Lee ‘ANS’ Seonchang was a hitscan specialist for the San Francisco Shock that entered the League fighting the assumptions that he was a Widow one-trick, and turned into one of the better hitscan players seen across the international league.
Yesterday, he announced his retirement from the Overwatch League for a plethora of reasons that, for some reason, has gone mostly unnoticed by the fans of the League.
In a live stream on Twitch, which would be his last, ANS fielded questions and offered some insights as to why the star player was suddenly turning from the League that he fought to join with the legendary team of San Francisco Shock.
His health issues were a paramount concern, a wrist injury that he worried would ultimately betray his team when they needed him to perform; concerns about this injury impacting the San Francisco Shock were coupled with vaguely defined mental health issues that the young star stated the Shock’s coach did his best to guide him through.
A surprising issue was financially concerned: Lee Seonchang stated that he received roughly $15,000 from the most recent finals prize pool that was $1.5 million towards the San Francisco Shock, and he didn’t find it enthralling enough to maintain the competitive scene under other hardships.
It was also his last Twitch stream: he announced that he’s looking to shift over to AfreecaTV, a South Korean live streaming website much like Twitch, as he struggles to make ends meet on Twitch due to poor language barriers and an arguable lack of Korean viewers on the western-hemisphere based website.
It’s difficult to discern precisely where ANS could have ended up in Overwatch League and professional gaming as a whole if he maintained the course: the rookie was young, but readily considered a prodigy within hitscan players for accurate flicks and a surprisingly low time needed to react to new targets.
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The San Francisco Shock should frankly have little issue filling in the shoes of the young DPS player, although the hole will be felt for some time across the roster that has been outpouring support for the rookie as he makes his next moves in life: the quantity of DPS players that would chew off a leg to play beside the San Francisco Shock with their consistently impressive performances is innumerable.
Yet ANS had left a high-quality impact on his team and fans that will likely be the hardest to replace, making this an unfortunate announcement in front of what could be another tumultuous season for the Overwatch League.
