Teams have a chance to reinvent themselves in Stage 2 of the Overwatch League

Teams like the London Spitfire and New York Excelsior occupy most people’s conversations about the Overwatch League, but those likely aren’t the teams that are most excited for the start of the new stage. To find those teams, you have to look a little lower in the standings.

For teams like the Florida Mayhem and Shanghai Dragons, the new stage is a chance to start fresh with fans and prove that they are teams worth taking seriously, or at least show that they have started down the path to improving on their stage one performances. The only question remaining is, how exactly can they improve?

For most of these teams, the road to competitiveness in the Overwatch League will begin with some significant roster changes, in hopes of adding some of the key pieces their rosters were missing. The high profile acquisitions of talent have already started for these two teams.

Over the off season, the Florida Mayhem picked up DPS player, Woo “Sayaplayer” Ha Jung, who is known in particular for his impressive Tracer play. Meanwhile, the Shanghai Dragons picked up one of the most consistent and impressive tanks on the amateur ladder, Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon. While these aren’t the only changes these teams made, they are certainly the most high profile and most likely to help shake life back into their struggling rosters. While those two teams occupy the last and second to last place in the league, they certainly aren’t the only teams that need to turn their season around starting in stage two.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the Overwatch League’s first stage was the constant struggle for relevance that the Dallas Fuel endured. But with a roster so full of incredible talent, and a few more wins under their belt, the Fuel are opting for a slightly different approach to improvement than their fellow, bottom-of-the-table teams. While they have made the addition of Dylan “AKM” Bignet, one of Rogue’s star DPS players, that’s the only large move they made. In other words, rather than completely rework their roster, the Fuel seem more interested in finding exactly the right way to cultivate the talent they have and turn their current roster into a winning one, something they proven in the past they are more than capable of.

With one fourth of the Overwatch League’s inaugural season over, the one thing we know for sure is that none of these teams are happy with finishing last, and they are doing everything they can to compete with the league’s best.