Boston Uprising wave goodbye to iLka
Boston Uprising unveiled the departure of their assistant coach Illias "iLka" Kaskanetas, who has decided to step away from competitive Overwatch coaching in a bid to pursue other life goals.
The announcement of iLka's departure surfaced earlier this Sunday, on the official Boston Uprising website, where Chris “HuK” Loranger, President of Gaming for the Uprising thanked the 23-year-old Greek coach for everything he has done of Uprising since his arrival in October.
iLka's first steps in the competitive Overwatch scene came in January 2018, when he signed for Wind and Rain who disbanded their roster in February ushering iLka to join Freefall. His second attempt at finding a permanent home and start building his career as a professional Overwatch player, however, came to nothing, as Freefall disbanded in April 2018.
The Greek support player eventually decided to hang up his mouse and keyboard and turn to coaching, which took him on a very colourful journey from Wind and Rain, to CIS Hope, Winstrike, One.PoinT and ATL Academy, who he helped win Overwatch Contenders 2019 NA Season 1 – Atlantic Showdown Tiebreaker, claim silver at Overwatch Contenders 2019 Season 1: North America West and a fourth-place finish at Overwatch Contenders 2019: Atlantic Showdown. ILka later joined a European team Angry Titans and secured a fifth-sixth place finish at Overwatch Contenders 2019 Season 2: Europe, which proved to be enough for the Greek strategist to be scouted by Boston Uprising, who offered him a coaching contract in October 2019.
"I am very grateful for this season with Boston, and I learned a lot through both the good and rough times," said iLka.
"It was a very hard decision, but ultimately I know it's for the best. I will miss everyone and wish them all a good rest of the season. It was a pleasure working with the team."
In his Twitter post, iLka claimed that the decision to leave Overwatch was tough to make, but a necessary one nonetheless, due to many issues he has been dealing with, namely mental problems, feeling of being burnt out and general disagreement with the current state of competitive Overwatch.
The latter issue was already addressed numerous times by other pro players and prominent personalities in the OWL scene, who either decided to leave to pursue careers in other esports titles or announced their retirement, due to the lack of belief Overwatch scene has any future with the way things are being handled as of now. On a more positive note, iLka stated there is a chance he might return, yet it remains to be seen when.
"I gotta take care of myself for the time being. I still love coaching so I ll possibly be back but I want to see cital changes to the game as well from a competitive standpoint," added iLka.
"I want to thank everyone for this season, my players and staff that I worked with and I wish I could have done a better job this year. There's much to learn and improve on though."
