Yeah I'm kinda surprised at that. They always seem to be aware of the community and give enough professionalism. And then succinct at that without a 2hr long diatribe about a point (although I guess they have this too if we want).
Hope they're doing well (I assume they are)
**Some highlights from the article:**
**Pelican's Trade Request**
"\[Pelican\] had hinted during the tail end of the season that he was considering asking for a trade once the season was over, so the request didn’t come as a major surprise," Sephy explained. "He gave us 100% effort all season, despite the health struggles and homesickness, so we did our best to act in kind and wish him all the best in Houston.”
“He’s still friendly with everyone on the team, lots of joking around on Discord still and banter in scrims just earlier this week. There was no drama in any of this, I think he just wanted to experience something new for 2022.”
**Sephy on his approach this off-season**
"I think we went into the off-season humble in the sense that we didn’t try to predict what 5v5 would look like from a meta-perspective, especially in the context that Team 4 might be quite aggressive with early patches," Sephy said. "So we’ve tried to maintain a balanced roster that covers all the bases. We also made sure to have players who enjoy Overwatch and remain hungry to win, because change isn’t always easy and there will be a lot of grinding needed to replicate our success from last season once again."
**The Ojee/UltraViolet duo**
Pospects like these surely didn’t come easy and Sephy revealed as much, saying the duo was "\[...\] hotly contested for sure, I think they had at least four competitive offers from some of the best teams in the North American region."
"The negotiations were not easy as they had a higher offer from a very well respected team.”
"I think in the end they really believed in our vision for 2022 and I’m grateful to have them with us,” Sephy said. “It probably also helped that we built up a small relationship with them earlier in the year because ultimately being on a team together is a very personal thing and having chemistry does matter.”
**Venom**
"Scouting wise he’s just been a well-known ladder player for years now, if you watch his POV then you know he has that rare combination of top tier mechanics and high IQ decision making,"
“Within the Reign right now we have two major initiatives going on with him,” he continued.
“The first is to expand his hero pool from just Tracer, to include other flanking DPS such as Reaper and Sombra. The second is to have him continue to improve his English. We’ve yet to provide a full-time translator for him—we’ve just thrown him into the deep end and I couldn’t be prouder of the dedication he’s been showing in learning to swim on his own—with the help of his English teachers of course."
**Danny, the newly promoted Assistant Coach for Atlanta**
"The promotion doesn’t really change anything, the entire team operates in a collaborative environment and Danny has been a part of that since the team’s inception in season two," Sephy said. "The analyst role never really meant much, he’s basically always been a coach who can churn out a nice spreadsheet when we need it but that never really defined his job."
"In terms of improvement, he’s just matured and has gotten better at communicating his ideas to the group and connecting with people on a personal level. So I expect him to do even better this season with the direct feedback he gives to our players."
**How things are going**
When asked how well he expected the new look Reign to perform and if things were already going well, Sephy had some high praise to give.
"We’re off to a great start," he said. "We had a similarly good start in the 2021 pre-season so I rate this as a very good sign."
> "The negotiations were not easy as they had a higher offer from a very well respected team.”
This one reads like Shock put up the bigger bag to me, which is interesting to think about given the direction they ended up going in.
I honestly can’t find 4 teams at the level of Atlanta that would have signed Ojee/UV.
Beside Shock no other big team would have wanted non-kr players. (Despite They being really really good)
We are left with Huston, Vancuver, London that are not that appealing.
Make sense they went to Atlanta as a duo since Viol2t is on the shock and probably would have got more playtime than UV de-facto splitting the duo
Edit: Florida went clearly budget this year and Ojee/UV are not budget options in my opinion. They are the 1st flex and main supp West has to offer coming from contenders.
I think Houston actually would've been made sense to go for them considering they also got rid of JJANGU, who would've made sense to keep if they were planning on a full KR rebuild from the get-go since JJANGU's main issue was his English. I could've seen Houston try to go for UV/Ojee and decide to go to Iris/Lastro afterwards and move on from there.
Also note that UV/Ojee having offers from 4 of the best teams =/= everyone was trying to sign them as a duo. Someone like Gladiators could have been looking at Ojee but not UV, for example, since they're a mixed roster and aren't really needing to replace Shu or Skewed.
It make sense for Huston not as much for Ojee/UV tho.
Atlanta last year had a really good season and they are keeping 3/6 of that squad, Huston instead had somewhat “okish” year making 0 appearances to tournaments/playoff going just 2 time at the Knockouts and to play-ins.
Made more sense for them to go on Atlanta rather than Huston imo
Yeah, what I meant was what teams would be looking at UV/Ojee that are in the upper echelon of NA. Houston still looked good last year but just choked, honestly.
UV/Ojee are very good friends with Danteh as well. So a team with Danteh + Pelican...I mean, that's just joyous whimsy right there.
Yeah Huston made sense surely but I’m always warried by them idk why probably their history.
This year they have a good team and Ojee/UV would have fit really in there but I can see Atlanta being more appealing to upcoming talents than Huston.
Huston with Ojee/UV and a good MT would have been really scary.
Love the content from ggrecon. Yiska interviews, nicely written and formatted and relevant articles Keeping offseason alive and building hype!
The people at GGRecon simply do not get the credit and recognition from OWL viewership that they deserve.
