Photo by Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
For the second year in a row, the San Francisco Shock have been crowned the Overwatch League champions. The team took the 2020 trophy today after a 4-2 series with the Seoul Dynasty. This makes the Shock the first team in Overwatch League history to win two season titles in a row.
Thanks to online tournament play and COVID-19 travel restrictions, the two regions in the Overwatch League were unable to face off at all during the regular season. For that reason, the Grand Finals transformed from one end-of-season match to a double-elimination bracket. Two teams from North America traveled to South Korea and underwent quarantine before competing against the two top teams from Asia.
In the early rounds of the tournament, the Seoul Dynasty dropped to the lower bracket after a loss to the San Francisco Shock. The Shock ran through the winner’s bracket while the Seoul Dynasty took out the Shanghai Dragons and Philadelphia Fusion in the losers bracket to make it to the ultimate Grand Finals match.
This was the Seoul Dynasty’s first appearance in an Overwatch League Grand Finals match, but several members of the roster were making their second appearance on the league’s biggest stage. Dynasty main tank Hong “Gesture” Jae-hee and DPS Park “Profit” Joon-yeong were part of the championship-winning London Spitfire roster in 2018.
The San Francisco Shock won the 2019 Overwatch League Grand Finals with a 4-0 sweep against the Vancouver Titans. In this year’s tournament, the Shock returned with most of the starting roster that captured the 2019 trophy. Those players have now become the first Overwatch League players to win two season titles.
As the winners of the 2020 Overwatch League championship, the San Francisco Shock bring home $1.5 million in prize money. The Seoul Dynasty earned $750,000 as runners-up.
