There are a few incredible records in esports.
Take the 2015 Fnatic League of Legends roster, that went undefeated in their Summer regular season.
Or Smash 4 player ZeRo, who won 56 tournaments during that game’s first year.
Or Ninjas in Pyjamas, who dominated the earliest days of CS:GO with a 87-map LAN win-streak.
But despite all the victories, all the undefeated records, there are very few teams who've managed to pull off
the exact opposite.
Only one team was bad enough, unlucky enough, cosmically unloved enough to pull
off the longest winless streak in esports history.
One team that totally overhauled their roster, and kicked their
best player in the middle of the season.
Ladies and gentlemen, pros and scrubs of all ages, let’s talk about the longest losing streak
in esports history.
Let’s talk about the Shanghai Dragons.
The Shanghai Dragons just completed the first season of the Overwatch League with an unprecedented
0-40 record.
Yeah you heard that right, 0-40.
We checked, and while plenty of teams have come close to that record, no one has ever actually achieved it.
At least not in a major esports league.
There are plenty of League of Legends teams that have pulled off one win seasons, and
a good number that went winless, particularly in the LPL and the LMS.
But a League of Legends split is significantly shorter than an Overwatch season.
Notably, there are a few CS:GO teams that have gone an entire ESL Pro League season
without winning, but they were all disqualified before the season ended, so they don’t really count.
But the Shanghai Dragons.
Now that is a losing streak.
You have to get really deep into some obscure traditional sports to find any teams that's ever done worse.
Across the board, no NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL team has done worse, with the longest losing streak
there coming from the Philadelphia 76ers, who in 2015 lost 28 games straight across 2 seasons.
"In the opening weeks of OWL, I've had my suspicions growing that for the Shanghai Dragons
the league might actually be a punishment from the ancient Greek underworld."
"The Shanghai Dragons seem condemned to an eternal torture, where victory is perpetually just a little bit out of reach."
And here’s the weird thing,
by the end of the season.
The Shanghai Dragons roster didn't look that bad on paper.
They had a strong lineup of Korean players who were mostly overlooked during the initial signing
blitz ahead of the first season.
Geguri, Ado, and Fearless are all solid players who helped the team improve significantly
when they were signed partway through the first season.
But the team’s beginnings were a lot worse.
The Shanghai Dragons were the first team to get a name and brand when the Overwatch League was rolling those out.
A few months later, they revealed their roster, an all-Chinese team, made up
of players from various strong Overwatch rosters in China.
But the wheels came off the wagon pretty fast.
The team went 0-2 in the pre-season, losing 4-0 to Seoul Dynasty and 3-2 to the Boston Uprising.
(Casting)
Then in Week 1, they lost to the LA Gladiators and the San Francisco Shock.
And then they lost to the Houston Outlaws and the Florida Mayhem, 4-0 both times.
It was around this point people realized that Shanghai had a problem.
And team manager Yang Van released a statement agreeing with that.
It was also in that statement that he revealed that the team had a grueling training regimen.
Practicing from 10:30 AM each day until midnight.
But Van also said that the team was hungry for their first victory.
(Casting)
After getting summarily dunked on for the rest of Stage 1,
the Dragons returned for Stage 2 with an overhauled roster.
Made up of those aforementioned Korean players, all of whom were considered some of the best
in their positions out of players not yet in the Overwatch League.
(Casting)
So that didn’t work.
After three more weeks of straight losses, head coach U4 stepped down,
he was replaced by Kong as interim coach and later by RUI as the new head coach.
It mostly did nothing for the team.
They went 0-16 in maps after U4 left.
Then, between Stage 2 and 3, the Dragons dropped Undead, their superstar DPS player.
Well, as much of a Star as any 0-20 team can really have on their roster.
Everything related to Undead’s departure is hearsay, but there were plenty of allegations online
that he cheated on multiple partners.
Either way, even without their star player, it’s not like things could get much worse
for Shanghai.
In fact, things are starting to look a little bit better.
They picked up their best map record in Stage 3, going 9-0-32, picking up DPS player Daemin
to replace Undead.
Things were finally looking up for the Shanghai Dragons.
But whatever light the Shanghai Dragons saw at the end of their tunnel was quickly covered up by a cave in.
(Casting)
Shanghai actually ended the fourth and final stage of the Overwatch League with the worst record
they’d had since stage 2.
That’s right, they actually managed to do worse.
(Casting)
With everything said and done, the Shanghai Dragons won 21 maps, tied 2, and lost 141.
The next-worst team in the league, the Florida Mayhem, won double the amount of maps.
And while they only won seven matches, at least they made it competitive.
Sometimes.
And again, it’s not like the Shanghai Dragons were abject garbage.
A lot of their players were strong, individual players.
But they struggled when it came to playing as a team.
(Casting)
Part of that might stem from the fact that Kong has told the Korean players on the team
not to communicate in Korean during the game.
Instead, he’s having the players speak in English or Chinese, meaning a large chunk of the roster,
arguably the most mechanically solid part, was having trouble communicating with the
rest of the team.
But no matter the reason, the Shanghai Dragons did it.
They went a whole season without a single win and 40 losses.
They are officially, the losingest team in major esports history.
But hey,
There’s no relegation, so at least we get to see them try it all over again next year.