The Toronto Defiant isn’t going anywhere, as ownership group OverActive Media confirmed today the team will retain its OWL branding and compete in the 2024 season of the Overwatch Champions Series.
To our knowledge, the Toronto Defiant is the first team that competed as a franchise in the Overwatch League to publicly announce its entry into the new Overwatch esports circuit.
The 2024 roster competing in Champions Series is not be roster that competed in the OWL 2023 season. The entire player roster and staff from the final OWL season was released back in October. The new player roster, consisting of DPS players Sugarfree and MER1T, supports Rupal and Vega, and tank Someone, will operate out of the OverActive headquarters in Toronto alongside team staff.
The Defiant’s continued presence in Overwatch lines up with what OverActive stated back in November when the team officially left the OWL, as the Toronto-based company stated it had plans to return to the game’s competitive ecosystem as early as 2024.
Since its departure from the league, OverActive has been busy with a prolific acquisition of both the KOI and Movistar Riders brands, merging both with its own MAD Lions brand. In addition to Overwatch, OverActive now fields brands competing in Call of Duty League, LoL via the LEC, VALORANT via VCT EMEA and Game Changers, and Counter-Strike 2, among others.
The Overwatch Champions Series represents a return to an open circuit ecosystem, allowing teams across all regions to qualify for online tournaments and eventually LAN finals via open qualifiers. Stage one qualifiers for Asia will begin in February, while stage one qualifiers for both North America and EMEA will begin in March. The Toronto Defiant will be competing in the NA division.
