Overwatch League Power Rankings – Are you ready for 2020?

With the 2020 season kicking off, we take a look at the Overwatch League franchised teams and analyze how they stack up against one another in our seasonal Overwatch League Power Rankings.

The list is written in a descending order from “worst” to “best”. Please note that we are only talking about nuances and minor differences, meaning number twenty on our list is not far away in strength from number ten or even number one.

20. Florida Mayhem

The Mayhem squad has had two abysmal seasons in a row. They went 7 and 33 in the first season and 6-22 in the second. The roster overhaul last season and the addition of Kris, BQB, and Swon did not bring the desired results. Swon together with HaGoPeun, RaiN, xepheR, DPI has all moved on coming into 2020. In their place the team brought in Yaki and Gangnamjin in a move to once again revamp the roster in the upcoming season.

We are pleased to present the @FLMayhem roster, in all of their neon glory 🙌 This team is looking good heading into #OWL2020 😎 pic.twitter.com/W5cCoY0iUm — Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) January 16, 2020

Last year’s power rankings had Mayhem in 11th place hoping that they could turn their fortunes around. We won’t make the same mistake this time around as we place them dead last in this year’s list.

19. Boston Uprising

The Boston Uprising did not fare well once again. Two power rankings in a row the team has not looked impressive or worthwhile. The 2020 iteration has almost an entirely new lineup. It seems the Uprising organization is great for cultivating individual talent and selling them off but they are quite bad at creating inter-player synergy that would bring results on the field. Once again Boston remains a Tier4 team and we have our doubts if they would manage to pull out something special this season.

18. Washington Justice

The Justice pack had a fair share of problems coming into Season 2. From rumored budgeting problems to drama around coaches and contracts and, the cherry on top, a nightmare schedule even to kick the season off. They played the begging of the season with a miserable 1-6 score line and never really managed to bounce back up until the end of the season.

Coach Hyeong-seok "WizardHyeong" Kim did not make magic with the roster in 2019 and got the boot by the end of the season. The entire coaching staff soon followed as well as most of the player roster. The new and fully revamped roster might cause a miracle, but we will remain on the conservative side and place them near the bottom of our Power Rankings together with all the fully revamped teams.

17. Atlanta Reign

The Atlanta Reign did not manage to fully reach their potential last season. The infamous roster with Gator, Dafran and NLaaeR did not manage to perform well together. The team released both Dafran and NLaaeR by the end of the season and only retained Gator from the “suspension” trio. Pokpo and Erster are what remains from the inaugural squad accompanied by fresh names like Edison and SharP.

We can be a tad more confident about Reign in this season as the team seems to have a clear strategy in mind for the upcoming season. They tested and smoothed out the kinks and are looking to challenge the standings in the upcoming season.

However, competition is tough and the latest changes only land them in 17th.

16. Houston Outlaws

The Outlaws decided to invest in some Korean talent for the upcoming season. They picked up Jung-geun "Rapel" Kim from the Titans, Tae-hong "MekO" Kim from Excelsior and Seung-soo "Jecse" Lee from Dynasty to reinforce their roster. The decision moves them away from their “all-American” title as they finally decide to utilize foreign talent in their rosters.

Happy Yeehaw Day everybody 🤠 Join us in celebrating the @Outlaws as they prepare for #OWL2020 pic.twitter.com/GZISZeHSTI — Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) January 15, 2020

The new additions however are at the expense of Coolmat and JAKE who were staple members of the organization. Both of them retired at the end of last season putting the synergy of the roster in question. This is why we keep the Outlaws at the same spot we found em last year. At 16, right where they placed at the end of last season.

15. Los Angeles Valiant

It might come as a surprise to many that the LA Valiant is seeded in the lower part of the Overwatch league power rankings, though there is a good reason for it. The LA squad had two consecutive mediocre seasons, and remains in a perpetual state of rebuilding. While they largely retained the roster from Season 1 into Season 2, the decision failed to pay dividends as they ended up in 13th and failed to get into post-season.

This year-round they decided to fully rebuild the roster and coaching staff in a bid to improve on the standings. With most of their new roster coming from Academy or Contenders team, it is hard to judge how Valiant will perform this season. This is the reason we have them at a conservative 15 in this year’s Overwatch League power rankings.

14. London Spitfire

Spitfire went absolutely mental in the offseason and singed new players in every single position on the roster. Out of 12 players only Yung-hoon "Krillin" Jung remains from the previous season, everyone else is gone.

