The Overwatch League features twelve teams divided into two divisions: The Atlantic Division and The Pacific Division. With an aim to increase its global footprint, the teams are ‘unevenly’ distributed across the globe. We have already covered the first three teams of the Pacific Division in our previous article. Going in depth about each team, its strengths and its players these articles aim to provide you with a first-hand knowledge of the Overwatch League. The League starts on January 10th and will continue for several months until the finals in July.

The League has a prize money of $3.5 million in its inaugural season. With the matches being spread over the course of six months, this prize pool is going to add to the hype around the Overwatch League. The first season will see all matches being held offline. With the teams still not ready to host home and away matches for the first season, we will see all twelve teams housed at the Blizzard Esports Arena in Los Angeles.

The Pacific Division Teams are the focus of this article. We have divided the article into two parts to better focus on the teams. The Pacific Division has the following teams :

Dallas Fuels

Los Angeles Valiant

Los Angeles Gladiators

San Francisco Shock

Seoul Dynasty

Shanghai Dragons

San Francisco Shock

San Francisco Shock consists of seven players on their roster, a relatively small roster considering the number of players in the team is six players.A big surprise at the Pre-Season, San Francisco Shock might just be the team to upset other teams in the first season.

BabyBay was definitely the showcase of the roster coming into the preseason. There was not too much focus on Babybay prior to the pre-season, but the way the team played around his widowmaker definitely raised a few eyebrows. Of course, his accuracy with Widowmaker and the number of picks and damage he was able to do helps the team immensely going into pre-season. The team has been supporting his playstyle and were adequately rewarded. BabyBay hit some championship caliber shots and definitely on par with the best widowmakers in the game.

Nomy is the only principal tank in the team. The former Reinhardt player has been forced to play on other heroes such as Winston, Orisa which are the requirements of the current meta. Nomy is not amongst the better tanks in the scene, but he is consistently average with his performance on the main tanks. Not as flashy as Kaiser, Fissure Nomy’s performance on the tanks has been consistent and unwavering.But he is the only tank player on the team, which has a plethora of flex players on their roster.

The DPS lineup

Danteh and Nevix form the core of the team. Both are flex along with being DPS players & this provides a decent amount of flexibility in the middle of the team. Danteh has been a player who is underwhelming, especially since several analysts believe that he can reach higher peaks based on what they have seen. He plays Tracer right now, and coming from a Minecraft background it is very impressive of the player from a non-FPS background.

Nevix has reached a high of 4603 in the previous season. He is a very DPS centric player. These two players can play a variety of heroes and apart from Babybay, they form a very strong duo. This team can perform the three DPS meta with consistent results due to the caliber of these players. I think we can safely assume that the team has their DPS role on lockdown.

The Support Duo

The support duo of San Francisco is very unique. Dhak has a very different style of playing his Lucio. He plays extremely aggressive with his Lucio constantly trying to boop other players off the map and even contesting the enemy widowmakers one versus one. He does not peel for the backlines as much as trying to play DPS on the front lines. The flexibility of the player is limited, but his knowledge as a shotcaller is very extensive. Sleepy has to take the burden of flexing on the support role and he does it very efficiently. It does create problems for Sleepy, especially since he will not have Dhak to consistently support him in the backlines.

The star player on the team, one who has fallen off his peak significantly is IDDQD. Known for his Mccree plays in the early days of Overwatch, IDDQD can play other heroes as well. However there being specialist DPS Players on the roster for Tracer, Genji, IDDQD comes in as the surprise pick on the team. He has transitioned into a very supportive DPS type of role.

San Francisco roster doesn’t really lack the DPS on the roster, but they definitely are lacking in the tank department. The supports are unique in their playstyle. The managers, however, are well acquainted with Dhak’s Lucio and they have integrated it well into their plans.

The Inactive players

The inactive players on the team are definitely what makes this team one of the strongest teams. Till they attain age, they have to sit it out. Sinaatra and Super are extremely talented players. Super can definitely fill in for Nomy as one of the tanks on the roster. Sinaatra’s aggressive Tracer is notorious for his streams and various tournament matches. His high Pulse bomb accuracy ensures instant kills for the team.

San Francisco Shock is rumored to be interested in picking up Dafran, arguably the best DPS player in North America. If they do go through with this, they have one of the best DPS rosters in the League. Their lackluster tank lineup will hurt them in the future, but individual DPS plays will definitely propel them further.

With analysts as Harsha, LegitRC joining the coaching staff, they have a strong coaching lineup. The team is investing heavily in their coaching and support staff. Whether they can convert this into performance and results, is a question that only time will tell.

Seoul Dynasty

The Korean dominance in Overwatch cannot be better presented by any other team than Seoul Dynasty. They have established their dominance in the Overwatch scene with their previous team and the high skill cap of their players. The former Lunatic Hai roster has a lot of fans in the Korean scene.Their OGN Apex matches were constantly selling out tickets weeks in advance. They are one of the original teams to be announced on July 12th, with Kevin Chou of KSV as the owner of the franchise.

