It’s been quite some time that hero pools have been in Overwatch and by this point, it has most definitely had an impact on the game at your standard competitive ranked level and the tournament level from local leagues up to the Overwatch League. It has had its positives as well as its negatives with in my opinion the negatives outweighing the positives. Something to note is that everyone has differing opinions on how hero pools have effected the game, I aim to bring as many of those opinions that I have heard into this and frame an overall sense of hero pools alongside my opinion.

The hardest effect to gauge regarding hero pools is in ranked play. Each week hero pools affect individual players differently based on their favourite and/or best heroes to play. When looking at a week like the one comp week where Widowmaker, McCree, Soldier: 76, Sombra, and D.Va, were all banned, all Pharah players rejoiced at the prospect of the only effective hitscan being Ashe and no D.Va to defence matrix meant they could rule the skies once more for a whole week, while hitscan players groaned at being stuck to such a small hero pool and the tanks and supports hoping they had at least a good Ashe or Pharah player. Then when you looked at weeks where Reinhardt was banned, DPS players overall took to the spotlight where very few tanks would choose shield tanks aside from your occasional Sigma allowing for more free space to shoot at the enemy. My overall thoughts surrounding ranked bans are a fail. On top of all the issues, it creates with certain heroes having free reign a lot of the time, not being able to pick certain heroes for that week is incredibly annoying because a lot of the time there were games I wanted to play the certain heroes but could not because they were banned. I guess it goes on that whole principle of people want what they can not have.

Moving on to tournament play at a local level, bans feel quite strange. The element I enjoyed about it while competing with them, is that it forces you to start thinking for yourselves and not copying what you see from the higher level teams all the time. It also lends towards teams being able to develop their style of play for each week. Unlike at the highest level teams have the freedom to run a comp that suits them and their strongest heroes the best, which for me makes for some really exciting games when two different styles clash. On the other hand, the short amount of time given to develop your comps for that week is incredibly difficult. With most teams in South Africa having a maximum of four hours a week to practice in the comps they want to run, becoming well-practiced in those comps is almost impossible. In saying that, with most teams having the same amount of prep time it does mean that no one is advantaged in that sense. The only advantage teams can get is if the hero pools either lend to their playstyle or it hampers the enemy teams playstyle, something which is often evident. I do think the local tournaments created a fun environment to play the different comps week to week and try to figure out the comps that we would play. However, the stress it created to do it in a single week made it very hard to play with and meant that you had to be up to par on pretty much all the heroes you had to play otherwise your team would suffer.

As for the Overwatch League, hero pools has probably had the most positives. The addition of hero pools to the Overwatch League has added more unpredictability to the results, with quite a few of the favoured teams falling in matches that almost no one expected them to lose. One game that especially comes to mind is Florida Mayhem’s match versus the Paris Eternal in Week 11. A possible top-five team (Paris Eternal) versus a team in the bottom half (Florida Mayhem) meant that everyone was expecting Paris to take this series without a sweat. That was not the case, Florida getting a better grasp of the meta for that week allowed for them to take the series with a dominating 3-0 victory. The Seoul Dynasty is probably the team most affected by hero pools. In some weeks they look like they look dominant over any other team in the league, but then others it looks like anyone can beat them. While Seoul has not played enough to figure why exactly this is the case it seems like it may be down to their players’ hero strengths. However, while the hero pools have created more entertaining games and given room for more teams to compete, the lack of storylines created is a worrying sign. With a lot of teams flip-flopping so much each week, it becomes difficult to get a hold of how good a team is and who they will be rivals with for the rest of the season. Right now the only game everyone looks forward to is San Francisco Shock versus Philadelphia Fusion, two teams that have looked consistent in every meta. Shanghai Dragons against either team can be thrown into that mix but because of the online play that is not possible.

I used to think that a possible fix for the hero pools on any tournament level could be that they extend the period of how long they are in for, but that creates additional issues. These being one, that means certain heroes will be banned for longer meaning some teams and players will be weaker for longer. Additionally, the practice they get for the different metas would be limited since they still have to prepare for specific matches each week. The only advantages are that they have more time to think about the meta and then try to perfect it over a longer period. My honest opinion having seen hero pools and speaking to others, is that it, not the right approach for the game as a whole, and balance patches that nerf or buff a hero every couple weeks will be much better. Thus, still allowing for diversity in the meta without having to force complete changes, unless multiple heroes are changed or one hero is causing a meta, which should never happen in the first place, Mei looking at you.