USC Overwatch’s roster was finalized yesterday, with the addition of Alex “AK13” Kavaldjiev in the role of substitute support.
The recruitment posters went up all over USC Discord servers on Aug 26, launching a process that concluded yesterday with a complete roster, in time for their first match of the Tespa season next Saturday. Instead of holding all the tryouts at once, they held them as applications rolled in, according to Quiana “Jaru” Dang, USC Overwatch’s team president.
AK13′s tryout process began three weeks ago, and included activities like “scrims two or three nights a week against a new team, during which we would try out set strategies and team compositions,” he said.
“After three weeks of feeding my brains out during scrims, I learned from Jaru last week that I will likely be a substitute support player for the team.”
The final roster looks like this:
| Overwatch Varsity Roster | |
|---|---|
| Timothy "Twang" Wang | Main Tank |
| Kenneth "Patriot" Peralta | Off Tank |
| Iggy "Fanout" Mullin | Hitscan DPS |
| Alex "Changalang" Chang | Flex DPS |
| Jae "Bun-E" Shim | Support |
| Alex "AK13" Kavaldjiev | Main Support |
| Dhevyn "Pronkymaster" Lao | Flex Support |
According to Jaru, the minimum requirements to try out were 3500 SR, the threshold to be considered a Master according to the Overwatch ranking system. The only level above it would be Grandmaster, which begins counting players at 4000. Because of the high standards, it was difficult to find recruits.
“The pool of skilled Overwatch players at USC is regrettably small and it’s hard to find people,” said Jaru.
Before the tryout process, two players were confirmed to have departed the team either temporarily or permanently. Dhevyn “Pronkymaster” Lao and Ethan “EarlDong” Zhang both left big gaps to fill, though as of today, Pronkymaster is back on the team for Tespa weekend matches.
The limited roles to fill made it even more difficult to find people to play, as one of the recruits tried out as a main tank, making things “more complicated as we already have a main tank, and the current meta calls for… barely any main tank play,” said Jaru in early September.
