Seoul Dynasty vs Shanghai Dragons

For our first match of the day we have a pretty uninteresting clash between the Seoul Dynasty and the Shanghai Dragons.

Seoul is currently second in the standings, one loss behind New York in general, however they're on a five match win streak. (four from Stage 2 and one from Stage 1) It would be unnecessary to heap praise on Seoul for their dominance over the last two weeks, but they're really looking like the team to beat right now. They didn't have the strongest of opponents so far, but after their 4-0 domination over the Los Angeles Valiant in the very first week, it was evident that the changes in the meta positively impacted their play as well as their overall effectiveness on this new set of maps. With Ana and Lucio back in the mix, seasoned veterans like Ryujehong spend less time on Mercy duty, but perhaps the biggest change was seeing just how impactful and strong Munchkin played whenever he was in the starting roster. A consistent, impactful high level DPS was their biggest problem in Stage 1 (and perhaps the lack of adaptation to the meta) but that seems to be settled at the moment as Fleta and Munchkin look unstoppable.

As for the Dragons, well, there's not a lot that can be said. After almost two months of competitive play, that rings true today as much as it did at the very beginning of the Overwatch League. As if they didn't have enough problems, Diya had to leave to China due to a family emergency meaning that the Shanghai roster lost one of it's best - if not the best - player. It wouldn't have made a difference against Seoul sadly, but seeing an already struggling Shanghai roster play in an even weaker state is just not engaging or fun.

Fortunately they have a couple of key roster changes lined up that should become effective in a week or two after the stage mid-point, so there is at least some optimism.

Nevertheless it will be fun to see how Seoul plays as they displayed almost zero vulnerability so far after the meta changes. This week won't be a big test as they're fighting against Shanghai and Philadelphia however next week will be full of fireworks as we'll be seeing them compete with both New York Excelsior and the London Spitfire.

Betting on Seoul for this week however is the more logical choice.