RESULTS: San Francisco Shock Keep Shanghai Dragons Winless

The San Francisco Shock came into today's match with a record of 3-10 and in 10th place in the Overwatch League. San Francisco was coming off of a 1-3 loss to the Los Angeles Valiant earlier in the week. The Shanghai Dragons came into the match with a record of 0-13 and in last place in the league. Shanghai was coming off of a 0-4 loss to the Los Angeles Gladiators earlier in the week. With both teams desperate for a win to establish some kind of positive momentum, this match had the promise of a very exciting and hard fought battle. Here is a short breakdown of how the match went. 

Hanamura was up first and it was not a good showing for the Shanghai Dragons. San Francisco was able to build a strong defensive strategy that would prevent the Dragons from coming close to capturing Point A. Allowing no points to the Dragons in their defensive round, the Shock only needed a capture of Point A to secure the map win. The San Francisco Shock would accomplish this task without much trouble and take the victory on Hanamura and collect the 1-0 lead in the match. Dante "Danteh" Cruz (19 eliminations, a kill streak of 17 and zero deaths as Tracer) and David "Nomy" Ramirez (15 eliminations, 5,707 damage blocked and only one death as Winston) would be the leaders for the Shock on Hanamura. 

Nepal was the following map of the match. Each team was be able to secure a hill in the first two rounds to have the score tied at 1-1. The third hill was a back and forth struggle but ultimately the San Francisco Shock were able to hold off the Shanghai Dragons and take the 2-1 win on Nepal. This would give San Francisco the 2-0 match lead heading into halftime. The Shanghai Dragons were not able to contain the powerful hitscan abilities of Andrej "BABYBAY" Francisty (38 eliminations, 16,115 damage done, 13 Helix Rocket kills and only six deaths as Soldier: 76) and the impressive tank play of Andreas "Nevix" Karlsson (36 eliminations, 10,412 damage blocked and only eight deaths as D.Va).

King's Row was the deciding map of the match, as the Shanghai Dragons would need a win to prevent a 14th straight loss in the league. Shanghai was able to execute a strong offensive push in their attack round to deliver the payload to the midpoint of the map, but a couple of misused Graviton Surge ultimates cost the Dragons from being able to complete the map. The Shock was able to capture the payload and begin their way to collecting their second point. A triple kill from an excellent combination of Weida "Diya" Lu's Graviton Surge and Dongjian "MG" Wu's Self Destruct ultimates would stop a strong looking push from the Shock. A failure to follow up a well placed Earth Shatter ultimate from the Dragons led to the Shock being able to get the payload to a farther distance than the Dragons in the end. This resulted in the Shock taking the 3-2 win on King's Row and guaranteed them the match victory with the score at 3-0. A 21 elimination, 5,969 damage blocked and only three death performance from Nevix as D.Va was a driving force in San Francisco's win. 

Watchpoint: Gibraltar was the final map of the match, and had the San Francisco Shock looking for a 4-0 sweep. Both teams were able to deliver the payload to the end of the map in both of their attack rounds to force a 3-3 tie. With only a minute on the clock for their second attack round, the Shanghai Dragons were only able to grab a fourth point to take a 4-3 lead. The Shock were able to push through Shanghai's defense in their second attack round to grab two more points and secure the 5-4 win on Watchpoint: Gibraltar. This resulted in San Francisco taking the 4-0 sweep over Shanghai. Nevix would deliver another strong performance on Watchpoint: Gibraltar with 39 eliminations, 14,606 damage blocked and only eight deaths. 

With the win, the San Francisco Shock improved to a record of 4-10. The loss dropped the Shanghai Dragons to a record of 0-14 and kept them collecting their first win in the Overwatch League. 

Interested in more Overwatch League coverage? Check out our recap of the Houston Outlaws and New York Excelsior match from earlier today.

(cover photo courtesy of Overwatch League Facebook)