Introducing your @Spitfire roster for #OWL2020 With some new faces, this young team is ready to take the big stage 💪 pic.twitter.com/wrf8QolfdP — Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) January 6, 2020

The new Spitfire only features Korean talent in all players and coaching positions. This should make communication easy, but when it comes to play there is a lot to be desired. The roster is built on a lot of Contenders talent and might go either way when it comes to league play.

For this reason, as is the case with all fully revamped teams we remain on the conservative side and put Spitfire around the middle of the pack. Keep in mind that this roster might turn out to be a Top3 team by the end of the season.

13. Toronto Defiant

The OverActive Media operated Toronto Defiant have once again rebuilt their roster packed with veteran talent. Canadian Overwatch superstars Lane "Surefour" Roberts joins the squad together with country mate Brady "Agilities" Girardi. They also added two “northerners” in Kristian "Kellex" Keller and Andreas "Nevix" Karlsson to round out a roster of exceptional skill rated talent.

Coming off of their inaugural season, the @TorontoDefiant are ready to prove themselves in #OWL2020 Drop a #RiseTogether for our final Atlantic North Division team 🙌 pic.twitter.com/VkIKKBhxkz — Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) January 10, 2020

This latest transfers put the freshly reformed team right in the middle of the pack with good upwards potential in the OWL power rankings.

12. Guangzhou Charge

Being one of the two teams in the first expansion pack next to Reign, the Guangzhou Charge has had a solid showing in the 2019 season. They finished 9th in the regular season on par with Fusion and Dynasty. Coming into 2020 the squad lost HOTBA, Fragi, Bischu, OnlyWish while Rise retired putting the the squad in a rebuilding pickle.

Contenders Korea and OWL veteran Jung-yeon "Chara" Kim is still leading the charge alongside his former Meta Bellum colleagues Happy and Rio. The squad reinforced their lines with “mediocre” additions in cr0ng, Neptuno and Way and the current roster doesn’t seem like a contender for the top of the tables. This is why Guangzhou Charge only lands at 12th in our Overwatch League Power.

11. Paris Eternal

One of the newest additions to the OWL had a lackluster inaugural season. Eternal only managed to push to 14th with their all-European roster. Coming into 2020 the team imported some Korean talent to give them that extra oompf this season. Xzi and Nosmite together with Smex and FDgod are going to seek to bring the Paris organization a bit closer to playoffs this year.

Our friends in France have added some BIG talent to their roster 🙌 Which of these up-and-coming @ParisEternal players are you excited to watch in #OWL2020? pic.twitter.com/k2bO45Odiv — Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) January 9, 2020

With the veteran duo of Terence “Soon” Tarlier and Benjamin "BenBest" Dieulafait still in their ranks, the Paris powerhouse seeks to contest atelast for some better standings at the middle of the pack.

10. Dallas Fuel

The Fuel had a slow season in 2019. They finished just behind Eternal in the standings, but based on their offseason transfers we predict they are edging ahead of a lot of the competition in the upcoming season.

In some wise selection in the offseason the Team Envy backed organization managed to sign Young-jin "Gamsu" Noh from the Dragons, Gui-un "Decay" Jang from the Gladiators and Dong-ha "Doha" Kim from Elements Mystic. The new veteran Korean trio is set to boost Dallas a long way in the standings this year.

9. Chengdu Hunters

Analysts put the Chinese organization through the grinder in the pre-season of last year only to be silenced by the end of the season. The relatively unknown talent compared to the buzzing outperformed half of the OWL “pros” and made it all the way to the Playoffs in 2019.

The organization has a set formula in mind as they keep an all-Chinese roster from players to coaching staff. They are also one of the teams that announced their 2020 roster the latest. The final three players in Ating, Molly and Langsa were announced on 14th of January to round out yet another Mandarin speaking hype squad. (You should listen to the comms)

What doesn’t put the Hunters higher in our standings is their recent loss of coach Xingrui "RUI" Wang. Due to long-time issues with cervical spondylopathy the main strategist behind the Hunters success had to put his career on hold and we are yet to see how the new co-coaches deal with his loss in the organization.

8. Hangzhou Spark

The Hangzhou Spark is still among the highest seeded teams from the latest expansion pack of the Overwatch league. The organization built on the former Seven and X-6 Gaming roster did wonders in 2019 and placed at 4th place in the regular season.

