SF Shock Sign Glister, Andy Miller Squashes Rumours Of Outspending Opposition
The San Francisco Shock have signed former London Spitfire flex DPS Gil-seong "Glister" Lim and have once again shown how serious they are about winning the Overwatch League title a third year in a row. Glister will be joining from the London Spitfire, for which he played for throughout season 3 and had been a star player for.
Considered one of the best rookies coming into the league last season, the mediocre results of his team may have tempered some expectations for him though he consistently was a standout player for London. As a flex DPS with a focus on hit scan, he could be the perfect addition to Shock's new hire Charlie "nero" Zwarg who also plays a considerable amount of DPS heroes though more on the projectile side of things. On top of specialists like Sean Taiyo "ta1yo" Henderson and Nam-joo "Striker" Kwon, the addition of those two flex players should cover the entire range of DPS heroes coming into season 4, though some questions may be posed towards the sniper roles.
Because of their stacked line-up and their ability to attract top talent like Brice "FDGod" Monsçavoir, nero, and Glister, but also keep their existing top-notch roster with players like Matthew "super" DeLisi, Minki "Viol2t" Park, and Hyo-bin "ChoiHyoBin" Choi, fans have suspected that the Shock are outspending their opposition in the market, offering higher salaries to top tier talent. However, CEO of NRG, the parent company of the Shock, Andy Miller has stated that this was not the reason why they were able to be a preferred landing spot of elite players, tweeting that "I can honestly tell you we (Shock) were not anywhere near the high bidder for any of the players we signed.
While the Overwatch League has never officially talked about a salary cap or the "competitive balance tax" as it's referred to, it's well-established that such a soft cap exists, requiring teams that have overspent above a threshold to pay additional fees to the League. This had presumably been done to disincentivise the creation of super teams by outspending the market heavily. However, in the case of the Shock, this soft cap has not been reached and the Shock have repeatedly stated that they aren't the highest spending team in the Overwatch League either.
Former Overwatch League player Connor "Avast" Prince, weighed in that joining the Shock has provided career security for veteran players even after they depart from the team, having been part of the championship-winning roster.
He tweeted: "I'm seeing narratives being created that somehow money is the defining factor behind Shock's successful offseason instead of the fact that players (especially Western players) are incentivized in OWL to prioritize being on the perceived best team even if they don't always start.
Teams in OWL even without Covid have a history of passing over veteran talent that performed at [a] solid level for new [Contenders] talent. The only way to prevent that is to just be on the best team because even if you're a veteran than your stock is high [because] that's how OWL works."
On top of career security, the expected prize pool share for those players could also tip the scale. Given that the Shock have been the most dominant roster in the Overwatch League for the last two seasons, there is little reason to believe that their dominance will stop in season 4, once again promising a cut of the winnings which could significantly impact the expected income of players joining them.
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