Update: The 7Lions 2023 Team UK Overwatch players have qualified for the Overwatch World Cup.
Original article:
The Twitter account for 7Lions, the official 2023 Team UK Overwatch World Cup group, has been sharing details of the players set to represent the UK this year.
They will be participating in EMEA qualifiers for the Overwatch World Cup 2023 this month, starting June 22nd.
The World Cup hasn’t taken place since 2019, but Blizzard announced in December 2022 that the Overwatch World Cup will be returning for 2023, using Overwatch 2.
Team UK will go up against other sides in the qualifiers including Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark and Portugal in Group A.
Group B will feature Germany, Norway, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, Finland and Iceland.
The Overwatch World Cup 2023 will take place offline later this year, with 16 teams competing.
2023 Team UK Overwatch players
The 2023 Team UK Overwatch players and coaching staff revealed a few months ago on the 7Lions Twitter account are as follows:
- Backbone – Flex DPS
- WMaimone – Flex DPS
- Kai – Flex DPS
- JkAru19 – main tank
- Smex – tank
- Kronus – support
- FunnyAstro – support
- ChrisTFer – head coach
- TazMo – manager
7Lions have also announced various staff and volunteers helping out, including social lead, tee.
The roster announcement was made a few months ago, but recently over the past few weeks, the 7Lions Twitter account has been sharing more details on each player for fans to get to know them better. For example, Kai, who’s hobbies include consuming alcohol.
Several players in the 7Lions 2023 Team UK Overwatch roster have played in the Overwatch World Cup before.
ChrisTFer, in particular, is a veteran of the Overwatch esports scene, having played for UK teams back in the day like Reason Gaming in the old ESL UK Overwatch Premiership, before transitioning to coach a few years ago.
In 2017, Team UK previously reached the Overwatch World Cup quarter final,finishing 5th-8th, in 2018 they finished fourth, and in 2019 they finished 9th-10th.
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.
