Shanghai Dragons announce eight-man roster

The Shanghai Dragons have brought together eight players from five different Chinese teams to make up their Overwatch League roster. Although featuring recognised talent, many will note that the roster does not field any players from Miraculous Youngster, considered to be China's best team after garnering international acclaim through strong performances in the OGN Seoul Supercup and the APAC Premier.

We are proud to present to you our 8 Shanghai Dragons players!#ShanghaiDragons #OWL #OverwatchLeague pic.twitter.com/QTDnRgDGX9
— Shanghai Dragons (@ShanghaiDragons) October 31, 2017

uNdeAD, mg and altering (formerly known as 130) have joined the Dragons roster after previously competing with LGD Gaming. LGD were regarded as China's best team earlier this year after a flawless 9-0 through the group stage of the Overwatch Premier Series Spring. However, the team failed to claim the Spring title, falling to 1246 in the grand final, and would later fail to qualify for the APAC Premier after a slew of disappointing performances and inter-team drama.

Roshan and Freefeel (formerly known as b612) have previous experience playing for FTD Club, a playoffs team in both the Spring and Summer Series. Despite the team's unremarkable track record they are generally considered to be some of China's most talented tank and support players respectively and will now contribute their talents to the Dragons in the Overwatch Leauge.

Flex player Xushu (formerly known as Luca) from 1246, support player 5King from Team CC and DPS player Diya from ViCi Gaming round out the eight-man roster. The Dragon's will carry the hopes of Chinese Overwatch fans on their shoulders as they compete in the inaugural season of the Overwatch Leauge. The team's support staff is as of yet unannounced.

The roster of the Shanghai Dragons is:

Lu "Diya" Weida (DPS)
Fang "Undead" Chao (DPS)
Liu "Xushu" Junjie (Flex)
Jing "Roshan" Wenhao (Tank)
Wu "MG" Dongjian (Tank)
Cheng "Altering" Yage (Support)
Chen "Fiveking" Zhaoyu (Support)
Xu "Freefeel" Peixuan (Support)

Very interesting roster choices and as noted not a single member of MY. Some are most certainly missing because of age restrictions but if the team does stay intact it looks like they'll possibly get to dominate the Chinese scene for another year before some of their players inevitably get pulled in, like leave when he's 18, I assume.

Hopefully they can compete with some of the strong rosters teams will be fielding in OWL S1. Luckily for them though they'll probably have relatively exclusive picking rights to the whole region unless a 2nd CN OWL team comes up. so there's bound to be a number of diamonds in the rough that have yet to be discovered.

That being said, if China manages to garnish enough interest for a 2nd team then hopefully so does Korea. Being able to represent their Country/Region in OWL is a big thing for both those scenes.