Atlanta Reign Pro Dafran leaves the League

Overwatch pro player Dafran announced his retirement from the Overwatch League yesterday – his plan is to go back to the ‘comfy streamer life’ as he calls it. The Atlanta Reign pro wanted to leave once before, in the infamous selfless incident where he threw the game completely and failed to even try, instead killing himself a few times rather than helping his teammates.

© Blizzard Entertainment

He himself acknowledged that that incident wasn’t a great thing, and that this time he’s instead leaving in a mature and graceful manner. This is certainly true – announcing his retirement from the OWL via a Tweet and then an announcement is definitely a better way of going about it than throwing a game would have been.

Dafran goes on to compliment and thank the owners of Atlanta Reign for the chance they gave him – though not without complaining that he wasn’t given a TV for his room. Surely not the reason he left, it’s still an amusing thing to include in his speech. He assures fans of his and his team that Atlanta Reign is still ‘gonna pop the f*ck off’ even without him, and he has nothing but the highest (if crudely phrased) praise for his team and their coaches.

As for his own future, he has already announced some plans – more, longer and consistent streams on his own channel, as well as scheduled EU streaming once again – he also plans on sticking with Overwatch with some added variety as he calls it – in other words, if you’re into his plays (such as one of the best pro-gravs from Zarya we’ve seen in a long time) you’ll still be able to enjoy that on his stream.

Dafran isn’t leaving Atlanta Reign entirely – he is still going to be streaming under their brand and banner, and he also hinted at some possible future collaboration between him and them on top of that, though there are no details on what this may look like.

As for the team, losing Dafran at this point is quite the hit for the team – after losing their last game in he Stage 1 Playoffs against Philadelphia Fusion, losing one of their top players could make things even tougher from here on out. That said, being mainly a DPS player in the current meta means that it could be worse for Atlanta Reign and they’ll hopefully be able to move into the next stage with little to no difficulties, generally speaking.

Quitting one month into his debut season was a little unexpected as it was his dream to go pro (well, his and many other gamers) for many years. “Being a part of OWL has been one of the best experiences in my life, and it is something to really look up to and strive for, if you are trying to go pro in Overwatch,” he said in a TwitLonger post, calling the league “well done” and “better than you would expect.”

Good luck to him and Atlanta Reign in the future of the season and after.

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