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With these few weeks of lull echoing like the calm before the storm, there hasn’t been much noise from the Overwatch League.
The Playoffs are approaching and in just under two weeks on July 11, the Quarterfinals will see The Boston Uprising versus Philadelphia Fusion followed by LA Gladiators up against London Spitfire.
This is how the finals of the first ever Overwatch League season will start and while we don’t know how they are going to end, the version of the game and map pools have been chosen which could make things very interesting.
First of all, the games will be played on the 1.25 Patch which just went live but with a small twist. The reworked Symmetra that has everyone very curious will not be making it into these games. This means no sneaky teleporter setups before matches start and it also means less unpredictable picks.
It’s likely the changes to Symmetra are just too massive to unleash them for the finals of a game that has literally never seen her played. The hero rework could see parts of maps previously totally unexplored used, or even worse potentially completely nullify snipers with her ultimate, and let’s face it, everyone likes to watch some impressive quick flick sniper play.
Speaking of snipers, Hanzo’s rework will be included and his new Storm Arrow ability has already been nerfed from 80 to 70 damage in preparation. As someone who is by no means skilled with the bow-wielding hero, even I noticed how quickly I could melt a tank before this patch but even so, we can likely expect some more double sniper comp with his new abilities finally making it into the game.
This patch also has a new Brigitte nerf on top of the one introduced last time that never made it into League matches. With her Rally reduced to giving players 100 armour instead of 150 and a desperately needed increase in shield bash cooldown from five to six seconds, I think we have seen the end of the Brigitte meta.
That’s not to say the hybrid tank healer won’t still have her uses but I doubt she’ll be picked as often for or as thrifty in tanking down other close-range specialists like Reaper or Genji during his ultimate.
Map pools were also decided and Dorado, Junkertown, Oasis, Lijiang Tower, Eichenwald, King’s Row, Volksaya Industries, and Hanamura have made the cut with Nepal acting as a tiebreaker.
King’s Row is a favourite map among many of the fans and this plus Lijiang Tower, Junkertown, Oasis, and Eichenwald means we are sure to see a good variety of heroes aside from the standard dive meta. Expect a bunch of the reworked Hanzo as well as Junkrat, Reinhardt, Zarya, and Pharah outside of the usual favourites.
What’s more interesting than the maps themselves is how they are chosen. Unlike everything in the League so far, this time if a series goes on to a third map one team will pick the map and the other will pick the side, depending on their current seed.
This is where we’ll see mind games between teams. Every team has maps they do and don’t like to play on with win statistics varying a lot team by team. Knowing your enemy can potentially pick a map that you’re team has hardly had a win on all season would be enough to rattle anyone and not being sure what’s coming next will make it even more difficult for these players to prepare.
This means it’s going to take more than just being good at what you know is coming, it will take adaptability and flexible plays. Teams with individuals with larger hero pools may be stronger than those who constantly swap out to accommodate for having single hero specialists, regardless of how good those players can be.
Tickets had sold out for the Overwatch League grand finals which will be held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on July 27-28 back in May, before we even had the slightest idea what these games would look like.
Now we know the teams, the maps, and the version of the game and can get a small glimpse into what we are about to see but there’s still a level of unpredictability that just can’t be accounted for.