ChoiHyoBin leaves San Francisco Shock, retires from pro Overwatch

One of the most beloved off-tanks in OWL history is retiring.

Photo by Ben Pursell via Blizzard Entertainment

Veteran Overwatch League pro Choi “ChoiHyoBin” Hyo-bin said in an emotional post today that he’s retiring from professional Overwatch.

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ChoiHyoBin joined the San Francisco Shock in 2018 and was a part of the team that won two Grand Finals championships in 2019 and 2020. He’s an off-tank, which is a tough role for anyone going into the 2022 season that will be played on an early build of Overwatch 2. Next year, teams will consist of one less tank player on each team.

ChoiHyoBin was a beloved player in the Overwatch League. He was often described as selfless and would always comment on how valued his teammates were to him, even as he was accepting his MVP award in 2019. He’s heralded as one of the OWL off-tank GOATs.

ChoiHyoBin had a successful career and he even won the 2019 Grand Finals MVP award. He’s consistently been touted as one of the best off-tanks in the league. Two Grand Finals victories are just the tip of the iceberg on what ChoiHyoBin and his team achieved since he joined in 2018.

They won multiple Stage Playoffs in the 2019 season, which led up to their Grand Finals win that year. They then won two out of the three tournaments after the 2020 season switched to the tournament format and ended the 2021 season in fourth place overall.

The Shock is undergoing a major update to its roster this year after dropping seven players in one day. Matthew “super” DeLisi and Minki “Viol2t” Park are now the only two left on the Shock ahead of the 2022 season.

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Jessica Scharnagle
Jessica has been an esports and gaming journalist for just over five years. She also teaches esports journalism at Rowan University. Follow her for all things gaming, @JessScharnagle on Twitter.