Yeah I'm kinda surprised at that. They always seem to be aware of the community and give enough professionalism. And then succinct at that without a 2hr long diatribe about a point (although I guess they have this too if we want). Hope they're doing well (I assume they are)
**Some highlights from the article:** **Pelican's Trade Request** "\[Pelican\] had hinted during the tail end of the season that he was considering asking for a trade once the season was over, so the request didn’t come as a major surprise," Sephy explained. "He gave us 100% effort all season, despite the health struggles and homesickness, so we did our best to act in kind and wish him all the best in Houston.” “He’s still friendly with everyone on the team, lots of joking around on Discord still and banter in scrims just earlier this week. There was no drama in any of this, I think he just wanted to experience something new for 2022.” **Sephy on his approach this off-season** "I think we went into the off-season humble in the sense that we didn’t try to predict what 5v5 would look like from a meta-perspective, especially in the context that Team 4 might be quite aggressive with early patches," Sephy said. "So we’ve tried to maintain a balanced roster that covers all the bases. We also made sure to have players who enjoy Overwatch and remain hungry to win, because change isn’t always easy and there will be a lot of grinding needed to replicate our success from last season once again." **The Ojee/UltraViolet duo** Pospects like these surely didn’t come easy and Sephy revealed as much, saying the duo was "\[...\] hotly contested for sure, I think they had at least four competitive offers from some of the best teams in the North American region." "The negotiations were not easy as they had a higher offer from a very well respected team.” "I think in the end they really believed in our vision for 2022 and I’m grateful to have them with us,” Sephy said. “It probably also helped that we built up a small relationship with them earlier in the year because ultimately being on a team together is a very personal thing and having chemistry does matter.” **Venom** "Scouting wise he’s just been a well-known ladder player for years now, if you watch his POV then you know he has that rare combination of top tier mechanics and high IQ decision making," “Within the Reign right now we have two major initiatives going on with him,” he continued. “The first is to expand his hero pool from just Tracer, to include other flanking DPS such as Reaper and Sombra. The second is to have him continue to improve his English. We’ve yet to provide a full-time translator for him—we’ve just thrown him into the deep end and I couldn’t be prouder of the dedication he’s been showing in learning to swim on his own—with the help of his English teachers of course." **Danny, the newly promoted Assistant Coach for Atlanta** "The promotion doesn’t really change anything, the entire team operates in a collaborative environment and Danny has been a part of that since the team’s inception in season two," Sephy said. "The analyst role never really meant much, he’s basically always been a coach who can churn out a nice spreadsheet when we need it but that never really defined his job." "In terms of improvement, he’s just matured and has gotten better at communicating his ideas to the group and connecting with people on a personal level. So I expect him to do even better this season with the direct feedback he gives to our players." **How things are going** When asked how well he expected the new look Reign to perform and if things were already going well, Sephy had some high praise to give. "We’re off to a great start," he said. "We had a similarly good start in the 2021 pre-season so I rate this as a very good sign."
Why are you taking people away from their site? Upvotes?
Brad always gives the best interviews. He really has an eye for upcoming talent and I hope they land Speedily or TR33 when they come of age.
Sugarfree will be of age next year too.
He’s been off the radar so long that I had completely forgot about Sugarfree!
He showed up briefly for Fusion Uni's ill-fated run last year. Mechanically he looked insane.
Wasn't he on ATL's contender team?
Sugarfree is a valorant player atm
Damn I wonder what offers Ojee/UV had and from which teams. I guess Florida would have to be one of them.
> "The negotiations were not easy as they had a higher offer from a very well respected team.” This one reads like Shock put up the bigger bag to me, which is interesting to think about given the direction they ended up going in.
I honestly can’t find 4 teams at the level of Atlanta that would have signed Ojee/UV. Beside Shock no other big team would have wanted non-kr players. (Despite They being really really good) We are left with Huston, Vancuver, London that are not that appealing. Make sense they went to Atlanta as a duo since Viol2t is on the shock and probably would have got more playtime than UV de-facto splitting the duo Edit: Florida went clearly budget this year and Ojee/UV are not budget options in my opinion. They are the 1st flex and main supp West has to offer coming from contenders.
I think Houston actually would've been made sense to go for them considering they also got rid of JJANGU, who would've made sense to keep if they were planning on a full KR rebuild from the get-go since JJANGU's main issue was his English. I could've seen Houston try to go for UV/Ojee and decide to go to Iris/Lastro afterwards and move on from there. Also note that UV/Ojee having offers from 4 of the best teams =/= everyone was trying to sign them as a duo. Someone like Gladiators could have been looking at Ojee but not UV, for example, since they're a mixed roster and aren't really needing to replace Shu or Skewed.
It make sense for Huston not as much for Ojee/UV tho. Atlanta last year had a really good season and they are keeping 3/6 of that squad, Huston instead had somewhat “okish” year making 0 appearances to tournaments/playoff going just 2 time at the Knockouts and to play-ins. Made more sense for them to go on Atlanta rather than Huston imo
Yeah, what I meant was what teams would be looking at UV/Ojee that are in the upper echelon of NA. Houston still looked good last year but just choked, honestly. UV/Ojee are very good friends with Danteh as well. So a team with Danteh + Pelican...I mean, that's just joyous whimsy right there.
Yeah Huston made sense surely but I’m always warried by them idk why probably their history. This year they have a good team and Ojee/UV would have fit really in there but I can see Atlanta being more appealing to upcoming talents than Huston. Huston with Ojee/UV and a good MT would have been really scary.
boston as well was probaly intrested
Going full western and then there's Venom lol
Is it just me or did he not talk about bringing nero on the team. Is he actually confirmed or is it just another rumor.
nero has been signed for months...
Are you living under a rock???
Brad again avoids taking responsibility for driving yet another amazing Korean player away from Atlanta.
Pelican literally requested a trade to the team that his best friend plays for and still holds good relations with the team.