Bumper to part ways with Vancouver Titans

The Vancouver Titans announced earlier this week that the team would be parting ways with Park “Bumper” Sang-beom prior to the 2020 Overwatch League season. 

The announcement of Bumper’s departure comes a day removed from the Vancouver team also announcing the signing of OWL All-Star Ryu "ryujehong" Je-hong and Chan-hyung "Fissure" Baek. The addition of ryujehong and Fissure will reunite the two former Seoul Dynasty teammates. During the first two seasons in Overwatch League, ryujehong earned All-Star honors while with Dynasty and adds Overwatch APEX experience from his time with the Lunatic-Hai roster.

Bumper joined the Titans following the team acquiring Korean Contender team Runaway and soon became the face of the team throughout 2019 after helping the team achieve success during their stage one championship run. His aggressive play style and personality helped set the tone for Vancouver, leading them to a league-record 19-win streak and the best overall record in the league at 25-3. Though the team fell short during the 2019 season at the Grand Finals, Bumper played an important role with the team, despite seeing his main tank role diminish as the season progressed with the improvement of Hwang “TiZi” Jang-hyeon. TiZi would later announce his decision to leave the Titans during the offseason.

With plenty of time left during the offseason, the Titans will still have more player signings to announce in the coming weeks. However, it may take some getting used for fans who have become accustomed to seeing Bumper in a Titans uniform. It will be interesting to see how Vancouver transitions to a new-look team as the RunAway era is seemingly now over.

The Vancouver Titans will host two events at Rogers Arena in 2020, with the first taking place May 16-17 and the second taking place July 4-5.