WOOHYAL dropped from XL2, only one player remaining

XL2 Academy XL2 Academy Contenders NA Rank #4 BiaNcA Kim Dong-wook (김동욱) off tank Haku Robert Blohm flex support buds Casey McIlwaine dps ksp Kai Collins dps GIG Rick Salazar tank Ojee Christian Han support have released off-tank player WOOHYAL . He is the sixth player released this month, leaving only one remaining player on the roster.

Because of the change in XL2, the contract with XL2 was terminated.

I am now currently LFT
OWL/Contenders
Please reach out to me via twitter, discord

discord:WooHyaL#5614
— WooHyaL_OW (@WOOHYAL) January 26, 2019

The team began releasing players in the first half of January to make room for New York locals on the roster. Initially, only three players were released.

At the time, XL2 retained all three of their international players. Since then, however, each of the three players have announced their free agencies. The team's only remaining player is main support Jer .

Tryouts have began for XL2's new roster. XL2 is automatically invited to the first season of Contenders 2019.

Jeremy "Jer" Santacruz (Support)

And their staff are:

Joon "Wiz" Lee Hae (Head Coach)
Jonathan "Jon" Tran (Assistant Coach)
Adam "Adam" Eckel (Player Manager)

I think this is the best attitude. There is no way to know whether this will be a viable way to build a team until somebody tries it. There are a ton of people in the area of NA that could be considered in the NY region they could look for talent as far north as New England, and probably even as far down as DC. Even if they don't do as well as they did in the standings as they did before, developing regional talent could pay off in fan loyalty and goodwill for the brand.

If it works we could see other teams investing in their home regions as well. Call me a dreamer, but it would be amazing to see changes like this and the new cross region tourney formats working together to really improve fan engagement in the tier 2 and 3 scenes while also helping to build more parity between the regions from a mechanics, coaching, and infrastructure standpoint.