this post, I will be reviewing the Chengdu Hunters, whom I It's a new day, and it's a new roster review post on The OverSeer, so if you're new to my blog, a warm welcome to you, and if you're a returning reader, welcome back! In my previous post, I went over the Washington Justice , and inpost, I will be reviewing the Chengdu Hunters, whom I ranked 14th in my end-of-season power rankings for 2019





There have been a lot of changes throughout most teams in the Overwatch League this off-season, but the Chengdu Hunters are one of the few franchises that don't want to change things up a lot this year, so without further ado, let's take a look at this roster and see how well they're shaping up for the 2020 season by breaking each role down one by one.









TANK

The Hunters' tank line for 2020 consists of Ameng on main tank, and Elsa and LateYoung on off-tank.

If you watched the League last year, you will certainly be familar with the yottachad, Ameng, who was undoubtedly the best Wrecking Ball player in the 2019 season. Heading into 2020, he still looks fearsome on the hamster-controlled spherical mech hero, but we've got to question how well he can adapt if he's required to play the other main tanks over the duration of the season. Last year, he was pretty average on Orisa whenever he played her, and just fed on Reinhardt most of the time even though he had a few good games with him here and there. For these reasons, I feel like the main tank slot requires somebody with more versatility, and if the meta turns out to be anti-Wrecking Ball, this team is going to lack a strong frontline, which could turn out to be really really bad. If he ends up playing Hammond against Orisa-Sigma-Mei, it's going to lead to an insta-loss most of the time, so the only way I see Ameng being a true asset to Chengdu is if he's been practising the other main tanks during this off-season. I think 4 months is a good time span to get good at at least one other main tank, so maybe we'll see a serviceable Orisa from him, but until I see him play on stage in Season 3, I won't be convinced of his effectiveness, at least in the current meta.

The first off-tank the Hunters have retained is Elsa, who was a tank/damage flex for the squad during the Goats Meta last year. His D.Va play was his most notable, since he was really good at finishing off targets/going for the support line, kind of similar to NotE (from the Dallas Fuel). His Zarya was also decent, but not relatively impressive due to the presence of much deadlier Zarya players in the League. His Roadhog and Sigma play haven't caught my eye so far, so although Elsa is good at a couple of off-tank picks, it may mean that he won't be able to adapt to every meta especially since he can't flex over to DPS mid-game. Accompanying him on the same role is LateYoung, another off-tank player who was reserved to play Zarya by the Hunters for most of last season. I've been watching him play since his apperance in the 2018 World Cup, and his D.Va and Zarya are pretty good, although there are several other players who can outclass him on both those hero picks. We haven't seen him on Roadhog and Sigma, so his ability to play those heroes is a big question mark, which leads me to doubt what Chengdu's tank play is going to look like in basically any non-Dive meta.

In conclusion, the Hunters have got 3 tank players, each of whom is comfortable on one or two heroes on their role, but they don't seem versatile enough to perform well in metas that don't feature their signature picks, which is why I'm going to say they form a bottom-5 tank line in my opinion. If these players don't expand their hero pools in time for Season 3 or at least figure out an alternative to it, they're going to be in deep trouble.





DPS

The trio of Baconjack, JinMu and leave will form the Hunters' DPS line for the beginning of the 2020 season.

We didn't see Baconjack fielded a lot last season due to his hitscan counterpart, YangXiaoLong, being part of Chengdu's starting lineup on most occasions, but don't let that fool you into thinking that he's not a good player. In fact, in the short time we saw him play, Baconjack proved to be quite a good hitscan aimer, and he can play multiple hitscan heroes, flankers and snipers (yes there is some overlap in these classes) to a good level. Another DPS player the Hunters have retained from last season is JinMu, who is somewhat of a projectile God. He showed us some amazing Pharah play in 2019, and is also comfortable on other projectile heroes like Hanzo, Genji and Junkrat; not to mention his amazing Doomfist play, which he showcased a lot of in the 2019 World Cup. Chengdu is in a great place with these 2 DPS players as it is, but to solidify their damage line even further, they've recruited a third player (the signing of whom went somewhat under my radar in the middle of OWL Season 2).

As someone who somewhat skipped over the 'Path to Pro', one might not expect a ton from leave, a Chinese flex DPS player. However, this guy has a very wide hero pool, and can play hitscan heroes as well as flankers to a very high level. We all saw him pop off in the 2018 World Cup, during which he was just 17 years of age. One of the youngest players debuting in the Overwatch League in 2020, leave is a talented and versatile player looking to make a splash in his first ever Tier-1 tournament.

