The London Spitfire have started their off season roster shake up by mutually agreeing to terminate the contracts of DPS players Ji-Hyeok "Birdring" Kim and Hee-Dong "Guard" Lee, Main Support Jong-Seok "Nus" Kim & coach Jeong-Min "Jfeel" Kim.
Although the Spitfire managed to make the post season playoffs, via the Play-In Tournament. It has been a tough year for the 2018 champions who failed to meet their expectations of being one of the best teams in the league, with a 7th place finish in the regular season and then being eliminated from the playoffs after consecutive loses in both the winners and losers bracket.
With London currently looking at their options going into the 2020 season and localisation being implemented next year have decided to make these moves to put them in the best possible position moving forward, multiple league sources have told haloofthoughts.
Bridring was a part of the Kongdoo Panthera roster that joined the Spitfire prior to the 2018 season, has his best performances in the early part of that year, helping to lead London to the first ever stage playoff victory in the Overwatch League. Midway through the 2018 season, Bridring injured his wrist and was forced to miss stage 3 before returning to the starting line up. He failed to find the same form and league sources have also told that Bridring is considering retirement after losing his love of the game.
Guard joined the Spitfire from Korean Contenders team Element Mystic prior to the 2019 season and is still considered as one of the best Sombra players in the world. He played well during parts of stage 1 and most of stage two. Yet, despite this, he failed to feature for most of the second half of the season, even though Sombra was an integral part of the stage 3 meta.
Nus joined the Spitfire in 2018 after playing in Korea for Meta Anthena and was originally the teams shot caller before the role went over to Bdosin. His Lucio became an important part of London's playoff hot streak in 2018 but he struggled at times with consistency and was replaced in the starting line up by Quartermain near the end of 2019.
Both Guard and Nus will be looking for new teams and hope to be playing in the Overwatch League for another franchise in 2020.
The final announcement made by the Spitfire was the release of coach Jfeel, who joined the Spitfire as part of the Kongdoo Panthera roster in 2018. Jfeel was London's long standing coach, dealing with player development and leaves after both sides agreed to go separate ways.
Whether there are more moves to come at the current time is uncertain, but the moves show that London are looking to improve the roster any way they see fit.
(You can find more Overwatch League related content on Twitter @haloofthoughts)
(Picture Credit: London Spitfire)
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