Shanghai Dragons signs Fearless, envy retires

Ethan Chen

Published: Jan 20, 2020 05:54 am

The Shanghai Dragons have announced that starting main tank Lee “Fearless” Eui-seok will be returning to its roster, after the retiring of off-tank Lee “envy” Kang-jae. This news arrives just three weeks before the Overwatch League will start, as the Dragons enter season 3 with an almost entirely Korean roster.

Envy’s departure into retirement

“Hi. I’m out of the team this time, and I’ve decided to retire. During the four years of professional gaming, I had a lot of hard work, I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot,” wrote envy in a Twitter post. “I will not forget what I learned while I was a professional gamer, but I will learn something else now.”

The Shanghai Dragons have terminated the contract with envy but stated that he was an experienced player who played well in the playoffs. On the other hand, Fearless most recently competed for Team CC, the academy team of the Dragons in Overwatch Contenders.

Fearless returns to Shanghai Dragons

The 21-year-old joined them for the latter half of 2019. This transition happened after a poor performance during the inaugural season, where the Dragons finished last with their iconic 0 wins and 40 straight losses. While it cannot be solely attributed to the Winston player, his addition to Team CC was also a way for him to showcase his skills.

Team CC ended China’s season 3 of Overwatch Contenders 2018 in 3 – 4th after being defeated by Flag Gaming. While the Chinese esports organization performed much worse in its next season with a 5 – 8th placement, they recovered in season 2 of 2019 with a 2nd place finish. His return to the Shanghai Dragons means less of a communication barrier. Both Team CC and the first Dragons roster used majority Chinese players.

The Dragons play their first matches of the upcoming season against the Chengdu Hunters and Seoul Dynasty at the XinYeFang Studio in Jing’an District, Shanghai.