Toronto Defiant announce Envy, Neko as first player signings

Toronto has officially introduced itself to the Overwatch League as the Toronto Defiant, with the season beginning in February.

TORONTO — The Toronto Defiant have announced South Korean players Kang-jae “Envy” Lee and Se-hyeon “Neko” Park as the club’s first official player signings.

The two players were introduced in a short video segment on stage Saturday afternoon at Toronto-based video game convention Enthusiast Live Gaming Expo (EGLX).

Envy is a 21-year-old who previously played for the Los Angeles Valiant and will serve as Toronto’s captain in the flex tank position. Neko, meanwhile, is a 20-year-old flex support formerly of the Boston Uprising who was voted an Atlantic Division All-Star in the inaugural Overwatch League (OWL) season.

This unveiling comes on the heels of the Defiant officially unveiling their team name and logo at a launch party Wednesday evening.

Though Envy and Neko were revealed Saturday, the Defiant do appear to already have a full roster as the team’s general manager Jaesun “Jae” Won and head coach Beom-joon “Bishop” Lee hinted at in a discussion with Sportsnet on Wednesday.

“We have multiple players where we can swap in and out to adapt to any meta that will be thrown at us,” Lee said Wednesday.

A key point of emphasis in roster construction was the ability to be as flexible as possible.

“You want to look for a depth of hero pool,” Won told Sportsnet a few weeks ago over Discord. “Specialists these days, you really can’t rely on specialists. We call them one-tricks and one-tricks, I guess, was early Overwatch. We really can’t rely on one-tricks anymore.”

Clearly, both Lee and Won think Envy and Neko bring that kind of versatility to the table.

The Defiant are one of seven new expansion teams in the OWL, the official professional esports outfit for popular Activision Blizzard team-based first-person shooter Overwatch.

They will begin their regular season on Feb. 14, 2019.

It’s expected that more announcements from the Defiant along with the other expansion team — including the Vancouver team — will be made next weekend at Activision Blizzard’s BlizzCon.

[relatedlinks]

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.