In a long-anticipated move, Overwatch will no longer see hero pools in competitive anymore, Community Manager Molly Fender announced in a forum post. Since the release of pools in January, players have wanted it out of the game for good.
“We initially implemented Hero Pools to address issues with stagnating metas and to keep match-ups exciting and fresh,” Fender wrote. “However, we’ve found that the introduction of Experimental Card and increased hero balance updates has helped us work towards a healthy, changing meta in Competitive Play without needing to disable heroes.”
The Overwatch League will still utilize hero pools but in a different way. Starting on June 13, there will be a single hero pool for the first two weeks of each tournament cycle. The league has changed its format to a tournament style, with three weeks of qualifier matches and then a tournament weekend.
“Hero Pools will not be used for the week before each tournament or during tournament bracket play,” the post said.
It is a little odd that there will be pools for the qualifiers but not the actual tournament matches. Overwatch has had to deal with ways to balance the game. Over the years of competitive play, many styles have come and gone. It will be interesting to see what meta becomes dominant amongst the pro players.
2-week hero pools now in play.
"One hero pool will be utilized for Weeks 19 and 20, and Week 21 and tournament weekend will operate with no hero pool." https://t.co/344BblFvqn
— Jonathan Larsson (@Reinforce) June 8, 2020
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