The Atlanta Reign announced the departure of six Overwatch League players today.
The team is parting ways with Garrett “Saucy” Roland, Park “Pokpo” Hyun-jun, Joon “Erster” Jeong, Dusttin “Dogman” Bowerman, Nathan “frd” Goebel, and Anthony “Fire” King.
The departure of these six players follows what can only be described as a thoroughly disappointing season for Atlanta. The Reign struggled to find any amount of momentum throughout the 2020 season. They were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the May Melee, Summer Showdown, and Countdown Cup.
Their regular-season record wasn’t much better. They finished the regular season ranked 12th with a losing 10-11 record. After such a mediocre season, it isn’t surprising to see Atlanta looking to switch its roster up.
Dogman served as a starting support player for the Reign throughout most of the year. He was also one of the team representatives on Overwatch League broadcasts at various times throughout the season. Dogman competed with Atlanta during both the 2019 and 2020 seasons, making his departure perhaps the most notable on this list.
Erster and Pokpo were signed together in the lead up to the 2019 season. Both players were promoted from Korean Contenders rosters, with Erster coming from Lucky Future Zenith and Pokpo formerly competing for Element Mystic. Pokpo received a decent amount of playing time this year due to his Winston hero specialty. Although the Reign’s starting main tank Blake “Gator” Scott knows how to play Winston well, Pokpo had excellent coordination with Ester’s Genji, so he often got the nod when the meta favored Winston/Genji dive compositions.
Saucy was promoted to the Reign’s main roster from its academy team, ATL Academy. He was brought on primarily to try to fill the gap left by the departure of Andrej “Babybay’ Francisty to play VALORANT. Although the Reign had high hopes for Saucy, he ultimately didn’t perform well, leading to his release from the team today.
FRD was signed by the Reign in the middle of the 2019 season. He’s a D.Va specialist who saw a decent amount of playing time throughout the year when the hero rotation didn’t favor starting off tank Xander “hawk” Domecq’s hero specialties.
Finally, Fire was a rookie in 2020. He was signed by Atlanta in January and he saw a decent amount of playing time in the support role as Lúcio and Brigitte.
After cutting six players, the Reign has plenty of space to sign new talent in the coming weeks and months before the 2021 Overwatch League season starts.
