Miro announces his return to Overwatch competitive scene

Former Overwatch pro, Gong "Miro" Jin-hyuk has announced on his personal Facebook account he is set to come out of the retirement and make a return to the Overwatch competitive scene after over 16 months since he temporarily retired.

Miro's announcement surfaced earlier this Thursday on his Facebook account, where he made a post, which read:

"Hello all. I'm currently FA and looking for an OW team. There were some personal problems at the time of retirement but those are now solved so I want to give it another chance to my career as a pro. I've learned and grown so much from my experiences and I'm confident I'll do better."

Miro started his career as a professional Overwatch player in August 2016, when he joined a South Korean team Lunatic-Hai. Shortly after his first appearance in the Overwatch competitive scene, Miro established himself as an exceptionally talented player and was widely regarded as the best tank main in the world.

During his time with Lunatic-Hai, Miro also participated in the inaugural Overwatch World Cup 2016, where South Korean won gold without losing a single map en route to the top podium. Miro played a pivotal role in his nation's success and even earned the World Cup MVP award for his contribution to his team.

He managed to keep his fire going even after the World Cup, as he helped Lunatic-Hai win both Overwatch APEX Season 2 and Season 3, which helped Miro grow his renown as one of the best Overwatch players in the world. Among the Overwatch community, Miro will always be remembered as the player who revolutionized the way how professional players play the tank hero Winston, which also earned him the nickname of the "Godfather" of main tanks.

His dominant run in 2016-2017 with Lunatic-Hai earned Miro a spot in the Seoul Dynasty, who acquired him for the inaugural season of the Overwatch League. Unfortunately, the meta shift caused more problems than good for Seoul, who were struggling to adapt to the new slow-pushing style of gameplay. Furthermore, the meta shift also forced Miro to abandon his favourite hero Winston in favour of Reinhardt.

That showed one of Miro's biggest flaws, which was his inflexibility and failure to adapt to new playstyle. Despite his best efforts, Miro failed to look as dominant on Reinhardt as on Winston and while the meta shift did play a part in that, Miro has stated in his announcement, he was at the time also battling some personal issues. Due to his underwhelming performances, Miro fell out of favour with the team, who were attempting to replace Miro with their flex support.

At the end of a disastrous 2018 OWL season, Miro was released from Seoul Dynasty and shortly after announced his retirement. Instead of continuing his career as a pro player, he opted to start streaming under Gen.G, which is a parent company of Seoul Dynasty. That being said, he never ruled out a possibility of making a return to the professional play, which kept the hope of Miro's return alive.

While Miro remained quiet about a possible return for over a year, he has decided it's time for him to unveil his plans of making a return to the professional Overwatch scene.

Despite his incredible achievements between 2016-2017, when Miro was regarded as one of the best players in the world, there are still some concerns whether he will manage to relive his glory days if he returns to the scene. Namely, because he has not been competing in Overwatch for over 16 months, during which the game has changed drastically. However, from his announcement, it's easy to see he is confident his return will be a successful one.

Furthermore, it's worth noting that his go-to hero Winston was seen being used by some Contenders league teams just recently, which suggests, Winston might be a viable pick in the competitive scene, and possibly even in the OWL as a niche pick. That being said, it's hard to expect Miro will get a shot at competing in the OWL straight away, but will instead have to first prove his worth in the Korean Contenders before moving up to the top tier of OW competition.