Overwatch League Stage 1 champions London Spitfire have announced their Contenders team roster.
Known as British Hurricane, the academy side will take aim at the Overwatch Contenders, which is the development league for promising Overwatch esports talent.
They have three players from the UK: Fusions, Kyb and FunnyAstro.
The full British Hurricane roster is as follows (nationalities are listed in this tweet):
- Fusions (tank)
- Hafficool (tank)
- Kyb (dps)
- Kragie (dps)
- Bock1 (support)
- CrusaDe (support)
- FunnyAstro (support)
- Tactic (coach)
- Izzy (manager)
British Hurricane also released the following announcement video:
Paul Chaloner, MD of Code Red Esports, who are looking after Cloud9’s Spitfire franchise operations in the UK, previously told Esports News UK he wanted to ensure an academy team are EU-based, and for the academy side to offer ‘the chance to promote top UK talent to the team over time’.
The team will play in dark and light blue, reports the Daily Mail, and the next Contenders League will get underway in March.
Paul Chaloner also told the Mail: “The plan for the first Contenders team was always to go and find the best players and the best team we could find. But the plan for running a competition to get players into the Contenders team from Britain still stands.
“The plan for the first Contenders team was always to go and find the best players and the best team we could find.”
Paul Chaloner
“There’s a good opportunity for them to learn from a set of players who are Stage 1 champions, and pick up advice, hints, and tips from the coaching staff as well.”
The plan is to get the Contenders team and main Spitfire team located together in the UK once Spitfire has its base of operations sorted.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
