Who Is The Youngest Player In Overwatch League?
Rookies in the Overwatch League (OWL) frequently make an impact very early into their arrival in the Overwatch League. With an average age of 19 years, the Overwatch League is built on the shoulders of the youth, some of them already considered veterans through their years in the developmental leagues prior to joining OWL. The age of eligibility, likely because of the planned frequent travel and resulting legal guardianship issues, has been set to 18 years of age, with the cutoff in the 2020 season having ended on July 15. This means that players born before July 15, 2002 were eligible for pick up this season. A couple of players cut it really close, and therefore the youngest player in the Overwatch League has to be someone that was born closely to this cutoff date.
Later on in season 3, likely also due to the complications due to COVID-19, the cutoff was apparently voided implied by the ability to sign the youngest player in the Overwatch League.
Who is the youngest player in the Overwatch League?
Prior to the 2020 season, many speculated that the rule had been specifically set to this date because it would allow Tae-sung "Mag" Kim, the prodigal talent of South Korean talent forge RunAway to join the Overwatch League with three days to spare. In fact, the cutoff date was dubbed “the Mag-rule” in jest, because the young main tank was considered a major talent coming into the third season, and with his birthday on June 12. However, Mag so far has not been picked up despite his incredible play, especially on Reinhardt, but also on Winston, during the last couple of Contenders seasons.
Click to enlargeA second candidate for the youngest player in the Overwatch League was the very young, yet highly anticipated prodigy Yeong-han "SP9RK1E" Kim, alumni of the South Korean elite development team Element Mystic. As the crown jewel of their 2019 roster, SP9RK1E entered the league with a lot of hype. By eye-test, he was an elite tier performer on heroes like Genji, Doomfist, and Pharah, and his recruitment was considered one of the biggest events in the off-season. Paris Eternal secured the support of this talent but could only field him come his birthday on May 31. Less than 30 days after becoming eligible, SP9RK1E won his first tournament, the Summer Showdown against the Philadelphia Fusion in a close series that went the full seven-game-distance. Shining on Genji, he was arguably the difference-maker.
While we expected Mag and SP9RK1E to be the actually youngest players in Overwatch League, it is Atlanta Reign’s homegrown talent Garrett "Saucy" Roland who is currently the youngest player in the Overwatch League. Having turned 18 after the initial cutoff date on July 10, Saucy would’ve not been eligible if the season had worked out as planned. Likely due to the drastic changes to the Overwatch League format, which didn’t require teams to travel across continents to play their matches, Saucy was allowed to play and has since then regularly been fielded on projectile heroes.
There remains a very slim chance that someone even younger or close to Saucy will enter the Overwatch League. O2 Blast’s Se-hyun "Pelican" Oh, himself a flex DPS much like Saucy, has been an outstanding performer on the role in South Korean Contenders. While the transfer window is technically closed, in the case of visa, travel, or health issues, teams are allowed to sign backups during the playoff period depending on league approval. The Washington Justice have already used that rule to sign Gui-un "Decay" Jang to replace Lukas "LullSiSH" Wiklund. Pelican was born on July 5th 2002 and therefore is just a week older than Saucy. One of the players that are most likely to undercut Sauvy would probably be Young-sun "GaeBullSsi" Yun of World Game Star Phoenix fame, an off-tank player that has been a rising rookie in the Contenders system for a while.
All things considered, it is likely that Saucy will remain the youngest player in Overwatch League in the 2020 season, and will remain as such until the post-season signing window opens and teams pick up next year’s generation.
Images via Blizzard Entertainment