Introduction
Kim Hyo-jong (Korean: 김효종), better known by his online alias Haksal, is a professional South Korean Overwatch player for the Vancouver Titans of the Overwatch League (OWL). Kim began is professional Overwatch career playing for RunAway, where he was named OGN's APEX Season 4 most valuable player and won 2018 Season 2 of Overwatch Contenders Korea. In the Overwatch League, Park signed with the Titans in their first year of existence. With the Titans, he reached the 2019 Grand Finals, where they fell to the San Francisco Shock. Kim received the first-ever OWL "Rookie of the Year" award in the 2019 regular season.
Professional career
RunAway
Kim began his professional Overwatch career as one of the founding players of Korean team RunAway and played his first official match on October 26, 2016. He quickly made a name for himself as a talented Genji player in OGN's APEX Season 1. The team competed in all four seasons of the APEX tournament series and reached the finals twice – in Season 2 and Season 4. Although they failed to take the championship both times, Kim was named the APEX Season 4 Most Valuable Player.
After the inception of the Overwatch League, the APEX series ended, and RunAway began to compete in the newly formed Overwatch Contenders (OWC) series. Kim won his first competitive Overwatch title in OWC Season 2. Following, Kim helped his team win the NetEase Esports X Tournament over The One Winner after securing a five-kill on the final map Volskaya Industries to close out the series and claim their second major tournament title.
Vancouver Titans
On December 1, 2018, the Aquilini Group announced that Kim, along with all of the other members of RunAway, had been signed to their new expansion team Vancouver Titans for the 2019 Overwatch League season. Although he was best known for his talents playing the damage heroes like Genji, Kim spent the majority of his play time on the support hero Brigitte due to the prominent three support, three tank meta in the OWL throughout the first three stages of the season. Kim picked up a Stage 1 title and reached the Stage 2 finals with the team. After the introduction of the 2-2-2 role lock in Stage 4, in which teams were locked-in to playing two damage, two tank, and two support heroes, Kim returned to playing damage heroes and had the highest player impact rating, an official rating is a system used by Overwatch League statisticians, in the stage. In a 4–0 sweep over the Florida Mayhem, Kim amassed 27 Dragonblade kills on Genji to set an Overwatch League record for most Dragonblade kills per 10 minutes. For his excellent play throughout the season, Kim was selected for the 2019 All-Star Game, named an OWL Role Star for DPS, and named the 2019 OWL Rookie of the Year. The Titans reached the 2019 Grand Finals where they faced the San Francisco Shock; Kim went head-to-head against the OWL MVP Jay "sinatraa" Won throughout the match, but the Titans lost the match.
International career
On July 26, 2019, it was announced that Kim was selected as a member of Team South Korea for the 2019 Overwatch World Cup (OWWC). With the team, Kim picked up a bronze medal after falling to Team USA in the semifinals and defeating Team France in the third-place match.