Boston takes from all over to make an Overwatch League stew.
From Pacific to Atlantic, and even from retirement. Boston is grabbing anybody they can find with enough of a career to prove their worth something. Only a single Contenders player joins this popular roster for their 2022 season. With Namjoo “Striker” Kwan even returning to the team, how could one not be excited? Well, there are a few reasons.
Boston Uprising 2022 Roster
Tank
- Leyton “Punk” Gilchrist
- Minseo “Marve1” Hwang
- Chang-hee “ITSAL” Kim
It would be best to talk about the standout player here. The most impressive player by far, but with plenty of restrictions. Marve1 is a Contenders Champion, Stage Finals runner-up, and League Championship runner-up. So why would his solo tank abilities not help this team place higher? Its because his particular skillset isn’t going to be needed all the time, and possibly won’t be needed for the majority of the time. The most telltale sign of this is Boston’s late offseason signing.
ITSAL was signed to Boston from the academy team in late March. Educated guessing would have us assume its because of his unique Off Tank role specialization. It seems Boston have found a lack of success in their two Main Tank players during practice and scrims. Sure Marve1 is a great Sigma specialist, but all his other heroes are Main Tanks. ITSAL is going to have a lot of responsibility fall on him very quickly.
Punk has been with Boston for two seasons now. That’s about the only notable thing to say about Punk. He is not a standout player, and provides none of the flexibility Boston needs, given why ITSAL had to be signed.
Support
- Hong-gyu “Faith” Kim
- William “Crimzo” Hernandez
- Jeong-ho “MCD” Lee
The most evenly ranked line on the Uprising roster. A fairly decent and somewhat underrated group of Support players. Going into his second season with Boston, Faith is likely the least impressive player on the line. That’s inconsequential though, as he’s the teams only Main Support. He’ll likely see every minute of play time unless a double Flex Support meta arises.
Crimzo and MCD have never had great seasons in the league, bit they are regarded as decent talent to have in an important position. The most interesting part of Boston’s season may be seeing which Flex Support ends up in the starting spot. With a majority Korean roster, MCD may be the default choice, but no evidence of that exists yet.
DPS
- Gi-hun “Victoria” Oh
- Nam-joo “Striker” Kwan
- Byeong-ju “Valentine” Kim
Yet another case of a Boston veteran holding a spot with two more talented players fighting for the other. Valentine in an average, or less than average DPS. He doesn’t stand out on any heroes in particular, and isn’t on the top of any DPS power rankings. As the only Flex Support player, he’ll still see almost every minute of game time despite all of this.
The return of Overwatch League legend Striker. As much as it would be great to see him making highlight clips on every map of every match, he will have competition for the spot. He has much overlap with Victoria in hero pool. Victoria may even be a better Hitscan player than Striker. Striker is still great in his own right, and provides a bit of flexibility on other heroes that Victoria isn’t quite known for. This is a sign that Striker may see a majority of playtime in the Hitscan DPS position if Uprising fans are lucky.
Coaches
- Seung-hyun “Lori” Kim
- Dennis “Barroi” Matz
- Valentin “Ascoft” Wulfman
Boston’s coaching staff hasn’t been changed from last season, though it almost was. Ascoft was released from the staff for about a month in late 2022 before joining back up with the Uprising. This staff has proven unable to make anything out of decent players. So now, handed some notable players that have experience in the league, they have to prove that they have the ability to teach macro, team organized styles to this roster. They haven’t proven to be the best team of coaches, but they’ve also never been given talent that can make the job easier on them.
Boston Uprising 2022 Power Rankings
There are holes all over this roster. The organization has put resources into acquiring capable talent from other teams, but seemingly didn’t have enough left over to replace the weak players they’d still been left with. Despite these holes, they have talent that has proven the ability to perform at the very highest level. What they need is practice and coordination that can enable them to play that way 100% of the time. This team will start by being carried by its strongest players. In the face of teams like the Shanghai Dragons and LA Gladiators though, teams that function as a single unit, this will not bring them success. If this team is going to succeed, consistency in the later stages is going to require more work than other teams will need.
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