Hangzhou Spark will be anxious to get a much-needed win over Shanghai Dragons, since the last victory against the Dragons was back in August 2019. Now the two teams will face each other in the Overwatch League on 10th May in a best-of-five series.
Hangzhou Spark
Spark had a tough start to the season. The side secured its first solid win last weekend as they managed to beat Seoul Dynasty 3-0. The result came as a shock to the fans since Seol won 3-0 a week before the game. But one thing that played a crucial role in the victory for Spark was the release of the new Overwatch hero, Echo.
Spark has been heavily criticized this season for playing very slowly and not capitalizing on the strength of its squad. This statement is very valid when we look at their performance against Dynasty and their back to back defeats to Shanghai Dragons.
Yet it is quite evident that the side led by Qiulin “guxue” Xu has found the missing piece of the puzzle with Echo. In their return game against Seoul, Spark looked like a completely different roster when the DPS of the team, Jaehwan “Adora” Kang picked the new hero. Spark drafted its roster around Echo which led them to a thrilling victory against the team who dominated them a week earlier.
Flanked, hacked, and blasted. The Dynasty are playing in the palm of @GodsB_OW's hand. ✋👀#SparkBang #OWL2020
📺 https://t.co/tbTGBrUfiE pic.twitter.com/ydnqwkDMtP
— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) May 3, 2020
Shanghai Dragons
Despite this unpredictable victory for Hangzhou, the Shanghai Dragons will be quite confident coming into this game. The team led by Weida “Diya” Lu has demolished Hangzhou twice this season. So the statistics favor the side.
The current standings of the OWL show the quality gap between these two teams. Hangzhou currently sits in 13th spot with only five wins from the ten games played. Meanwhile, Shanghai has been simply phenomenal as they currently sit at 2nd place with an exciting record of nine wins from the ten games, sitting only behind Philadelphia Fusion who hold a 10-1 score.
These records show the dominance of the two sides in the 2020 season. You should also know that out of the nine wins, seven have been 3-0 wins, which just boosts the superiority of the side.
https://twitter.com/ShanghaiDragons/status/1256537967906209796
Prediction: Shanghai Dragons 3-2 Hangzhou Spark
Spark’s recent result gives us an insight into how much of an impact a single hero has on a team’s lineup. Now the question on everybody’s mind is: Can the new hero inspire Spark to win against one of the strongest teams in the league?
Hangzhou exhibited some questionable performances in the past few games. But it won’t be the case coming into this game as they have found their ace in the hole and have managed to formulate a strong composition.
If Adora manages to shine once again then we could likely see another upset on the upcoming weekend. Yet we are giving a small edge to Shanghai Dragons since the side has beaten some of the strongest teams this season and holds all the capabilities to beat this new Spark composition.
