The First 2 Qualified Teams for the OWL Grand Finals

The Grand Finals of The Overwatch League 2020 are scheduled to take place between October 8^th – 10^th and will offer over $3 million in prizes. Just 4 teams are allowed to take part in the tournament and two of them have already been decided. In this article, I will take a brief look at these teams and how the got here.

Qualified Teams for OWL Grand Finals

So far, two of the 20 candidates have qualified for The Overwatch League Grand Finals.

San Francisco Shock

All things considered, this was not a big surprise. San Francisco Shock finished 2^nd in the North American division and only had one serious rival: Philadelphia Fusion. Realistically, the choice was between them and Philadelphia. And that confrontation became literal when the two teams met each other in the Winners’ Finals of the North American Playoffs.

Prior to this dispute, the two teams had played one another 4 times in 2020 and the score was 2 – 2. However, the last match had ended with a score of 3 – 0 in favor of Philadelphia Fusion. This suggested that perhaps SFS was going to lose the match. But to everyone’s surprise, it didn’t. They won with a score of 3 – 1 and became the first North American team to qualify for the OWL Grand Finals. The second team will be decided in the coming days.

Shanghai Dragons

Shanghai Dragons was the big sensation of this season. After having a “perfect” 0 W – 40 L score a few years ago and establishing a new negative record for the entire esports industry, SD has come a long way and is now one of the big favorites to win the Grand Finals. They finished the Group Stage with 27 wins and just 2 losses, way ahead of the 2^nd best team in Asia, Guangzhou Charge, which finished with 18 wins and 7 losses.

In the Playoffs Stage of the Asian region, Shanghai Dragons started with a victory against New York Excelsior. This is the 3^rd best team in the region and one of the best competitors in the world in the previous seasons of The Overwatch League. So the victory is quite relevant and has confirmed once again that SD is here to win. Another thing to keep in mind is this: After losing to Seoul Dynasty, Guangzhou Charge faced New York Excelsior in the Lower Bracket, where it lost again with a score of 0 – 3. So the 2^nd best team in Asia lost decisively against a team that Shanghai Dragons had defeated decisively. This gives us a measure of just how much stronger SD is than the rest of the teams in the region.

In the Winners’ Finals, Shanghai Dragons narrowly defeated Seoul Dynasty and qualified for the OWL Grand Finals. We shall see what they can do there, but on paper, their chances look good.