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OWL 2023 Power Rankings – #9 Shanghai Dragons

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OWL 2023 Power Rankings – #9 Shanghai Dragons

The Shanghai Dragons just barely break the top half.

Each year since their championship win, the Shanghai Dragons drop bit by bit.

Shanghai Dragons 2023 Roster

Its difficult to swap out a championship winning team for new players and not look too bad in the end. The Dragons came out with a pretty promising roster for this season, that could theoretically rival their championship roster. Some new big names have joined the squad, and their biggest of all has even changed positions. There is only a handful of possible issues the team could run into, but with Coach Moon still at the head of the team, those shouldn't be huge barriers for them.

Tank

  • Byung-sun “Fleta” Kim

Fleta is a 2020 DPS Role Star and 2020 League MVP, alongside being a 2021 Overwatch League Champion. He may be the most legendary player in the league, and he's moved on to the next chapter of his career. Taking up the role as Tank, he'll be able to lead in game from a proper position, bringing his experience to the forefront. He will have challenges learning an entire set of new heroes at the Overwatch League level, but its been done before, such as in the case of Dante “Danteh” Cruz. Not every player can be so flexible, but something tells us he's got it in him to be that kind of player relatively soon.

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Support

  • Nam-jin “Gangnamjin” Kang
  • Huichang “BeBe” Yoon
  • Seung-hyun “Ir1s” Kim

A really, truly stacked Support line. Its hard to build a Support line around all well known players, but this one is a treat. Gangnamjin is an Overwatch League champion and even so, he is still overlooked. He isn't as flashy as his old teammate Jae-gon “LeeJaeGon” Lee, but his solid Flex Support abilities are what the championship Shanghai Dragons have relied on for multiple seasons.

Bebe has gone way underappreciated for years now. He's a decently high level player that has seen success in the league before, and would love to do so again. He's using his best talent, his brain, to be a mixed player/coach this year. Due to his lack of playtime, its good to see that he still has a fulltime role with the team.

Ir1S is one of the new pickups that the Dragons have that is going to do wonders for them. While he is likely a future Hall of Famer, it is curious to see him on the team. He's known for his Flex Support play, just as Gangnamjin is, so its questionable what the Dragons have planned and which player they plan to start for the majority of games.

DPS

  • Jung-woong “Viper” Lee
  • Hee-su “Heesu” Kim

A totally new DPS duo working under the leadership of the best DPS player of all time. Heesu is a Toronto Defiant fan favorite joining a new team in a new region, while Viper is the Dragon's only rookie player this season. Heesu is going to provide lots of highlight reel plays on his own with enough support from his team, so Viper needs to be a solid duo for him and make the space Heesu needs for crazy plays.

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Coach

  • Byung-chul “Moon” Moon

The 2020 (and first) Coach of the Year. Undoubtedly a legend in teambuilding and structuring. His team is always set for success, and the Dragons franchise is honestly nothing without him. Take as many Hall of Fame players and champions as you want, none of them get to that trophy without a coach like Moon. The last piece of the puzzle for these individual players is going to be getting the pieces together and adapting a style that works best for this unfamiliar team.

Shanghai Dragons Power Ranking

If this team is so amazing, then why do they fall barely in the top half? Well there is still work to be done here. The players have to go from standout individuals, to a standout team. It is very difficult to take a newly built roster and rank them at the top before seeing how they perform together. This team has plenty of tools to make some crazy stuff happen, so higher than 9th in the league is certainly possible.