Shanghai Dragons have been, by far, the lowest ranked team in Stage 1 of Overwatch League. The Chinese roster was never considered to be a contender for the title of the Season 1, but many analysts believed they could put up a strong resistance. This included, hopefully, winning a few matches on their way.

Shanghai Dragons finished Stage 1 with a 0-10 score losing all their matches. With the Trade window open, Shanghai Dragons have already announced four new players to be added to their roster. This was a much-needed move, but will it really help the team in Stage 2?

The article series covers the three teams at the bottom of the table: Shanghai Dragons, Dallas Fuel and Florida Mayhem.

The New Players for Shanghai Dragons

Shanghai Dragons signed four new players to their Overwatch roster. This includes only one Chinese player and three Korean players. This does call into question their communication language, but those are things that the team will work out in the future.

The four new players for Shanghai Dragons are:

Sky

Geguri

Fearless

ADO

Sky / Zhufanjun

The only new Chinese player in the team comes from the acclaimed Miraculous Youngsters team. The team which is largely considered the best Overwatch team from China was not picked up in the Overwatch league.

Sky usually plays a flex Support role on the team. His role in the team will probably bring about a lot of consistency for the team. He is not as flashy as, say, LateYoung on the tank role but his consistency and peeling for the backlines is what makes him a crucial pick for Shanghai Dragons. Of course being one of the more experienced players on the team, he will also have a lot of synergy with the remaining Chinese players. We have seen him play different heroes such as Sombra in the past against Lunatic Hai at a very high level.

Geguri

The first female Overwatch League player will join Shanghai Dragons as the Chinese roster looks forth to start winning games. Geguri is one of the most highly ranked tank player in the Overwatch League. She is famously the top-ranked Tank player on the Korean server. She was notorious for being accused of cheating in the game due to her exceptional tracking with Zarya. However, she also plays D’va at a very high level and has been well known for her peeling for the backlines.

Fearless

Fearless mainly plays the role of the main tank at Element Mystic. He mostly plays the Main tank role but has not shown a lot of variation in his tank play so far. His Winston is commendable and his synergy with his old team enabled him for aggressive plays. On Element Mystic, Fearless has secured the top spot at several Apex Challenger series. However, the team was unable to reach a single Apex tournament so far. He has shown a lot of promise, but we have not seen a lot of versatility from the tank player.

ADO

ADO is a Genji player and is probably one of the key pickups on the Shanghai Dragons roster. The Shanghai Dragons team has consistently lacked a Projectile DPS role, especially a player who plays Genji at a high level. Both Undead and Diya prefer to play hitscan heroes and their overlap in hero-pool definitely limits the versatility of the team.

ADO did not see a lot of playtime on his former team, MVP Space. But we have seen glimpses of his performance on Genji and Tracer which inspires confidence. He should be on the starting roster for Shanghai Dragons especially if they want the versatility to be a core feature of the team.

Moving Forward: Shanghai Dragons

Unfortunately, Shanghai Dragons will not be able to use their full roster until mid Stage 2. Their players will not be arriving until a few weeks into Stage 2. Even when they do arrive, the players will need time to adjust to the new time zone, the lifestyle and the weather.

The Shanghai Dragons core player roster took weeks to adjust themselves to their environment, an excuse which was dragged on for their poor performance. Considering the fact this is the only and last player Trade window, Shanghai Dragons had no chance but to sign the players right now.

As we have explained earlier, the addition of these players can help the Dragons improve their performance. Whether this performance is enough to improve their rankings in the table is a different matter altogether.

Shanghai Dragons needed a few small tweaks to be able to compete against some of the mid-level teams in the Overwatch league. Stage 2 of the Overwatch League starts on February 21st at 1600 PST. All matches will be streamed live on Twitch.