[UPDATE: “While we are disappointed with Blizzard’s decision to pass on our team for Season One, we’re incredibly confident that this won’t be the last Rogue Overwatch team,” said DJ and Producer Steve Aoki, who’s a Co-Owner of Rogue.
Rogue partnered with esports infrastructure company ReKTGlobal to broker the buyouts and trade deals for the players. ReKTGlobal also helped Rogue secure the league buy-in funds during the application process.
“It’s unfortunate to lose these players, but we haven’t lost focus,” said Derek Nelson, Rogue CEO and co-founder. “We’re in discussions with professional sports teams and you can count on us going after a Season Two slot.”]
Rogue have become the latest team to drop their Overwatch roster.
A tweet sent out by the org’s official account yesterday evening told of the decision, and included a brief Twitlonger detailing the reasons why. Unsurprisingly, the decision was made following news that the team had been denied a slot in the Overwatch League.
The statement, in full, read as follows: “Today we’re sorry to announce that we will be breaking up the current #RogueOW roster to allow the players to pursue spots on OWL teams. We did everything we could to get the team a spot in OWL, including procuring the buy-in money and going through the whole approval process.
“Unfortunately, we were not accepted for Season 1 and had no option but to break up the most accomplished Overwatch team in the game’s history so that the players could accept offers. We will continue to pursue putting together more great teams in the future and hope next time to be able to keep what we’ve worked so hard to build.”
The reason why Rogue were not accepted into the first season of the Overwatch League is unclear. It’s particularly surprising as they had built a strong team which GosuGamers currently ranks as the number one worldwide. Moreover, they had the necessary capital to back up and sustain their involvement after Steve Aoki became the owner of the organisation in October 2016.
you guys displayed the ability of not only scouting and building a great team, but also maintaining it. Def deserve to be in OWL
— Secret dummy (@dummy) October 8, 2017
With all of Rogue’s title winning Overwatch team now released into the wild, and the Overwatch League’s pre-season kicking off in December, it’s unlikely that they’ll be free agents for long. According to a report by ESPN, two of the French free agents are set to sign for Immortals, who secured the Los Angeles spot in the OWL back in July.
Esports Insider says: Whilst we’ve seen teams with no Overwatch League ambitions drop their rosters, this one comes as far more of a surprise with Rogue possessing what appears to be all the necessary components of an OWL team. Rogue’s, and surely the Overwatch League itself, loss will be other teams’ gain however with a handful of top free agents now available before the inaugural season gets underway.