Coach Muho "Mask" Lee is still at the helm while the organization retained much of their 2019 roster for the upcoming season. The loss of Da-un "NoSmite" Jeong and Hyeong-Geun "Revenge" An puts the organization in a bit of a pickle. Their replacements are the two Chinese Contenders players Coldest and M1ka. What we predict will arise is a breakdown in communication somewhere down the line and Spark ending up below the following seven teams by the end of next season.

7. Los Angeles Gladiators

The meteoric rise of the Gladiators in the latter part of the 2018 season and a strong performance at the playoffs set them up as the team to look out for in the 2019 season. They did deliver finishing 5th in the regular season and making it all the way to semis in the Playoffs. Coming into 2020 they only retain the Finns in BigGoose and Shaz and picked up 10 new players.

What sets the Gladiators apart from the other revamped teams is Head Coach David "dpei" Pei who is comfortably at the helm since 2017. The strength in the coaching staff is what makes the Gladiators a strong contender every season and we are confident they will continue their positive growing trend in 2020 as well.

6. Seoul Dynasty

The Seoul Dynasty did not manage to live up to the hype in the previous season once again. The Gen.G operated organization is always among the top picks by analysts when it comes to player management and team building. But for two years in a row we are left with squads that look magnificent on paper but fail to deliver that final result that would edge Dynasty above the others. For two years in a row we are placing Dynasty between 6th and 8th place and they end up correctly in their place each time. We are once again confident the roster will remain in their 6th through 8th placements in 2020.

They lost ryujehong, Fleta and Highly to various organizations and managed to pick up three former Spitfires (Gesture, Profit, Bdosin) in return. We doubt this was a matched trade up in player skill and potential so we can’t expect much changing for Dynasty this year.

5. Shanghai Dragons

We simply can’t get enough of the Shanghai Dragons and their growth in the OWL. They were once the the record holders for most consecutive losses in a professional esport ever, with a losing streak of 42 games. They started 2019 by breaking that “record” and continued to grow throughout the season, ultimately winning Stage 3 and making it into Post-Season. To top all of that they went to the Esports Shanghai Masters and took home the trophy.

The Contenders Korea runner-ups Kongdoo Panthera did wonders for the Dragons organization in 2019. Looking forward to 2020, the team picked up Jae-won "LIP" Lee from Blossom and Jun-woo "Void" Kang and Ji-won "Stand1" Seo from the Gladiators organization. The new additions are aimed at putting Dragons in the top5 and every Stage Playoffs in 2020.

Based on past performances and growth trends, It is fairly obvious that the Dragons will be at the top of the standings this year.

4. Philadelphia Fusion

The Philadelphia Fusion managed to barely break even in the previous season. They did make it in the play-ins to just be stomped by the Dragons squad. However, the offseason saw them improve their roster greatly with the addition of Ivy, Fury and Alarm to the roster. The Fusion veteran roster of Boombox, Carpe, SADO and Poko now finally has fresh blood to strategize and grow with.

While analyzing the strength in every role we are confident 2020 is the year of Fusion and they will likely be in every Stage Playoffs this year.

3. New York Excelsior

NYXL was relegated to third wheel last season after being the most talked about team in the offseason. The squad performed well throughout the entire season, but were not a match for the Titans or Shock when push came to shove. Most analysts had them in 1st place in last year’s power rankings while we put them in second behind the Titans. It seems we were correct as the Excelsior squad lost the semifinal and every matchup against the Vancouver squad.

Coming into the 2020 Season the team is once again among the top picks for analysts worldwide but almost everyone agrees they are not a match for the two teams ahead of them in the standings.

2. Vancouver Titans

The only reason the Titans are not in 1st place is cuase they can’t figure out how to beat our number 1 team head-to-head. The squad dominated the regular season and even set a record by winning a total of 19 matches in a row. They dominated in every way conceivable except when it came to beating Shock in a best-of-series. The squad still retained Genji god Hyo-jong "Haksal" Kim at the helm with the Nr.1 jersey and seek to plow through yet another season.

The Vancouver Titans are excited to announce our final roster for the 2020 OWL season. Please give them a warm welcome!👏💙💚#forceofnature #annoucement #OWL2020 pic.twitter.com/CERg2TubiN — Vancouver Titans (@VancouverTitans) January 13, 2020

The“levels meta” which prioritizes the players capacity to play certain picks at a high enough skill level worked wonders for Titans in last season and we are confident it will continue to do so in 2020 as well.

