The 2020 San Francisco Shock season is the third season of the San Francisco Shock's existence in the Overwatch League and their second under head coach Park "Crusty" Dae-hee. The team enters the season as the defending Overwatch League champions and will look to win back-to-back Grand Finals titles. The Shock will host two homestand weekends in the 2020 season; the first will take place at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, while the second will be at the San Jose Civic in downtown San Jose.[1][2]
Preceding offseason
Organizational changes
On October 18, it was announced that assistant coach Kim "NineK" Beom-hoon had signed with the Paris Eternal as a coach.[3] The Shock signed Talon Esports head coach Lee "Arachne" Ji-won as a coach a month later.[4]
Roster changes
The Shock enter the new season with one free agent, no players which they have the option to retain for another year, and nine players under contract.[5] The OWL's deadline to exercise a team option is November 11, after which any players not retained will become a free agent. Free agency officially began on October 7.[6]
On October 9, the Shock announce that they would not re-sign their only free agent off-tank Andreas "Nevix" Karlsson, who had been with the team since their inception in 2017.[7] On December 23, the team picked up sniper specialist Lee "ANS" Seon-chang, who had been retired since January 2019.[8] On April 28, the team released Jay "Sinatraa" Won, who announced his retirement from competitive Overwatch.[9]