After considering this very impressive trio of Baconjack, JinMu and leave, I have a feeling they're going to be a Top 5 DPS line in the 2020 season. So now, we've got a bottom-5 tank line and a top-5 DPS line, so to round off the roles, let's take a look at the Hunters' supports.





SUPPORT

Chengdu's support line consists of main supports Garry and Yveltal, and flex support Kyo.

Garry is simply an unknown quantity to me. I'm not sure he's been fielded in the Overwatch League yet (or maybe he has for one map, I can't remember), but I can't label him as a good or a bad player because of that. Looking at his Contenders track record with Lucky Future, he seems to have been good during Dive as well as Goats, so I'm expecting both his Mercy and Lúcio to be above average at the very least. When it comes to Yveltal, I think his Lúcio play was underwhelming last season, but on the other hand, he seemed quite at home on Mercy, which he played a ton of alongside JinMu's Pharah. I think if the meta favours Lúcio more than Mercy, the Hunters should try fielding Garry more often and see how well he performs. I don't know why they kept fielding Yveltal last season (maybe he's a better shotcaller), but if they want to improve and have greater ambitions, they should start trying out more changes to their lineup.

Their only flex support is Kyo, who is a very defensive player in my experience. He's not very aggressive, which makes him strangely ineffective on Zenyatta, and compels him to focus on healing way more than confirming kills as Ana (which is not always a good thing). His playstyle is quite opposite to the Hunters' somewhat aggressive nature, because of which he doesn't always do what is required of him despite being a good flex support. I think the coaching staff need to focus on helping Kyo adjust his playstyle to whatever his teammates need, and if they can do that, I'm certain he will prove to be more competent than he did last year.

All-in-all, I believe the Hunters need to grant Garry some more playtime if it's a Lúcio meta, help Yveltal improve his own Lúcio play in the meantime, and aid Kyo in adjusting to their playstyle so that he can be more effective. That said though, we can't ignore the fact that these supports were with the same team for all of last year, and they've already built up a good amount of synergy, which I think will prove to be a key factor in determining their success as a backline in 2020. With the hectic travel schedule most teams have, it will be harder to spend more time working things out with your teammates, and since the Hunters have already spent over a year with each other, they don't need to go through that phase unlike most other teams. Considering these factors, I think Chengdu's support line enters Top 10 simply because they've got pre-existing synergy, and if they improve their gameplay, they could even push for Top 5, but that's still a long shot away.





THE RAW LOOK VS. REALITY

The Chengdu Hunters have a pretty weak tank line, an extremely strong DPS line, and a slightly underwhelming but well-synergised support line. I believe this team will be okay on the support front, since all the playmaking can be left to their damage dealers, so on paper, assuming ceteris paribus, I feel like the Hunters could be a Top 8 team and enter the Playoffs directly. This is their best-case scenario according to me, and it's a fairly good one compared to their Play-In defeat in the 2019 season.

Even if they fumble a little, I think the Hunters are still a Play-In calibre team at the very least, so what route this team takes will depend on factors like the meta, their strength of schedule, and their improvement in the off-season.

To sum up things up, Chengdu can certainly make it directly to the Playoffs if they take full advantage of their strong DPS line and improve the tank and support players they've got, and even if external factors don't favour them, I believe they'll still make the Play-In Tournament because of their pre-established synergy. Now, since we know more or less what heroes are going to be meta in the beginning of the League this year, just for fun and (maybe) bragging rights, I'm going to speculate what the Hunters will be running, and that is the 'OMS Comp' which Yeatle and his team ran during the Breakable Barriers tournament a few weeks ago. The comp consisted of Orisa-Hammond, Pharmercy, Hanzo, and a second main healer like Moira, Ana and Baptiste. This comp was run as a counter to the Mei-Hanzo Double Barrier comp, and if there's any other team out there that would like to run counter-meta strategies, it's the Chengdu Hunters. You've got the best Ball player in the League in Ameng , an off-tank player that's known to flex to other heroes in Elsa , an insane Pharmercy in JinMu - Yveltal , a good Hanzo player in Baconjack , and a second main healer in Kyo . "Just run OMS 4Head". I just wanted to put this out there for fun, and maybe gloat a little in case the Hunters actually end up running this comp, so, keep your fingers crossed and let's see what happens!







