The Overwatch League has 113 active players spread across twelve teams. But the distribution of players is not equal across all the teams. While some teams have a twelve man roster, we also have teams with a mere six to seven players on their roster. These small rosters leave little room for flexibility or for the off chance that a player gets sick.

But Blizzard has already thought this through and they had announced the Overwatch League Player signing window. The Player Trade window opens on February 21, but the free agent signing period has already been opened up from January 22, 2018.

The trade window as well as the free agent signing window close on April 3, 2018 the day before the start of Stage 3. Rosters will lock for the remainder of the season and playoffs.

In addition to free agents, teams may take advantage of the trade window starting Feb. 11, the day after the end of Stage 1. Trades haven’t been common in Overwatch esports thus far, so it remains to be seen how active organizations will be in this area, especially considering the secrecy around scrim strategies and emphasis on synergy.

Trade Window or Free Agent?

This is the first season of the Overwatch League. Most of the rosters were announced a few months ago, but they have only seen a few days of play together. Will teams be open to making trades during this time period? Or will the interested teams only be looking for free agents in the market?

For the first season, it does seem advantageous to the teams to want to sign free agents. Ofcourse not all teams can sign new players. Some of them already have twelve players on their roster, such as London Spitfire. But there are also teams with only six to seven players on their roster. These teams will be looking to bulk up their player roster with new signings. There are only twelve teams in the Overwatch league, most of the players in the league are Korean.

This leaves a lot of unsigned western European players in contention. We also have many up and coming Korean rosters available as free agents. One of the most famous and yet unsigned Korean rosters is the Runaway roster. Perpetually coming second, this team has established itself as one of the strongest Korean rosters. They are perfectly capable of going toe to toe with the leading teams in Overwatch league right now.

Player Transfer is not a good idea

Teams should not be looking to trade players right now. Much of playing in a long-term league involves building up a team from the ground up. One of the most glaring examples of a roster built from the ground is the Boston Uprising team. They have been hand-picked by the President of Gaming for Boston Uprising, Huks. His intention going into picking the roster was choosing players who would be willing to learn, to shape themselves.

So we don’t expect many trades to happen in the first season itself. But we do expect teams such as Florida Mayhem, Shanghai Dragons to be picking up more players.

Florida Mayhem needs to increase its roster

The team with just the number of players needed to play an Overwatch match is languishing near the bottom of the league. Their performances during the first three weeks have been uninspiring. It was a team that has been suffering from health problems, and without anyone to replace the players they have been at a disadvantage.

Florida Mayhem has some really good players, but they need to have the versatility to be able to bring out something different. The team has been easily analyzed over their past few matches, and without any new players, it is difficult to make any new plays. The six members on the roster are very comfortable in their particular styles of play including their favorite characters and the way they like to play with these characters. The team also needs a specialist Tracer player, as we have seen Logix play better on other DPS heroes than Tracer.

The Florida performance was significantly better when Logix was on other, more comfortable DPS heroes. They will be one of the teams sure to sign a new player. It’s not a luxury it’s a necessity for the Florida Mayhem.

Shanghai Dragons

Shanghai Dragons have had one of the most disappointing start to the Overwatch league. They have not won a single series till now, which remains exclusive to the Chinese team. The initial two weeks saw the Shanghai Dragons being swept aside by their opponents, in a manner that was really embarrassing for an OWL team.

There have been several rumors of corruption while choosing the roster for Shanghai Dragons. Many of the fans were amazed when Miraculous Youngsters, probably the best Chinese team was not chosen for the Overwatch League spot. Shanghai’s poor results only added fuel to fans’ anger as the Shanghai roster didn’t seem to be on the server at all. They were being swept aside and their loss to Florida ( 0-4) seemed to be the final nail in the coffin.

If we are to analyze the Shanghai Dragons roster, they have some of the best DPS in the League. However, the coordination between the three parts of the team, the DPS, the supports and the tanks seems non-existent. The support ultimate usage has been poor, although Week 3 suggest a significant improvement in the support performance.

One thing that the roster desperately needs is a good projectile player. We have not seen the team use a Genji / Pharah regularly, often relying on double hitscans some combination of the other DPS heroes. In the current meta, not having a good projectile player is a handicap. We expect the Shanghai Dragons to be picking up a Projectile player during this time period. With most of the Miraculous Youngsters roster moving on to PUBG, it is unclear if they will be looking forth to the Chinese market or to the west.

Los Angeles Gladiators

Los Angeles Gladiators are actually doing quite good in the League. Currently third in the Pacific Division, the team had a very close series against their local rivals Los Angeles Valiant. The series went into the tieBreaker map which eventually resulted in a win for the Valiant team. But Gladiators showed that they are not a roster that will lose without a fight. With several analysts and fans predicting Valiant to be the stronger LA team, Gladiators gave them a reality check.

But the Gladiators have a seven-man roster. This includes 3 DPS, 2 Tanks, and two support players. With no more players to stand-in for the team in the eventuality of a player falling sick or unable to play for some reason, they definitely need to be cautious. The players have a very good synergy with each other, but they need to have backup plans for emergencies. We expect them to pick up a flex player or a few support players at the very least. Their DPS lineup does seem very competent and with Surefour on the roster, they have a player who can literally any hero in the game at the top level.

LA Gladiators don’t need a new player on the team, but they will have to sign one. This the only signing window in Season 1 and if they do not sign new players, they will have to play with the same seven-man roster for the remainder of the season and the playoffs.

What about the other teams?

Most of the other teams already have their player rosters filled to an extent. We don’t expect many players to be available for transfer in Season 1. Hence, we don’t expect many of the remaining teams to sign up new players. Instead, they will be focussing on making their team stronger, establishing synergy between the various parts of the team. They will also be looking into developing new strategies for the next meta which will not be as dominated by the Junkrats and Mercys.

Which teams do you think need new players? Will we see any transfers this season? Let us know your thoughts in comments below.

Source: Overwatchleague Website