Ohio State Overwatch premier team player Justin Yancey sits at his desk playing Overwatch. Credit: Courtesy of Thomas Booker
As a tenured player of the Ohio State premier Overwatch team, Justin Yancey has been a flexible option for the program wherever they have needed him.
Yancey is a third-year main tank player on the premier gray team. Also known as “Yan,” he has filled multiple roles between the scarlet and gray teams in an effort to bring out the best of both teams.
Lucas Lumbra, a fifth-year analyst for the premier team, said the frequent changes were not optimal but that Yancey was capable of quick adjustment.
“If it were anyone other than Yan in that position being shuffled around as much as he was, I would have been concerned about their ability to stay focused and invested in the team, but knowing Yan, I knew with absolute confidence that he knew we were doing everything we could to make the team as good as it could be,” Lumbra said.
The Overwatch premier team was established last year as part of the Ohio State Esports program. The team undergoes tryouts every year to revamp and allow for new players a chance at making the team. This year’s team has three returning players — Liam Evans, Lumbra, now an analyst, and Yancey — and one returning analyst, Gage Sovey.
In his second year on the team, Yanceyhas played primarily on the gray roster to start this season as the team’s off-tank player. However, in recent weeks, he has experienced a change within the teams and his role.
Ahead of the team’s matches Nov. 1, Yancey was moved up to the scarlet team to play alongside the other players on the more competitive and skilled team. The reasoning behind this move was because Yancey is touted for having a diverse character pool which allows for the team to play certain metas in matchups they see fit, Lumbra said Oct. 29.
The team did not end up sticking to this move. Yancey was brought back to the gray roster due in part to a change in position by the scarlet main tank player now moving to off-tank.
“It’s been rough, it really has, not knowing what sub-team you’re going to be on the next week is really rough and you get an essence of consistency, it feels like it’s gone the next day,” Yancey said. “But that’s life, you can’t really change that part of it. I’m just happy I have people I like on the team and I’m able to connect with them as people. It would be a different story if I wasn’t being respected on the team. I’ve been treated pretty well, they’ve been honest with me.”
Taking everything that has happened in stride, Yancey has once again taken on a new role within the gray team as their main tank. The difference between an off-tank and main tank is discernible by the characters being played, which leads back to Yancey’s versatility in his character pool.
Not only has Yancey assumed the main tank position, but Jake Blitch, analyst for the premier team, said Yancey has provided the gray team with leadership.
“He’s a real good leader, he’s good at staying calm and also thinking of the positives at the end of scrims,” Jake Blitch, another analyst for the premier team, said. “He’s real good at keeping it positive and looking at what we did well and what we have to improve.”
With about 800 hours invested in the game, Yancey said he has been playing Overwatch since 2016, when the game launched, but not on the mouse and keyboard he plays on today. Instead, he started off playing on his Playstation 4 with a controller until switching to PC in 2018.
Once he realized that he wanted to play competitively for Ohio State, Yancey said he went out and bought a gaming computer and transferred to mouse and keyboard.
“I essentially bought a PC just to play for Ohio State,” Yancey said. “It really was my whole dream to end up playing here, because as a freshman I didn’t even have a PC and then I bought one in between that freshman year and then I tried out my sophomore year.”
