After months of speculation and waiting for his inevitable 18th birthday, the Hangzhou Spark finally announce that Zheng “Shy” Yangjie has been activated to the main roster. The announcement was made on Twitter alongside the birthday greeting.
“I wish to keep my enthusiasm and aspiration when I was 17 years old”
Let’s welcome former BLG.OW player and OWWC 2018 runner-up YangJie ‘Shy’ Zheng as he’s promoted to Hangzhou Spark!
Happy birthday @shyow1022, glad to have you onboard on your 18-year-old birthday! #sparkbang pic.twitter.com/lSpFUb3Q1T— Hangzhou Spark (@Hangzhou_Spark) October 22, 2020
Shy has been inactive with the BiliBili Gaming Contenders team for the past year or so, but hints from the team’s YouTube Channel suggest that Shy was actually at the Spark’s main facility during a majority of the 2020 season. With this being the case, Shy might have already gotten a head start scrimming with the best of the best in the OWL as recent as this last season. Regardless, the tag “Shy” should not be a new name to seasoned Overwatch fans as he was a part of the 2nd place Chinese Overwatch World Cup squad with fellow Spark, Qiulin “Guxue” Xu, in 2018. Since the 2018 OWWC, Shy has been climbing the ranks and has built a reputation as one of the best Widowmakers in all of the China/APAC region.
Moving Forward
Image via Blizzard Entertainment
His promotion to the OWL level was all but inevitable as the team quickly pulled the trigger on the day he became a legal adult. With the Spark announcing multiple releases alongside the team option purge that is taking place in the league currently, Shy slots right into the back-up role for Kyeong-bo “GodsB” Kim as the third Damage player for Hangzhou. The call-up also marks the Spark’s fourth Chinese player on the team. The move creates a perfect half-and-half split between Korean and Chinese talent at four apiece for the first time in franchise history. What once was a dysfunctional, single-Chinese player squad, has now settled into what seems to be a stable, even core. Following this move, the Spark are possibly now looking to fine-tune their roster once the signing window opens with a third tank player to complete the team’s solid current rotation
Find out who is going where as soon as the ball gets rolling with Free Agency right here on TGH’s Overwatch landing page.
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Featured Image Courtesy of the Hangzhou Spark
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