Yes, you are hearing this right. Storied shotcaller and support player Heo "Gambler" Jin-woo will be joining the Seoul Dynasty. With such a strong addition to an already stellar support line, what could this mean moving into the future for the Seoul Dynasty and the Overwatch League? First we have to contextualize just who this player is.

“When Gambler says ‘Do this’, then ‘Yes’ is the only acceptable answer.” Jong-yeol "Saebyeolbe" Park says through his signature playful smile in an interview with GameCoach Global. While he does speaks in half truths, those exaggerations are made up of more “truth” than not. Saebyeolbe is speaking on his former teammate, Gambler, who now makes his return to the limelight wearing a new jersey, a Seoul Dynasty jersey.

Formerly of fan favorite team, LuxuryWatch Blue (LW Blue), Gambler was an incredibly potent asset to his former team. Saebyeolbe continue gushing about how skilled his former teammate was, “Actually, once during a tournament, Gambler requested Fl0w3r to ‘Hey! Reflect that Zarya ultimate!’ Man, he just says it like it is such an easy thing to do. Just reflect! The thing is, Fl0w3r will say ‘Yeah, Okay!’ and actually does that! And to me he’ll go ‘Man, go attach your Pulse Bomb to cut him out’ and I go ‘Okay I will.’ That’s how things go around.” Gambler is your quintessential in-game leader or shotcaller. A large presence in the games server and out, a leader of this stature brings strict structure to whatever team needs it the most and is one of the most sought after skill sets in esports as a whole.

“Gambler will make calculations in his brain and build the structure of that game. ’Let’s use this ultimate, to block this move.’ Thinking of those things are usually Gambler’s job.” Saebyeolbe continued to praise his former teammate Gambler. Knowing just how good Gambler can be, we can start to decode what this pick up means for such a storied and weathered group of players.

In my eyes, Gambler to Seoul screams an understanding of what exactly went wrong in Stage 1 of the Overwatch League. When a meta presents itself that is a transition away from the comfort of the past, you need a deep and strong bench of players to prepare those new hero transitions. This is a nod to their mistake during Stage 1, an admission and a resolution. Another aspect that Gambler helps to resolve on the Seoul Dynasty is the fact that they never had a strong Mercy player. The is essential when you have the best Pharah duelist in the Overwatch League in Byung-sun "Fleta" Kim.

Last stage we had incredibly strong Pharah maps in Oasis, Eichenwalde, Illios, Lijiang Tower, and Dorado. Seoul were hamstrung in the fact that they couldn’t properly control the air. Fleta dominate and did control the tempo in the Pharah duels, but again, when you don’t have a strong Mercy player, that Pharah and Mercy combo starts to look more fallible. This allows for Gambler to possibly see more play on maps that could potentially run Pharah with little to no degradation when substituting out Jin-mo "Tobi" Yang. Not only that, but with Mercy’s recent changes, she still has not completely vacted the metagame quite yet. With compositions that want to run Widowmaker, Pharah, or even a Soldier 76, Mercy has been run successfully even in her weakened state. With Gambler added, this allows for Seoul to be a bit more creative on how what exact composition they would like to run on any given map. Not only does the Gambler acquisition sure up any possibly injury or emergency substitution worries for Seoul, but it is also an attempt to fill a gap that never was corrected before.

When In-jae "EscA" Kim retired in the middle of November, Seoul Dynasty, then Lunatic-Hai, lost a large voice within the team and those shoes never really were filled. Immediately after EscA’s departure, fingers started to point towards Je-hong "ryujehong" Ryu or Tobi as heirs to the Lunatic-Hai throne, and I’m sure they’ve contributed to their fair share of vocal input and shotcalling, things never quite looked the same. While Tobi has stated publicly that he has taking on the reigns as in-game leader and shot caller for the Seoul Dynasty, he cannot shoulder the burden alone. Consider this -  what happens to Seoul if Tobi falls ill is injured in someway? Strong vocal leadership and a reinforcement of an already talented support line, this is what Gambler presents as a skill set to this team. His tenure as a solid leader is something the many of the Seoul Dynasty members know all to well.

For the better part of a year, the core of the Seoul Dynasty, then Lunatic-Hai, played against Gamblers’ former team LW Blue in OGN’s Overwatch APEX league. While Lunatic-Hai suffered a stinging loss at IEM Gyeonggi to a mix of LW Blue and Red, for the most part they triumphed over LW Blue in their APEX days. For three seasons, LW Blue and Lunatic-Hai battle tooth and nail against one another for supremacy and the right to the moniker of “best team in South Korea.” Two of those three seasons, Lunatic-Hai brought home an APEX trophy. The highest placing LW Blue ever received in an APEX season was third place. That said, a majority of the Seoul Dynasty players have a competitive history with Gambler. This time rivals join forces. This time the foe becomes the ally.

We are set for a crash course for some of the most interesting and compelling storylines yet in the Overwatch League. With Gambler moving to Seoul, what does this mean for his former teammates in the New York Excelsior? Can Gambler provide any behind the scenes information that might give Seoul an edge? Also, once of age star DPS player and former teammate to Gambler, Yeon-oh "Fl0w3R" Hwang will be undoubtedly participating in the Overwatch League festivities. I can see the billboards now, “Ark and Fl0w3R take on Fleta and Gambler - the battle for air superiority is decided today!”

From these statistics provided by Winston’s Lab we can see that during APEX Season 2 and 3 while Gambler is more of a defensive Lucio player, Tobi is considerably more aggressive. I’d draw your attention to the PTK (percentage of team kills) K/10 (kills per ten minutes), the TTCU (time to charge ultimate) and the FK (percentage of first kills) both these fantastic players maintained. My only concern on this move comes from how different Tobi and Gambler are stylistically.

Could this stylistic difference prove to be a bit more troublesome than Seoul has anticipated? I don’t believe so in the long run, however they may suffer some growing pains. With Fleta’s consistency and Sang-beom "Munchkin" Byeon recent star performance during their match uneasy match against the San Fransisco Shock, Seoul should have plenty of threats at their disposal. It could very well be that Gambler could assist Ryujehong a bit more defensively, which would help the team immensely. It’s hard to say exactly how Gambler will pan out in the long term, but it’s safe to say that the brass above Seoul Dynasty have great ideas on how to solve any problems that comes their way.

Daydreams aside, Gambler is an incredibly intelligent pick-up for the Seoul Dynasty. I wrote that Stage 2 would prove to harbor some much needed solace. This could be the solace they have been looking for.

Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLG’s of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment and KSV Esports.