1. San Francisco Shock

The SF Shock are advancing 15 position since last year’s ranking. While we correctly placed Vancouver Titans and NYXL at the top of the power rankings, we utterly underappreciated the monster squad that SF Shock have built. They also decided not to rock the boat too much this year round as they have retained all players from their previous season.

Currently, SF Shock is the S-tier team to compare other teams with. With Jay “Sinatra“ Won at the DPS helm, have no doubt that SF Shock is going to perform massively in 2020.

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Top 5 Players power rankings in the OWL

1. Sinatraa: San Francisco Shock

Jay "sinatraa" Won is the current flex-DPS god at the SF Shock. He is the de-facto leader of his team and one of the best Skill Rated players in the World. His individual prowess is well noted by his two-time Number #1 ranking in NA during both Season 3 and Season 8.

He earned himself the T-Mobile Regular Season MVP in the 2019 season and went on to lead Team USA to their first Trophy at the Overwatch World Cup 2019. Of course, he earned the T-Mobile MVP at the event as well. With his amazing Zarya plays and unprecedented capacity to innovate, sinatraa is our definite premier pick in the power rankings.

2. JJonak: New York Excelsior

SeongHyun "JJonak" Bang was the MVP of Overwatch League’s Inaugural Season. JJonak is known for his aggressive Zenyatta play. JJonak could often be seen flanking, alone on a support character, eliminating the entire enemy team. JJonak’s plays on Zenyatta were a major part of the New York Excelsior success in season one.

JJonak’s high mechanical skill and ability to dominate a game singlehandedly was unmatched during the Overwatch League’s First Season. In season two, JJonak remained the focus of NYXL’s tactics as the meta shifted.

The team had to ultimately settle for bronze in the 2019 season after falling to both the Vancouver Titans and San Francisco shock in the playoffs. After being part of the Championship team in 2018, JJonak was not selected for the 2019 World Cup. His consistently high-level play brings JJonak in at number two on our list.

3. Carpe: Philadelphia Fusion

Jae-hyeok "Carpe" Lee the godlike DPS of Fusion ranks at number three on our list. Carpe has popped up on the scene soon after the Overwatch release. Together with friend Min-seong "diem" Bae they formed the latin aphorism Carpe diem as they stormed the leaderboards in early Overwatch.

A veteran on the scene, Carpe is the two-time all-Korean DPS pick for the Overwatch World Cup and part of the 2018 World Cup Champions team. Although he sports an extensive pool of Overwatch heroes, you will usually see him on his signature McRee or Widowmaker in his delivery of clutch plays.

He did not have the luck of defending Fusion’s colors on home court in the 2019 Overwatch League Grand Finals, but Carpe is never one to back down and we can make sure this veteran will be back in 2020 for another shot at the trophy.

4. Fleta: Shanghai Dragons

ByungSun "Fleta" Kim was a staple of the Seoul Dynasty roster for two seasons. The 2019 offseason witnessed a surprise trade to the Shanghai Dragons for the 2020 Season.

He is the second DPS player on our list.

Fleta’s play on heroes like Genji, Windowmaker and Pharra, were nothing short of dominating during the first two OWL seasons. His ability to flex on to a number of different DPS heroes, and even at times support heroes, made him indispensable for the Dynasty and most recently the Dragons.

During the Overwatch League’s live events fans could often be heard yelling, "Fleta is the meta", referring to Fleta’s dominance across a number of different heroes and metas. He has some of the most varied sensitivity settings for each individual Hero in his wheelhouse. But, due to Dynasty’s poor performance in both seasons we put Fleta in fourth place in our selection. With his recent move to the Dragons this might change in our next iteration of the “Top 5 players power rankings”.

5. ChoiHyoBin: San Francisco Shock

Hyo-bin "ChoiHyoBin" Choi comes in fifth in the best overwatch players going into the Overwatch League 2020 Season. He was crowned the T-Mobile Grand Finals MVP after The San Francisco shock took the 2019 Playoffs by storm.

As a player in the Off-Tank role, his role is never to make the flashy plays, but instead facilitate his team’s successful plays. Nevertheless, ChoiHyoBin’s signature Sigma pick left a bitter aftertaste with many teams, and she is not even his signature hero.

His un-tiltable mentality can be well summarized by one of his quotes: “I’m not a mentally strong person compared to others, but I feel like I recover sooner because I’m an idiot.”. And this “idiot” with his magnificent playstyle is sure to keep taking the Overwatch world by storm in 2020 season.