Shanghai Dragons Releases Statement from Manager as the Team Remains Winless

Shanghai Dragons has released a statement from manager Van Yang regarding the team’s performance.

The Dragons have been the weakest team in the Overwatch League throughout. As the regular season approaches its end in Stage 4, they remain without a single match win across the entire league, with a high likelihood that they will finish winless in Season One.

After the first two stages of the league, the Dragons were able to bring in a swathe of fresh talent, including four Korean players and one new Chinese player. Though the additions have resulted in a notable step up in individual talent, the team as a whole remains weak, still without a win at a 0-32 overall record so far.

Many considered the first week of Stage 4 as the best opportunity remaining for the Dragons to put a win on the board. Their first match of the stage was against Dallas Fuel, who themselves have struggled immensely throughout the season and were without star player Hwang ‘Effect’ Hyeon.

• Read more: The Overwatch Anniversary Event Has Arrived – Full Patch Notes

Though the Dragons took a map in both that match and their later series against LA Valiant, they weren’t able to find a series win, leading many to conclude that a 0-40 finish to the league looks almost inevitable.

In the aftermath of the first week’s defeats, Shanghai Dragons manager Van has made a statement addressing some of the criticisms of the team.

Fans of the ShanghaiDragons and Overwatch league, here is a letter form our team manager @SHD_Van regarding recent events.

Fans and players of Overwatch:

Greetings!

Our last two losses must have disappointed and hurt you. Here I offer my apology to all the fans for letting you down again. We are sad as well and are even hating ourselves for not having seized the opportunity to win.

As two matches ended up in losses, we received many questions, criticisms, and blame from you. We understand that we have to take those after we lost these two games.

However, I’d like to offer an explanation for some questions you’ve raised:

We have the most intensive training scheme among all the teams, ever since we arrived last December. Our daily schedule starts at 10:30am as we leave for training facilities and return to our houses around 10:30 to 11:00pm, with a possible training extension to 12:00am; we train six days a week with one day off. During mid-stages, we have 3-4 days off depends on other teams’ schedule (if we can have scrims with them).

This is how intensive we train in US. We ask all our players to give everything in training, but we also let players relax however they want during off days.

Upon finishing Stage 3, we make 6th, 7th, 9th, and 13th of May as days of rest, according to other teams’ schedule and our own travelling plans.

Many fans have been questioning and were confused that why several Shanghai Dragons players were playing other games. To make a serious investigation into the matter, we checked every player’s game records with their respective in-game IDs. We can confirm that most games happened during off days, which are four days of 6th, 7th, 9th, and 13th of May. Except some particular players of the team, most players, in all players that fans have questioned about, played other games between 0.5 to 3 hours during off days.

I think it’s worth a discussion on how players, who are passionate about games, should relax themselves when living in US and having a daily schedule almost nothing but training and rest. But this does not mean that we’ve ever let up on training on Overwatch. We are still putting every minute during training days into Overwatch, in order to solve existing problems of the team. We hope we can win a game sooner to answer fans’ support.

Besides, this recent investigation has further confirmed some issues that we have found out and are to be handled inside the team. We will announce it once it’s done. Thanks you!

At last, I want to speak from the heart to all the fans that have followed, supported and encouraged us:

We deeply understand the hope we bear on our shoulders. We understand how important training is and how devoted we should be. We are never the people that give up or let up easily. We will continue to give everything in our training, and remain thirsty of improvement and victory, on which we are going to work to make it happen inch by inch.

I apologise again for recent losses. We will not slack off or give up. We are going to keep on training and solve existing problems, to win your recognition again in the future. Thank you!