Shanghai Dragons vs San Francisco Shock

For our last match of the day, we're looking at a clash between the San Francisco Shock and the Shanghai Dragons.

The Shock have some big, vocal players and personalities, and when things don't go according to plan then things can fall off pretty quickly. When they failed to assert their dominance on Dorado against the Los Angeles Valiant, they went into emotional turbulence.

The Shock have a very singular playstyle. When they're winning, they look pretty frightening but when things go south they're more akin to a glass cannon. That rings true for their players as well - they're very skilled and talented but they go too deep at times. That approach led their primary DPS and shotcaller babybay dying in 85% of all teamfights. While big names like Effect, Jake, TviQ and Taimou don't lag too much behind this is still a worrying sign as they're highly dependent on babybay to do the right thing at the right time. They need to stabilize, to further develop mental fortitude.

Luckily the Shock boys didn't let that impact them too much. They're hungry to prove themselves, hungry to dominate and become one of the better teams in the League.

It wasn't all that bad for SF Shock though. While they were almost always late to adapt and do the right thing, they managed to keep things somewhat competitive. Babybay had a couple of incredible Genji moments, handily beating Agilities and Danteh was a really solid Tracer, constantly contesting and prolonging the game in order to allow his teammates to get to overtime more often than not.

Luckily for all San Francisco fans, their next game should be somewhat of an easy one.

The Shanghai Dragons didn't look good in the preseason, but they didn't have any time to scrim. But judging from their first game against the Los Angeles Gladiators, they looked as bad if not even worse. They have a talented roster for sure, but they're plagued with a plethora of issues.

Bad roster, bad champ pools, they have Lucio specialists and Ana specialists, nothing too good, neither in the tank nor support parts. Diya and Undead are fantastic but it's not enough. They went with an abysmal, highly questionable team comp into Dorado against the LA Gladiators and failed to get even a single point. They lost head-to-head, mano-a-mano, they never managed to mount anything resembling a good offensive and they didn't look like they could be able to do so in the foreseeable future either.

They're not utilizing their ult economy to maximum efficiency, they're not protecting their supports and to top it all of they're not even that dominant in the areas that they were predicted to be strong in. Diya and Undread are very solid overall but they couldn't do anything against the likes of Surefour and Asher. Looking ahead, they look like the only team that essentially has zero chance of reaching the playoffs.

They never showed anything spectacular nor worthy of mentioning, so betting on the San Francisco Shock would be the better idea.