A couple of days before the Overwatch League’s Midseason Madness tournament qualifiers are set to start once more, the Florida Mayhem is mixing up its roster in major ways that the community did not expect at all at this stage of the event.
The team recently announced that they are signing flex support Rupal Zaman, former player from Redbird Esports, to its roster. He’ll be filling a support slot opened by veteran flex Bak “KariV” Young-seo, who will be moving to a coaching and staff position within the organization.
Here is the reasoning behind the signing from the official post via Twitter:
“We’re always thinking of ways we can continue to improve as a team and add depth to our roster. While talking with KariV during the break, he revealed to us that he wanted to transition from a player to a coaching role. After deliberating amongst our staff, we felt that moving him to a coach position would be a good fit. To fill the vacant second flex support spot, Rupal has been signed from Redbird Esports.”
Rupal is another in the recent line of talented North American rookies to join the Overwatch League out of the collegiate environment this year. He played in big name teams in the Overwatch Contenders circuit like Noble and Revival before later joining forces with Redbird Esports, the team for Illinois State University that constantly brings championships.
With KariV transitioning to a coaching position, Rupal will likely share flex support duties with existing player Majed “SirMajed” Alrashied, who has been the Mayhem’s primary choice for the role most of the competitive year.
Almost hidden in the Twitter replies of Rupal’s announcement, Mayhem also revealed that off-tank main Adam Soong was released from his services with the team. He was picked up by Florida for the 2022 season after sustaining a difficult year due to the Los Angeles Valiant’s restructuring and rebuilding. During the Kickoff Clash qualifiers and tournament event, the team decided to run Ham “Someone” Jeong-wan as its sole tank within the roster.
Adam responded to the situation on Twitter, saying the Mayhem was not clear on the situation by not providing a separate announcement for his release.
Adam mentioned the following via Twitter:
“You guys didn’t have the respect to drop me in person and now your trying to hide it without an actual announcement? Cmon….”
The Mayhem’s tweet also confirmed that hitscan expert and veteran Jung “Xzi” Ki-hyo has finally made it to Florida to be with his teammates for in person practice and further activities staged within the teams installations. This, after him being acquired by the team around the April mark, Xzi has been dealing with visa and travel issues while trying to get from South Korea to the U.S. As visas are hard to come by recently even if you are a professional player or athlete coming into the USA.
After the tournament starts we will see the true face of the Florida Mayhem, and hopefully a performance fans will be excited to watch.
