm so happy to hear this. This should absolutely equalize any remaining East vs West debates.

#7

Admirable

13

Frags

+

–

mmmm Thorin's cautionary tale comes to mind...

He said that Korean teams who leave Korea tend to wither and die to be replaced by homegrown Korean teams.

It's the Korean esports environment that produces greatness, not the individual Korean players.

#12

murillovp

1

Frags

+

–

That makes much sense.

Altought their individual skill developed under their great esport environment makes them great players, regardless of decaying away from its homeground.

#8

Blue

2

Frags

+

–

well...

RIP every other teams chances

#9

Pixelfish

1

Frags

+

–

LH coming to dominate, hopefully by the time OWL comes around though, some western teams can definitely put up a fight.

#10

OFVjdi

-12

Frags

+

–

I know a pro player that goes by the name of A_seagull, that lives in L.A. and hasn't t been streaming for 2 weeks. :eyes:

P.-S.: This is extremely unlikely, but i would love to see seagull joining LH

#15

Rowbear

-2

Frags

+

–

Seagull isn't near good enough to be on LH. Much better DPS players in Korea, and they don't have the language barriers that Seagull does.

#16

KuroiRyuu9625

2

Frags

+

–

If they wanted a player like Seagull they have a large choice of them in Fl0w3r, Rascal, Birdring etc back in KR. They' re arguably more mechanically skilled than him and there wouldn't be the language barrier or culture gap.

If this is correct I'm not exactly what direction they' re going to take roster wise, but they could possibly make a monstrously scary team considering how attractive a guaranteed 50k/year salary might be compared to what they are currently earning.

#11

Hoypoy

3

Frags

+

–

I don't think a korean team would bring in a non-korean speaker because of communication issues. Also Seagull lives in Seattle, Washington.

#13

spiderlily

2

Frags

+

–

Congratulations to the winner of OWL season 1!

#14

accountseverywhere

3

Frags

+

–

Hopefully bringing some teams over as well as the leagues natural incentives for teams in north america to skrim hard again will help revitalize and sustain the breeding ground for new talent here. Bringing korean teams over is a great step in the right direction. Although its hard to replace a whole culture that is naturally inclined toward competitive gaming and hardcore execution of team level strategy and tactics, this is good news for the league. For some reason I was afraid that blizzard would try to keep the regions seperate (cough STARCRAFT). I have much faith now. I gotta go play some comp.

Sign up or log in to post a comment