Hangzhou Spark Releases Half Of Their Overwatch League Roster
| Tags: Overwatch
| Author Joseph Shay
Keeping the core.
Besides Hojin “iDK” Park, the Hangzhou Spark’s most recent roster decisions were nothing out of the blue. Liu “M1ka” Jiming, Tong “ColdEst” Xiaodong, and fan-favorite Min-soo “SeoMinSoo” Seo have been released alongside iDK in Hangzhou’s attempt to start building for the 2022 season. Between M1Ka, ColdEst, and SeoMinSoo, less than eight hours were played combined. The other player being released, as well as the staying members of the roster, each had about 13 or 14 hours played each. Hangzhou is simply removing the less utilized players to free up room to build a more flexible secondary roster for 2022.
As it stands now, the Hangzhou Spark has no support line. They released Jeong-ho “MCD” Lee in August over online controversy and three more support players in this latest roster move. Whether the team replaces SeoMinSoon in the DPS backup role is yet to be known. However, Hangzhou’s priority will most likely be building a strong support line out of the most recently dropped Chinese and Korean players from other teams.
The Spark's coaching situation gets tougher
Today we say our goodbyes to our coach Congshan "U4" Chen, thank you for everything you have done to the team for the last 3 years.
Thank you U4, wish you the best in the future! pic.twitter.com/kgpfGUNLUJ
— Hangzhou Spark (@Hangzhou_Spark) October 4, 2021
Assistant Coach Congshan “U4” Chen has also been released from the Spark. This leaves the team with only a single Assistant Coach, being that Interim Head Coach Jaehong “Andante” Hwang took his leave during the Summer Showdown stage of the year. This hole in the staff is leaving Hangzhou with now not only a full Support line rebuild to do. But almost a full coaching staff rebuild to do as well. Without coaches, how do you even build a roster? Hangzhou has a tough off-season ahead of them, but luckily they have a very strong roster core to build on.