What is a Fleta Deadlift in the Overwatch League?

Certain players in the Overwatch League have built a reputation on being “hard carries,” dragging their teams to victory whether they like it or not. One step beyond the hardest of carries lies the “Fleta Deadlift,” one of the most difficult achievements a player can earn in the league. 

The feat is named after 2020 Most Valuable Player Kim “Fleta” Byung-sun of the Shanghai Dragons and, formerly, the Seoul Dynasty. While he has made a name for himself as a part of those teams, the original Fleta Deadlifts happened far before his time in the Overwatch League.  

As a part of Flash Lux, a Korean Overwatch team that competed in numerous APEX tournaments, Fleta routinely racked up eliminations even when the rest of his team was underperforming. During a 2017 APEX match against Afreeca Freecs Red, Fleta single-handedly brought Flash Lux a win. In a subsequent match against MVP Space, Fleta scored over half of his team’s final blows on a single map and the Fleta Deadlift was officially born. 

According to the Overwatch League StatsLab, which tracks Fleta Deadlifts and numerous other game and player statistics, the official definition of a deadlift is a scenario in which a player “accounts for 50 percent or more of their team’s final blows in a map.” For example, if the entire team gets 42 final blows on a map, a single player must account for at least 21 of those final blows for it to qualify as a Fleta Deadlift. 

Over the past three seasons of the Overwatch League, and the first half of the 2021 season, only 19 Fleta Deadlifts have been recorded by the StatsLab. Thanks to a recent outstanding performance by Chengdu Hunters DPS Huang “Leave” Xin during the Summer Showdown, that number has grown to 20. 

Interestingly, Fleta himself only accounts for one deadlift within the Overwatch League. Seoul Dynasty DPS Park “Profit” Joon-yeong has recorded three Fleta Deadlifts and was previously tied with Leave for the league record. As of July 15, however, Leave now has four recorded deadlifts and is the current league leader. 

While any deadlift is impressive, all of the recorded Fleta Deadlifts only apply to a single map. According to StatsLab data, no player has managed to pull off the match-wide deadlift. Hangzhou Spark DPS Zheng “shy” Yangjie has come the closest, getting 48 of his team’s 113 final blows against the Guangzhou Charge on May 1, 2021. 

With top performers like Leave, shy, and Fleta still in the league and competing on a regular basis, the opportunity for a match-wide Fleta Deadlift is still wide open. Fleta himself may even take back the record for his own achievement one of these days.