Kim Se-yeon, more widely known on the Internet as “Geguri”, recently announced on her Twitch stream that she has been signed to a “foreign” team. She states: “Regarding the issue of a team, I just want you to know that I will be going to a foreign team. I have received many offers.” She subsequently followed every Overwatch League team on Twitter in a cunning bid to keep fans guessing.
The 18-year-old made headlines in 2016 when accusations of her cheating in Overwatch tournaments surfaced. Her unbelievable performance on Zarya in the Nexus Cup Tournament carried UW Artisan (the team later signed by EHOME Spear) to a 2nd place finish. An unknown player at the time, Geguri astounded audiences with her incredible 80% Zarya win rate in 420 matches and aimbot-like tracking, which led other tournament players and viewers to accuse her of hacking. No teenager should have to face the amount of criticism and even death threats that Geguri received for excelling at a game that she loves. More pressure came from the fact that Geguri was the only professional female player, garnering widespread attention and entrusted with the responsibility of representing female gamers in the esports scene.
After liaising with Blizzard Korea staff, Geguri’s manager “Lime” posted logs (link is in Korean) of their conversations confirming that Blizzard had looked into the issue and verified that her account was clean of hacking. To further add insult to injury, Geguri proved her haters wrong by live-streaming Overwatch played in a controlled studio setting with her mouse and hand movements captured on camera. The full stream can seen here:
By proving that she was the real deal, she deservedly gained a great deal of respect and acknowledgement for her raw mechanical skills. Geguri became the rising star in Overwatch esports, showing the world that female gamers are perfectly and equally capable of being at the top of this male-dominated field. She broke barriers by being the first female player to be signed to a team (ROX Orcas) in OGN Overwatch APEX, the now-defunct but previously premier Overwatch esports tournament in South Korea.
A year on, she continues to dominate the competitive Overwatch rankings by consistently hitting Top 500 in Asian servers, peaking at top 5 positions. She has further diversified her hero pool from mainly Zarya to include D.Va and Roadhog, making her a real off-tank menace. Taking a look at her recent gameplay on her stream, it is understandable how one might think that she uses an aimbot.
Watch the gif at least twice to see how her mouse movements translates to on screen domination.
Her tracking of Zarya’s continuous beam onto enemies is ridiculously accurate, and sometimes it looks like her crosshair snaps to the enemy model. The reason behind this is that she plays with an unconventionally high mouse sensitivity, and uses quick wrist flicks where the mouse is lifted off the mousepad similar to how one might aim with McCree or Widowmaker, not the usual smooth tracking one might use when playing Zarya. Geguri also displays impressive map awareness and accuracy with Zarya’s alternate fire which shoots a projectile, allowing her to zone out areas and create valuable space for her teammates.
Much speculation has been going around about which team she has joined following her announcement on Twitch. Her statement of “foreign” team was vague, so she may be joining a team in the Overwatch league, or possibly one of the Overwatch Contenders or Overwatch League Academy teams. The Overwatch League Academy teams are formed by existing League organisations aimed at grooming younger players to subsequently play in the League. If she is to join the Overwatch League, many believe she will join the New York Excelsior, as her off-tank hero pool fits in perfectly with Excelsior’s existing roster, and the Korean team members would pose no communication problems for her. She will definitely make a positive impact with any team she joins. However, it must be said that she might struggle with the current Overwatch meta, which favours faster, dive-type compositions that do not include her best hero Zarya, with the mobile tanks Winston and D.Va seeing more regular play.
The next challenge would be for Geguri to develop even more flexibility in the heroes she is able to play. Mechanically, she has the core skills needed to be a top-tier Overwatch player, thus adding a bit more depth to her game is her next stage of growth.
It seems only apt that she is known for her Zarya play, a hero that exudes confidence in her physical prowess and defies the stereotypes of female characters in mainstream video games. Being the first female player in the Overwatch league would be groundbreaking, as she becomes a symbol of girl power and hopefully paves the way for more female players to join professional esports in the future. For now, we will just have to wait in anticipation to find out which team was lucky enough to snag the legendary Geguri.
Joyce is a language nerd whose idea of a good time includes speed-solving Rubik’s cubes and binging Netflix, all fuelled by drinking many, many mugs of tea.
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