Korean organisation Kongdoo has finalised the rosters for its two sister teams Panthera and Uncia before APEX Season 2. Kongdoo Panthera have parted with Bishop and RADIO, who were both playing support for the team in recent tournaments. They have also sent their former tank Butcher over to their sister team, where he replaces Fatal in Kongdoo Uncia. The resulting two open slots in Kongdoo Panthera have been filled by two new talents, Fissure and Bling.

The new roles for Panthera and Uncia have not been confirmed; the first games of APEX S2 as well as the upcoming patch may affect how these two rosters adapt to their new players.

The story of Kongdoo Panthera's route to their new roster is a twisted one. After APEX S1, Lucio main r2der left Panthera to become the first Korean professional to compete in another region, signing with Chinese team Newbee.Y. Bishop moved from flex support to Lucio to plug the gap for MSI MGA and Nexus Cup, and Panthera brought in Luffy to play Ana. Unfortunately the team was not able to showcase its strength at MSI MGA and Bishop left shortly afterwards, reportedly in talks with a team outside Korea, possibly in a coaching capacity due to his utterly fluent English.

The trials and tribulations of Panthera continued as they searched for a solid support. RADIO played for them during IEM GyeongGi as Lucio; the roster was touted by Skipjack as “unbeatable” in practice, but when it came to the tournament they were immediately matched up against eventual champions LW Red and promptly dispatched 0-3.

Following their early exit at IEM GyeongGi, RADIO was no longer and tank Butcher had been sent over to Uncia to replace their offtank, Fatal.

Kongdoo Panthera then brought in Fissure and Xepher to the team, announcing the two players on Twitter and asking their fans to cheer for the new arrivals. Cheers, however, quickly turned to public disapproval as Xepher was unmasked. The Korean community saw through his new alias and exposed him as a former member of Dizziness, the team who had been involved in the Geguri scandal which involved death threats being hurled at a 17-year-old female professional player.

With the public backlash from the Korean community, Kongdoo Panthera dropped Xepher almost immediately. In a statement, the head coach said:

We took into account the reports and concerns of Kongdoo Panthera and Team Kongdoo's fans, so we came up with the following decision. We will cancel our recruiting of Xepher, and choose another suitable player for Kongdoo Panthera. We believe professional teams and players must be responsible with their actions and words, and they must properly endure the repercussions.

The search continued for Kongdoo Panthera as the deadline for APEX S2 drew closer. Days later, they announced their final roster: Fissure would still be recruited alongside Bling, a new name. It was not made clear which player will be taking which role in Panthera, though it is assumed - based on the small amount of data available, as neither player has previous top level team experience - that Fissure will be playing support as Bling and EVERMORE handle the tanks.

Adding two new players who are unproven on the big stage could easily be a bad move. Panthera already appear to have issues translating their dominant online performance into solid LAN results, having placed third in their group in APEX S1 and been eliminated in the quarterfinals of IEM GyeongGi without taking a map. Kongdoo Panthera’s success in APEX S2 will likely come down to the ability of their new and unknown players.

For Uncia it was a far less convoluted and dramatic route to their new roster, simply swapping their offtank Fatal for Butcher, a player already known to the organisation. But like Panthera, it is unclear who will be taking over main tank on Uncia.

Panker was one of the best Reinhardts in APEX S1. Though he loved to go for sneaky power-plays, his timing and awareness of danger was excellent. When compared to the other option now on the team, Butcher was caught out far more often when playing against the best teams, and he also has experience on Zarya/Winston offtanks and a range of other heroes in ranked. Given how much weight the Korean teams tend to place on ranked performances, we could see Butcher take over the offtank/flex role, keeping Panker on main tank.

Uncia rose to prominence after the team were one of the first to master the triple tank strategy with a powerful D.Va, Soldier: 76, and Roadhog. Though they were considered one of the strongest teams in APEX S1 playoffs, defeating Lunatic-Hai 3-0 and taking EnVyUs to five maps, recently they have been upset multiple times by lower level teams. While this caused many to doubt their competence, wondering whether they had simply been quick to innovate and could not stay on top, it seems more reasonable to look at the context of the matches. Their main upsets have been in online Chinese tournaments, some with noted terrible latency issues. They will relish the opportunity to be on the stage once again.

Kongdoo Panthera are in Group D with Fnatic, RunAway, and Flash Lux. They are some analysts’ favourites to take the group in 1st, but face fierce competition. They begin with a decisive clash against Fnatic on January 20th.

Kongdoo Uncia are in Group C with Cloud9, CONBOX Spirit, and AF.Blue. It’s a tough group if they are in the mood for being upset but they have shown the team skill necessary to top this group in the past.

The APEX Season 2 roster for Kongdoo Panthera (with presumed roles) is:

  • An "wakawaka" Jee Ho (DPS)
  • Kim "Rascal" Dong Jun (DPS)
  • Koo "EVERMORE" Kyo Min (Tank)
  • "Bling" (Tank)
  • Yang "Luffy" Seong Hyeon (Flex Support)
  • "Fissure" (Support)
  • Pyeong Kwon (Coach)

The APEX Season 2 roster for Kongdoo Uncia (with presumed roles) is:

  • Kim "DNCE" Se Yong (DPS)
  • Kim "birdring" Ji Hyuk (DPS)
  • Yoon "Butcher" Seong Won (Tank)
  • Lee "Panker" Byung Ho (Tank)
  • Yoo "lucid" Jun Seo (Flex Support)
  • Cho "Bubbly" Yoon Ho (Support)
  • Pyeong Kwon (Coach)