A memorable but disappointing first season.

Dear Overwatch fans,



I'd like to share my experience from the inaugural season of Overwatch League and tell the story of the ups and downs of being a player in SF Shock.



First things first, I would really like to thank all of my teammates (sinatraa, super, nomy, babybay, moth, architect, iddqd, sleepy, danteh, nevix, choihyobin) for being supportive and helping me become a better player just by being awesome human beings. Next, I would like to thank every single staff member (Andy, Brett, Harsha, Jamie, Sephy, Legit, Junk, Crusty, NineK, Chris, Pizzas, David, JB, Derrick) for tolerating and helping us develop as players and individuals. Finally, a huge thanks to each OWL staff member, every fan that showed support in any way, the shock squad, Tyler, etc, etc, etc... without your help and support, it would have been infinitely harder.



As the start of OWL season 1 approached, it was very evident that mercy/zen was going to be meta. In a team with a limited eligible roster of 6 players and pretty much zero experience playing mercy in scrims, I had to grind really hard to learn the hero as quickly as possible to not let my teammates down. The players and staff members that were with us during our Vegas phase know how hard I tried. Unfortunately, the conditions were not ideal for me to learn the role at the required speed. The evolution of a new dive and anti-dive meta with the lack of a comfortable projectile player made it particularly hard for me to figure out what my job was at all times. It wasn't until the end of stage one, with that match against Florida Mayhem where I got my first player of the match that I finally understood why my Mercy play was so lackluster. It was at that time when I realized the necessity of being a selfish player whenever I was on Mercy. See, the thing is, with pretty much all other support heroes in Overwatch, you have to try to remain alive while healing and supporting your teammates as much as possible. However, Mercy requires someone who cares about himself first, above all others, Zenyatta after, and then and only then, if able to bring teammates back to life, resurrect. If you ever play Mercy, and see teammates taking damage out of line of sight, and your body itches for you to go help your teammates, you are doing it wrong. Needless to say, this was against every single instinct I have as a player, those who have played with me at all know how good a teammate I can be in-game.



And... that was it. With the introduction of Moth to the team, I was moved to a substitute position where my only goal was to learn from what moth did better than me (such as feed less and ult track) and try to incorporate said skills to my game.



By far my biggest disappointment of season one is not having played a single minute on stage with sinatraa. I don't think I will ever find natural synergy with a player like I have with sinatraa, it's like we have the same mind, scary in a good way. Even at a time when sinatraa, babybay and me were playing internal scrims on team B and stomping team A, I still didn't get to play a single minute with him on stage.



Even during our Vegas prep, it was fairly obvious our team would look a lot different once sinatraa and super could play stage 3 and after. It was a shame not to ever share the stage with those two.



Not everything was bad about season one though. I learned a lot from spectating scrims and watching top-tier support player's point of view and top-down perspectives of team fights. It helped me to understand the game at a deeper level. I got to play against the best of the best during scrims and stage matches. I helped teammates and got helped from teammates and coaches countless times to improve each other as players and individuals. I shared great memories with every single member of the Shock family, we laughed and we got mad together.



It was definitely an enlightening ride and I would do it again in a heartbeat.



For those of you that not know, I've been playing video games since I was 3 years old until I was 17 - competing in cs since I was 9 until I was 17. At the age of 18, I picked up poker and became a professional poker player. Every time I would watch a cs major, my body would itch, telling me to go back to gaming. When I tried Overwatch for the first time, it was a wrap. Competing at the highest level of Overwatch is all I dreamed of.



And I haven't shown the world what I'm capable of, so I'm not done yet.



My biggest accomplishment this season was earning the respect of OWL season 1 champions ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNaV-5KuODs ) as a Lucio player. I do not think many Lucio players in the world can do stuff like this ( contest point because no one else can, evade dragonblade, build and turn the fight with a beat - https://plays.tv/video/5a9b3aedc833e60d2c/nasty-wr ) while being able to play Ana and other supports at a high level. I'm confident I can be an asset to any OWL team and look forward to keep doing what I love.



My only focus right now is helping Team Spain do good in the World Cup.



Looking forward to what the future has to offer,



dhaK.









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