Hunter C. March 12, 2019
The Los Angeles Valiant will replace the team’s coach after a slow start in Overwatch League’s second season.
Valiant head coach Byungchul Moon has been relieved of his duties as coach before the completion of the new season’s first stage.
A statement from Valiant general manager Michael Schwartz was short and complimentary towards Moon.
“We want to thank Coach Moon for his contributions to the Pacific Division and Stage 4 Championships achieved by the team in 2018. We wish him the best in the next stage of his career,” Schwartz said.
Taking over the head coaching duties in an interim role will be assistant coach Mike “Packing10” Szklanny. All of the other assistant coaches will remain in their current roles.
The Los Angeles Valiant are dead last in the Overwatch League standings with zero wins to seven losses. There’s a chance that the team could move up a spot without even winning a game should the Washington Justice continue their own winless ways. The underwhelming pair of teams are the only Overwatch League sides that have not yet recorded a match win on the league stage.
The Valiant sit at a 10-19-2 map record, and have accumulated more map wins than multiple OWL teams including Paris Eternal, Chengdu Hunters, Florida Mayhem, and the Justice. While there’s a case to be made that the Valiant aren’t completely in the gutter given their more reasonable overall map record, the team was picked by many to finish in the upper tier of teams in the first stage.
There’s no debating that the Valiant have vastly underperformed.
So far, the biggest issue for the team has been figuring out the current meta and its GOATS compositions. Valiant might have a solid lineup if not for this meta, especially with budding superstar off-tank Indy “SPACE” Halpern.
With upcoming patches promising changes to the current standard of three tanks and three supports, Valiant may soon have a chance to pull themselves together.