Creativity is not a path often traveled in Overwatch esports. The last boldly colorful team we’ve witnessed in Overwatch had to be the South Korean team, Meta Athena, during OGN’s Overwatch APEX Season 2 and since then they’ve tapered off. However, there is one Chinese Overwatch team that is capturing the hearts and minds of the public. The quiet Chinese Overwatch team, Moss Seven Club, broke onto the Chinese Overwatch circuit in July of 2016 during the SteelSeries Overwatch Team Association Season 2 and since their rookie tournament, the team has been severely forgettable. Once the team acquired a majority of Legend Young Beyond’s Chinese roster during March of 2018, things began to change for the better, even if not visible at first glance.  

“Welcome to the Imaginarium, where the roles are made up and the heroes don’t matter!”

  Moss Seven Club’s first attempt at a renaissance took place during Overwatch Contenders China Season 1. In every sense of the word, this first season was extremely experimental for Moss Seven Club. Who knew their players were made of elastic? Led by their shapeshifter of a tank player, Ding "vanessa" Menghan, Moss Seven Club began to push the boundaries of “role fluidity.” Vanessa was their primary D.Va player when Winston was in play. However, vanessa was also their go-to Orisa, Roadhog, and Sombra player during her oppressive run through Contenders Season 1. And to top it all off when the team wants to run triple DPS, vanessa is the third DPS player. Reinhardt shared equal time between vanessa and Chen "yixin" Guifeng, Moss Seven Club’s second starting tank player. Funnily enough, Yixin was also pegged to play projectile heroes like Genji and Junkrat on certain maps. Through these small details, you can begin to see why this team was so enigmatic so early on despite having a winless first season. Here we see Yixin, who is primarily a tank player for Moss Seven Club, playing a set Defense on Hollywood Point A. Yixin is primarily Moss Seven’s Winston player during Dive compositions and he fills the off role of flex tank when things get a bit more tanky and slow. This is a perfect example of Moss Seven’s fluid style in action. And if you think about it, no one in the current landscape of Overwatch relies this heavily on their flexibility. Now this reliance on their flexibility can and has caused them troubles in the past. Here we see the team make a stark composition change from Quad-Tank to a more traditional Dive composition and Yixin on Zarya holds his residual ultimate charge to try and force and second engagement with a question composition. Immediately following the poor engagement, Yixin changes to Winston to complete the Dive package and they find much more success. Yes, your eyes were not deceiving you, Moss Seven Club, the team with no clear roles -- outside of their support players -- went 0-5 in matches and 4-0-16 in maps. Again, at first glance, this would widely be criticised as an abject failure on behalf of Moss Seven Club and you can immediately start to draw comparisons to South Korean team RunAway during APEX Season 3. Both teams were moving their players around in an incredibly fluid system which never allowed for any star potential to shine through. Watching the team, from a viewers perspective, felt like you were watching a wild circus of role players queuing into Mystery Heroes on the ladder. It felt as if during certain points in their matches a ringmaster should come out from underneath a giant multi-colored tent to announce how strange things were about to get. “Welcome to the Imaginarium, where the roles are made up and the heroes don’t matter!” While Moss Seven Club’s first season in Contenders was nowhere near a positive thing, there were some silver linings. It was during their first Overwatch Contenders appearance that they laid the framework here to gauge just how far they could push the limits of their players in terms of flexibility and adaptiveness. Even through roster changes, the fluid almost ambidextrous system they instilled in Overwatch Contenders Season 1 persists in this second season of Contenders. Moss Seven Club has been a standout team hailing from Group B. With their nail-bitingly close set against Team CC in Week 1 and their win over Legend Young Beyond in Week 2, 3-1, and, things are already looking up for Moss Seven Club and it’s off the back of their Season 1 performance. That experimentation began to develop the framework for what they’re using now. This season Moss Seven Club has stuck to their guns and is still the flexible team you know and love, but they’ve massively toned it down. With their addition of DPS players He “mAsk” Zhongming and Yi “Jinmu” Hu, they’ve allowed their DPS players to focus solely on their performance as damage dealers. Jinmu is an incredible Genji and mAsk is an equally amazing Widowmaker. Leaving the DPS as a “solid” duo this still leaves vanessa and Yixin to flex off and become “fluid” and this clip is an amazing example of this new style in action.   Here we see a set defense on Volskaya Industries Point A which features vanessa on Roadhog as a solo frontline threat with Yixin on Tracer to assist with pressuring the enemy backline with Jinmu on Genji. This triple DPS setup actually leaves Legend Young Beyond quite staggered leading into the second round of Volskaya Industries. Now, things took a slight turn for the wrose when Moss Seven Club struggled against LGD Gaming in their Week 3 matchup, but I think there is still room for them to claw their way back in Week 4. Group B is insanly close and everyone of the six teams will be battling it out for a spot in the playoffs. They've already improved over their Contenders Season 1 performance and  leading into Week 4 where they will have their work cut out for them as they face off against a surging Lucky Future, who just upset the Shanghai Dragon's Academy team, Team CC, with a 3-1 victory. The elephant in the room for Moss Seven Club has to be; will they continue to improve their creative and wild nature or will their chaotic style impose a serious inconsistency issue? Either way, Moss Seven Club is impossible to prepare for. When you’ve got such a fluid tank line and DPS players that are quite flexible in their own right, you simply cannot cover everything that they can throw at you. Much like the legendary South Korean team Meta Athena did for their region, I think Moss Seven Club will inspire the next generation of Chinese Overwatch talent to be more experimental and creative. Rest assured when any team steps into the Imaginarium, win or lose, they will leave stunned and in a daze. That is the modus operandi of Moss Seven Club. _____   Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLGs of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel. Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.