Overwatch League Houston Outlaws team has announced its decision to drop two more players. Lucas “Mendokusaii” Håkansson and Matt “Clockwork” Dias have been relieved of their duties on the active roster, but have not been released, technically speaking. This is after the team finished in fifth in the Overwatch League finals.
According to dotesports, both players will remain with the OpTic Gaming team, but will be taking up new roles within the ranks of the Houston Outlaws. This degree of reciprocal loyalty is refreshing to see amidst the likes of Shanghai Dragon’s release of eight players in one go, or the three releases in Seoul Dynasty, Philadelphia Fusion, and LA Gladiators.
Mendokusaii will be working as a “content creator” for the Outlaws, which he expressed his feelings about on Twitter.
“I’m happy I can stay in Outlaws and work on my mental health in this position,” he stated on his personal account. “I’ve been very happy recently doing this and I’m glad I can keep doing this for the future, too,”
Clockwork, on the other hand, will join Houston’s coaching staff. He said that he spent the majority of Season 1 “reviewing VODs and watching scrims to help the team.” So, in a way, he was kind of already doing what he’ll be doing from now on, but will now be able to channel all of his energy towards this aspect of Houston’s training. He also managed to garner some OWL experience in Season 1 as a player, which will surely prove to be an invaluable asset to his coaching ability in his new role.
Despite the internal reshuffling of Mendokusaii and Clockwork, Russell “FCTFCTN” Campbell was actually released from the Outlaws last week. It is unclear as to why he was released, while the other two dropped players were offered new roles outside of the active roster.
Matt “flame” Rodriguez, who is the GM for the Outlaws, recently said that there may be more announcements to come in relation to transfers, but there will be no more players released from the roster. Therefore, it seems likely that the Outlaws will be making a signing or two yet – perhaps a new Tracer player to replace Clockwork, like Stanislav “Mistakes” Danilov, who was recently released by Boston Uprising.
