On The Hunt - Where To Put Chengdu?

Let’s all be frank with one another for a moment. Right now, the 2021 Overwatch League season looks to be the most difficult to call due to the depth of potentially strong teams. The cliche of “any given day” doesn’t properly spell out just how punchy and metagame dependent some of these teams are—case in point are the 2021 Chengdu Hunters.

After becoming one of the most beloved Overwatch League franchises during their 2019 debut piloting an unorthodox style that relied on comfort rather than optimisation, the Hunters aim to return to form. With familiar faces returning to the front office and roster changes across the table, where do the loveable Hunters fit within the Overwatch League hierarchy moving forward?

When glancing at the roster, many familiar faces make up the core of the team. Star DPS player Huang "leave" Xin still resides in Chengdu, as does Yi "JinMu" Hu and Luo "Elsa" Wenjie. However, even just a cursory look slightly deeper shows some interesting changes. While support for the amateur division is always a good thing, the addition of their academy team, Team Chaser, has brought some odd changes with its introduction. 

Both Li "Yveltal" Xianya and Ma "LateYoung" Tianbin have been listed as two-way players, which comes slightly as a surprise. Yveltal is easily considered to be one of the best Chinese main support in the world, even being rated extremely highly in the Overwatch League itself, so it is a concern that he might—for whatever reason—not see as much stage time as we might have assumed. Equally as interesting, Chengdu also has made a big signing that shores up some of their most harsh criticism. 

Qiu "GA9A" Jiaxin is the best tank coming out of Overwatch Contenders China this season and the fact that he’s joining the Chengdu Hunters—a team that has needed a fully, fledged main tank threat for years now—is cause for celebration. Now don’t us wrong, Ding "Ameng" Menghan had his time during 2019, and his stint through his era of Overwatch Contenders was special, but the Hunters have been falling behind the eightball lately because they simply do not have the depth in one of the most important and defining roles in the game. 

Again, this is no disrespect to Ameng—in fact, there is still a real possibility he does see some playtime, but in a more specialised capacity, one that should benefit him and his team.  Your main tank dictates your pace, your engagements, where and when they happen. This also ignores the fact that this is the role that is shallow in its stars—Chengdu landing GA9A is a heaven send and they will be much, much better for it.

With how competitive the 2021 Overwatch League season is set to be and the format still undecided, having a strong coaching staff is more important now than ever before—and the Chengdu Hunters do not disappoint in the slightest. Former Hunter’s head coach Xingrui "RUI" Wang returns to the stage after taking some time off in 2019. Alongside him stands one of his former players and a strong coach in his own right. Former assistant coach for the Shanghai Dragons and the Guangzhou Charge, Yan "creed" Xiao enters the fold to help Chengdu return to fighting form. While veterans and experience line the moulding of the Hunters’ roster, that doesn’t mean they’ve ignored the rookie class of 2021.

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Joining Chengdu in their third attempt at capturing the Overwatch League title are DPS players Liu "Kaneki" Nian and Lei "Jimmy" Yujia and support duo Tan "Nisha" Li and Cao "Farway1987" Jiale. This foils the western approach of lean and mean but takes the general consensus of looking at the amateur division with more of a purposeful lens. Having redundancy will be a valuable thing moving forward. The ability to have more options on the table when it comes to hero pools will be season-defining. While the Chengdu Hunters initial 2021 Overwatch League season roster looks improved on paper, their most recent results haven’t produced all that much fruit.

While the Hunters suffered an early 2-3 loss to Hangzhou Spark at the Shanghai Masters that shouldn’t distract from some impressive performances. After starting the 2020 season off at a leisurely pace, Leave spooled up across the regular season and ended on a high note showcasing the star that dominated domestically still had juice left in the tank. What’s more impressive is that he’s still showing incredible form and arguably looks even better than before putting up strong showings on both Ashe and Echo against the Spark. 

Do not those who heavily critique the Hunters’ Shanghai Master performance sway you. If you’re looking for a team that isn’t afraid to dabble in obscure and unorthodox, then Chengdu is your team. While they’ve changed over the years, the Hunters are up to their old tricks on Control, running GA9A and Ameng on Winston Wrecking Ball respectively. Past that the Shanghai Masters saw Chengdu running a splash of Soldier: 76 on Eichenwalde Defence and playing a surprising amount of Winston and D.Va on both sides of Temple of Anubis. 

Obviously, the Hunters’ performance wasn’t what they hoped for, but taking a team like the Spark as close as they did should be a sign of potential.

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When it comes to a metagame that asks them to pilot Tracer and some form of mid-to-long range hitscan DPS character, they look to need some help with the former. Leave looks stellar on picks like Ashe and Echo; it’s hard to think this is the same player that started 2020. However, early verdicts see Kaneki as painfully serviceable, and when put up against some of the best Tracer players in the world, Chengdu could easily be down a weapon in the head-to-head. 

A compelling idea would be taking Leave and moving him to Tracer, a pick that he has played extremely well in the past, and moving Jimmy to play the long-range hitscan picks as they maps allow it. Obviously, the roster moves are very metagame dependent, but the moral of the story here is that Chengdu now has that choice. They can have a DPS rotation rather than just relying on the same people time after time.

While their Tracer and Ashe could use some fine-tuning, when you have players as flexible as Leave and JinMu, the Chengdu Hunters are bound to find a hero pool that suits them well and thrive within it. This, in a sense, paints them more as a summer team, someone who catches the right patch and spikes high for a moment, but then immediately returns back to their baseline around the middle of the table.

The Chengdu Hunters will be a competitive team. They’ve improved their coaching staff, added some needed players and have a depth that cannot be ignored. Initially striking as a mid-table team with some high points given the right circumstances, you’ve got to ask; is that a bad thing for a team that has been so inconsistent for so long? If RUI steps in, brings the creativity he’s known for, while also assisting the team in playing the normal, standard compositions there is a good chance the Hunters make a respectful stab at the 2021 play-ins—and there is no shame in that with respects to how competitive this next Overwatch League season is set to be.

Images via Blizzard Entertainment