The Chengdu Hunters finally announce their roster for the 2020 season. It has been two weeks since the OW Beacon released an apparent leaked image showing the Hunters 2020 roster. The Hunters finally broke their silence tonight on twitter and announced their new additions. With changes to the Coaching staff and additional players, the leaks first reported by the OW Beacon have come to fruition.
Coaching Staff:
Chia-Hua “RAY Chang, formerly the assistant coach will be moving up to a coaching position. After the departure of Coach Xingrui “RUI” Wang, RAY seemed an obvious choice to move up to head coach. Although he won’t be alone- RAY will be working alongside with Wu “Dokkaebi” Xiuqing.
Dokkaebi was previously the coach for the Hunters academy team, LGE.HUYA, and has first place wins in Chinese Contenders under his belt. In addition, Guan “Garry” Li, a support player for the Chengdu Hunters, will also be transitioning to an assistant coach position.
Players:
Chen “Lengsa” Jingyi, He “Molly” Chengzhi, and Chen “ATing” Shao-Hua are the three new players the Hunters signed during the off-season. Lengsa and Molly, two support players, who played together on LGE.HUYA. Considering Chunting “Kyo” Kong and Xianyao “Yveltal” Li, were the preferred support duo last season, it will be interesting to see how these new players fit into the roster.
ATing, a main tank player, played formerly for a Chinese Contenders team Nova Monster Shield. Recently the Hunters let go of one of their main tank players, Wei “jiqiren” Yansong. Ating gives a bit more depth for the roster and fills out that role.
Overall:
These official announcements were expected given the very credible leak that the OW Beacon reported on two weeks ago. This will likely be the end of any other additional roster announcements for the foreseeable future. The new additions and changes themselves are not exactly groundbreaking – although it’s not out of the norm for the Chengdu Hunters to have found an exciting new talent.
Most of these pick up are players who are relatively unknown in the west. Even among those that follow Chinese Contenders, it is hard to compare Chinese talent to Overwatch League talent until you see them side by side.
The Hunters have been annoyingly quiet off-season, these pickups appear to be more about filling out their roster than anything else. It looks likely that they plan on keeping their starting six from last season intact, with the only major difference being the addition of Xin “Leave” Huang on damage. Although that is just speculation. You can never really know for certain with the Chengdu Hunters.
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