On Saturday the San Francisco Shock were crowned Overwatch League champions, winning the Overwatch League Grand Finals 4-2 over the Seoul Dynasty. This is their second consecutive Overwatch League title.
"I still can't believe it. The whole Overwatch League 2020 season definitely was not easy," San Francisco Shock coach Park "Crusty" Dae-hee said after the match. "The fact that we were able to defend our championship and win again this year was a huge thing and I am super happy about that."
Crusty also coached the Shock to their first Overwatch League title in 2019.
The San Francisco Shock qualified from the North American playoffs winners' bracket with a 3-1 victory over the Philadelphia Fusion. Philadelphia was the other North American grand finals representative with Seoul Dynasty and the Shanghai Dragons from the Asian playoffs bracket. The Shock did not drop a single match in their grand finals run, beating Seoul Dynasty 3-2 in the first round, the Shanghai Dragons 3-2 in the second round, and the Dynasty again in the grand finals.
Despite hero pools and a generally volatile year both in and out of game -- including the departure of the team's 2019 MVP, Jay "sinatraa" Won, to VALORANT -- the San Francisco Shock remained near or at the top of the standings all year. By contrast, Seoul's performances were more meta-dependant, and they entered this grand finals bracket as underdogs with obvious strong points in main tank Hong "Gesture" Jae-hee's Roadhog and flex tank Hwang "Marve1" Min-seo's Sigma combination to support DPS phenom Park "Profit" Joon-yeong.
The star of the Shock on Saturday was finals MVP Kwon "Striker" Nam-joo and his Tracer play, but San Francisco's main strength is their unprecedented team play. Their players were flexible enough to meet Seoul in mirror matches, besting the Dynasty in the meta that got them to grand finals, while always opening up space to allow Striker to dart in and out of the enemy backline.
San Francisco kicked off the match with two map wins on Oasis and King's Row. Seoul then picked the Shock-favored Hanamura and proceeded to beat them on that as well as Watchpoint: Gibraltar to tie the match at 2-2. After a close second point won out Busan for the Shock, Hollywood was almost all San Francisco, closing out the series at 4-2 to secure their second title.