Is Twilight The Piece To Finally Bring Toronto Defiant Into The Limelight?
Off the back of a rather uninspired 2021 Overwatch League season, the Toronto Defiant have hit the off-season sprinting with their acquisition of the former San Francisco Shock support, Lee "Twilight" Joo-seok. A veteran of Overwatch since its inception, Twilight has been a star and was even argued as the strongest support player throughout the 2019 season.
As one of the first public moves of the upcoming 2022 season, Toronto could not be in a better position, landing the former 2019 Role Star as a foundational member. However, it feels like it was yesterday we were hailing praise for the Defiant’s early moves last season - is this year any different?
In a traditional sense, both past and present, and even in his blunders, Twilight throughout his career is a bona fide playmaker. And looking back at their 2021 season, the Defiant lacked punching power, they lacked something exciting to stop your cynicism and go “but if”, Twilight is quite literally the perfect player for the Toronto Defiant to build around. To borrow a concept penned by Overwatch League commentator Kevin "AVRL" Walker, Twilight is the definition of a “plus-one” player. He brings super-star potential not just within his mechanics, but in his impressive game sense and eagle-eye for flank potential. Few players can match the ability to play make, and even fewer supports exist that fit that mould. Twilight does both, and has done both for his entire career.
Ranking within the top five for the 2021 season as a whole in final blows per ten minutes as well as eliminations per ten minutes on Ana and nearly mirroring that on Baptiste - all the while playing next to Park "Viol2t" Minki and the San Francisco Shock - shows just what kind of player has been dropped within Toronto. If there was ever a piece to catalyse some success for Toronto, Twilight fits the bill perfectly. However, can this fresh start and new ace remove the sour smell of their franchise history?
One issue the Defiant can’t shake is that, at times, it feels like Toronto’s rosters are being built by two different people.
Take their freshman season in the league. At first glance, the fully South Korean lineup looked somewhat promising on paper, but as time went on, it was clear things were amiss. Then the Defiant pivoted to a mixed lineup, adding members from their academy team in a fast attempt to seal a capsizing boat. Perhaps it was a first-time fumble, a learning experience, maybe even an outlier on the scatter plot. It’s only fair to excuse it - but when shuffles and rebuild constantly happen, you have to start wondering if something else is going on.
Then we’ve got the conundrum of their 2021 roster. With a clean slate, thanks to declined options and expiring contracts, the 2021 season for the Toronto Defiant was set to be a fresh start for a fan-favourite franchise. What we were given was another promising South Korean roster with western players hamfisted in. People like Adam "Beast" Denton and Andreas "Logix" Berghmans likely could have been starters for other franchises, but they were sat on a majority Korean team without much hope of seeing playtime. At best, those resources could have been allocated in another flex piece that the Defiant could have used. At worst the initial integration process trying to give these players an avenue into the team could have been avoided, giving the team more at the start of the season to narrow their focus.
The constant sweeping changes and philosophical vision shifts do not lend strength to longevity - until now.
Overwatch 2 is coming and with it a reset. Now is the perfect time to flip the switch and start over, and the Defiant have done that as expected. After going 9-7 in the regular season, with two appearances at the knockout stages of the May Melee and the Countdown Cup, and being absent from Hawaii, there was not much left to keep. With Overwatch 2 re-shaping the tank role, it’s no surprise that both starting tanks had their options declined per the official 2022 player contract status report.
However, there is one lone survivor of the Toronto folds, and that is DPS ace Jeong "Heesu" Hee-su. And with Twilight’s arrival, now we start to see where the Defiant’s 2022 hopes and dreams are situated. In a season of uncertainty, known quantities are going to be at a premium. So when you know have a player like Heesu, who does have his more spotlight picks and someone like Twilight who has been incredible throughout his near five-year career in Overwatch, Toronto fans have a lot to get excited over.
For a moment, let’s exit the Twilight zone and enter speculation territory. This offseason lends itself to two roads; building out a world-class DPS trio ahead of a new game that does seem to be more lethal, or investing your resources in finding the perfect tank for the job as we approach 5v5. Removing ourselves from the subjective angle, we have two veterans that are not afraid to make plays - why slow down now if you're Toronto? This is the perfect time to land players like Lim "Glister" Gil-seong or Kim "AlphaYi" Jun. These types of moves give them extended punching power needed to not only make the playoffs but also the style and flexibility to make a run.
This all begs the question: is this the year for the Defiant?
While it is too early to give a fair evaluation, we’ll also take Toronto’s route and defy expectations: this is a fantastic start to the 2022 pre-season. Twilight is a massive acquisition and could foreshadow the franchises' championship aspirations. If Toronto’s next moves bolster their DPS lineup with strong pieces, then Defiant fans could be looking at an early nomination for stage title contender and perhaps an early playoffs bid.