The Dallas Fuel's academy team, Envy, have released their Overwatch Contenders roster. Throwing their future participation in the tournament in doubt, multiple sources with information around the move have told halofofthoughts.
The move from Envy comes after just 2 weeks of participating in the new 2020 Contenders format and while unconfirmed at the current time, will throw their participation in the remainder of this Contenders year into doubt. With both Atlanta Academy and the Montreal Rebellion also withdrawing their teams from the academy system, as well as Overwatch Contenders during the current season. It provides a further blow to Overwatch's tier 2 system, which has continually lacked an effective level of support from Blizzard, and in part the Overwatch League, as a development tool for both players and Overwatch League teams to support the league in the future.
The latest development is continuing to show distressing signs of failure over the last year and will likely have both fans and organisations wondering what is next for the esports second tier. The London Spitfire's British Hurricane in Europe, Seoul Dynasty's Gen.G in South Korea and China'sTeam CC of the Shanghai Dragons and Bilibili Gaming are the only academy teams remaining in Contenders in their respective regions. T1, who have an affiliation with the Philadelphia Fusion, is currently playing in Contenders Korea, while the Uprising Academy are currently outside of Contenders.
The latest development is continuing to show distressing signs of failure over the last year and will likely have both fans and organisations wondering what is next for the esports second tier. The London Spitfire's British Hurricane in Europe, Seoul Dynasty's Gen.G in South Korea and China'sTeam CC of the Shanghai Dragons and Bilibili Gaming are the only academy teams remaining in Contenders in their respective regions. T1, who have an affiliation with the Philadelphia Fusion, is currently playing in Contenders Korea, while the Uprising Academy are currently outside of Contenders.
Envy is currently the reigning North American Contenders champions, after winning in both season one and two in 2019. They also came second to Fusion University in the 2019 Atlantic showdown. The move will come as a surprise after Envy announced in November 2019 that they were fully committed to Overwatch Contenders by recruiting a new roster of players for 2020. However, so far Envy has struggled to find their dominating performance from last year after they decided to go with a new roster and currently sit joint 3rd on 70 points with Karasuno and Saints.
Whether Envy plan to return at a later date is currently unknown, but the fact that a well established and previously committed team to Contenders in Envy have released their roster so suddenly. Shows another worrying step in the development of Overwatch Contenders.
Halofofthoughts have reached out for comment with Envy regarding the team's departure and will update accordingly once a response has been received.
(You can find more Overwatch League & Overwatch Contenders related content on Twitter @haloofthoughts)
(Picture Credit: Envy)
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