After years of hard-fought competition, the Shanghai Dragons are Overwatch League’s 2021 champions — going 4-0 in the playoffs against the Atlanta Reign to walk away with $1.5 Million in winnings.
Not only is this the Shanghai Dragons’ first championship win in franchise history, but it’s a stark turnaround from their performance during the first season of Overwatch League. In 2018, the Shanghai Dragons went 0-40, failing to even qualify for the playoffs. Yup, the team that just decimated everyone in 2021 did not record a single win during the inaugural season! Byung-chul “Moon” Moon, coach of the Shanghai Dragons, couldn’t be happier with the outcome.
“When I joined the organization for the 2020 season, I really wanted to make the Shanghai Dragons into a strong team that could win and go all the way to the Grand Finals,” Moon said on Overwatch League’s website. “We really wanted to have the Shanghai Dragons’ name be written on the last page of [this era of] Overwatch history while also having fun until the very end, and we were able to achieve that.”
FROM ZERO (AND FORTY) TO HEROES
THE @ShanghaiDragons ARE THE #OWL2021 GRAND FINALS CHAMPIONS! pic.twitter.com/95oe6pzggz
— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) September 26, 2021
Moon refers to the fact that the next Overwatch League season will use Overwatch 2 rather than the original game. Pretty cool underdog story, to be sure. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of the team’s rise to glory.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
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