Don’t expect to see Genji or Tracer in the last two weeks of the Overwatch League’s regular season. The league’s latest Hero Pool is putting the two heroes out of the competition and onto the bench alongside Zarya and Brigitte, which could mark a return to the double shield meta.
Teams have been using a dive composition with Winston and Zarya as the two tanks. Removing the Russian hero from play, however, may push teams toward double shield compositions—a direction that becomes more likely in conjunction with the rest of the bans. