Tonight, the 2019 season of the Overwatch League will begin, the second season to start. The Overwatch League is an esports tournament around the game called Overwatch. After the success and popularity of the first “Inaugural” season, the Overwatch League was set to begin a thriving run.
For many anticipating fans, the production team of the League started a “community countdown,” showcasing the teams and their players publically before the start of the season. The first event happened over the past weekend; the teams played once against another team in no-stakes matches called “scrims.” During the games, a few of the most anticipated teams showed promise and sometimes weaknesses. Here are four of the teams that are very anticipated for the new season.
The Hangzhou Spark
The Hangzhou Spark is one of the 8 new teams added for the 2019 season of the Overwatch League, but despite their new status, they’ve already gained a sizable fanbase, primarily for their vivid and surprising team colors of pink and blue. When they matched up
against their enemy team for the day, the Seoul Dynasty, they struggled at first against the enemy’s brutal and oppressive style. The Spark appeared to lack a bit of cohesion and looked like they couldn’t agree on a way to strike back against the enemy. Eventually, the Spark’s spark flew. They didn’t counter-attack right away but instead kept patient, sizing up the Dynasty and carefully choosing their times to attack. When the Spark got their moments, they leaped on the opportunities with expertise and revealed an aggressiveness that Chinese Overwatch players usually play with, despite a majority of the team being Korean. Although the Spark lost 1-2, they still seem like a scary team with the adaptation and cleanliness of a Korean team, as well as the optimality and wrath of a Chinese team.
The Shanghai Dragons
The Shanghai Dragons are back and ready for the next season. The team had a less-than-pleasant run last season; a whopping 0 wins and 40 losses. Despite the soul-crushing 
record, the Dragons gained a sizable fanbase as a result. After a dramatic roster change to a mostly Korean player based team, the Dragons seemed set for success in the new season. During their match against the Chengdu Hunters, the dragons showed a great deal of adaptiveness, identifying the Hunters’ weaknesses fairly quickly. The Dragons also had an optimal focus on the objective during the game, keeping that focus from falling apart like many other teams fall victim to when they get wrapped up in dominating the enemy. With the added bonus of formidable star-power, the Dragons seem set to take even the strongest teams from their highest seats.
The Vancouver Titans
The Vancouver Titans are a brand new team in the Overwatch League, but the team of players has a revered history in the Overwatch scene. The team was formerly known as Runaway, an Overwatch Contenders (the official form of minor leagues for Overwatch League), Korea region team. The team has a very long history dating back to the very beginning of competitive Overwatch, and never quite achieving the champion title in the region. The team gained a fanbase from their exciting and appealing strategies as well as their team colors (in which Hangzhou Spark took in the Overwatch League), and during the Contenders’ season 3 the team finally found their success earning their well deserved first place finish for the region. However, the success didn’t stop there, as the Overwatch World Cup was in session and the South Korea representative team, accommodating the best of the Overwatch League season 1 players, issued their yearly challenge to the victors of the Overwatch Contenders Korea victors. Runaway took the series. The entire team got signed to the Titans and now are ready to dominate the Overwatch League, and their first opponents were the Los Angeles Gladiators, a top 4 finisher of the previous season. The Titans started off using their immense domination and star-power to take the enemy, showing their strengths. Maybe a bit too much as the Gladiators were able to take advantage of the Titan’s separation, but unlike many teams that revert back to their more calmed strats, the Titans used this to show a different strat. As the game went on, the Titans jumped the enemy team together and separated them, defeating them one by one in the confusion. Although they won many team fights with this, the team lost sight of the objective of the game quite a few times. Nevertheless, the Titans Triumphed over the Gladiators 2-1 and show promise to be a great team in the upcoming season.
The San Francisco Shock
The San Francisco Shock, from the beginning of the Inaugural Season, has stated that their goal was to focus on developing towards the 2019 season. The Shock did not disappoint one bit. The team has acquired a beastly mix of top Korean and western players that are stars at their roles. During their scrims versus the Washington Justice, they showed clean team cooperation, proving that the team’s differing languages and backgrounds are not their backfire. Although both teams showed a charismatic sense of ease during their match, the Shock showed some serious domination during many of the team fights. The Shock’s star players show a great amount of skill overwhelming the enemy team, but at some points show a tiny of weakness in team cohesion. In esports history, star-studded teams fail many times as a result of conflicting personalities, causing massive rifts in 
working together. Many of these teams in the past have been slowly torn apart to the point of strongly interfering big matches and struggled to reach their full potential. Will the Shock reach their potential and become the next dominant team, or could the will of history keep them from the victory? Only time will tell.
Tonight, on February the 14th at 8:30 PM, the Hangzhou Spark, and the Shanghai Dragons will compete in their first matches of the season. Tune in now that you know more about the stories of the teams!
