The recently concluded Overwatch 2 tournament at the Esports World Cup sparked an interesting discussion around the competitive format. The event tried out a hero ban system, and it looked quite interesting (albeit a bit intricate):

  • Each team bans one hero.
  • Bans cannot be repeated by the same team in a single series.
  • The roles of banned heroes on one map cannot overlap between teams.

There have been talks about introducing bans in competitive Overwatch since the start of the Overwatch League, but it never came to full fruition. The challenge was how to implement hero bans without ending up with mirror compositions but with fewer heroes leading to the same stall meta.

The idea of different roles for banned heroes proved to be an interesting solution. This approach almost guarantees that teams cannot endlessly mirror each other, ensuring some variety. Judging by the EWC matches, this concept was successful. 

The tournament was won by the South Korean team Crazy Raccoon. They were unstoppable throughout the tournament, losing only two maps! Shu was named the most valuable player of the tournament and will receive an additional $50,000. 

Main image: alphacoders.com

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