The Seoul Dynasty have a tough task ahead of the Overwatch League. Being the number one team by far in terms of results, they are the team to beat for the remaining eleven teams. The team comprises of so many superstars who have made a name for themselves with their main heroes. The team has undergone quite a few roster changes from the original roster that was signed in July. Esca has transitioned into PUBG and left Seoul Dynasty.

The core players

But the replacement for the DPS player in Fleta definitely adds a much better DPS player for the team. Fleta is the X factor on the team right now. Being the latest addition to the team Fleta comes from Flash Lux. His DPS has a very big impact on the overall team composition. He has been a consistent contributor to the number of kills on the team. According to statistics from WinstonsLab Fleta has a very wide hero pool. While he is popular for his Soldier, you can see him being extremely comfortable with other heroes as well. Fleta’s accuracy with hitscans is just too good for most of the opponents.

Miro is one of the strongest Tank players. Miro brought Winston into the meta and is solely responsible for the hero being brought back into the meta. His Winston definitely has a beauty in the way he handles his bubbles. His primal rage probably sees the highest number of kills for a Winston player. He has an amazing awareness of the cooldowns on his Winston and how he can stretch the abilities to the maximum usage and most effect.

The Captain and the best Flex Support

Ryujehong is definitely the superstar on the team. The world’s best Ana player made a name for himself because of his flashy sleep darts on Ana. His ana enabled the creation of a lot of space for Seoul’s tanks and provided the ability to play super aggressive. The recent changes in the Overwatch meta have forced Ryujehong to get off his Ana and flex on Zenyatta. But the high levels of his Zenyatta are also extremely dangerous for his opponents. The captain of the Seoul Dynasty roster contributes much more than just in the game. He is extremely vocal and helps in the communication within the team. Keeping the spirits high and energetic is something that Ryujehong does with considerable ease as we have seen from their videos posted on Youtube.

Seoul Dynasty comprises of many more players and each player has a very rich history in the Korean scene. Some of the newest additions to the team have come from lower ranked teams but have proven their worth as being one of the best in the scene. Meanwhile, the coaching staff of Seoul Dynasty is probably one of the best in the Overwatch League. This team is definitely the strongest team on paper right now. The Overwatch league runs for almost six to seven months in 2018. The Seoul Dynasty have to defend their position during this time.

Shanghai Dragons

The Chinese World Cup team had a very dominant run through their group stage matches. When their matches went 12-0, everyone took notice of how well coordinated and the high skill of the Chinese roster. But the final roster was probably not the best roster to come out of China.

Critics have been saying that Shanghai Dragons should have picked up other players from the region. The Shanghai Dragons have a huge geographical pool to select their players from. They have the entire Chinese region accompanied by the Taiwanese region players. Since none of the other teams will be looking at this region for potential players, Shanghai Dragons have a monopoly over the talent in the region.

We only have the pre-season statistics to analyze for the Shanghai Dragons. We saw instances of brilliance from the team including a rare team synergy at times. However, for the most part, the team looked incoherent and unsure about what they were doing. This resulted in the team looking extremely distraught and out of sync with each other.

The players

Diya is arguably the best DPS player in the region. His aim and performance on any hitscan are insanely accurate and quick. We stood witness to his Widowmaker as he was able to constantly shut down Fleta from Seoul Dynasty His accuracy and the speed with which he took his shots on Widowmaker definitely surprised a lot of players. While he is the better DPS player on their roster, Shanghai Dragons have a DPS problem.

They have signed just two DPS players and both the DPS players play hitscan. The lack of versatility and a good projectile player is what will hurt the team going forward. Undead is a very talented individual but having two good Hitscan players hurts the team more than it helps them. Listening to MonteCristo’s analysis of the team, we have learned that Shanghai will be looking to sign more players in the Player Transfer Window. They believe in bolstering their team performance with mid-season signings, where we should see a more versatile lineup.

The other good player on the team is Roshan, who plays the role of the main tank. He has amazing game sense and his positioning with Winston is really optimal. He was able to take individual decisions to alternate between playing aggressive and peeling back to protect his DPS players.

However, the team seems somewhat lackluster in the support and off-tank category. While they are not bad in the off-tank category, they could definitely do with some good performances from the players. However, their support players definitely need to train better on their Zenyatta and Mercy performance.

The team is not as bad as it looks

The team’s performance during the Pre Season was definitely not up to mark. But we have to understand that the team arrived in Los Angeles a day before the actual matches. It was difficult for the organization to put together their travel documents and visas. This presented the roster with very less time to actually practice together and develop a good coordination within the team.

We hope to see a better performance from the Chinese team in the actual season. But until then they remain a team which will fill the bottom part of the Overwatch league rankings.

Check out the Atlantic Division Teams here.

Check out Part One of the Pacific Division teams here.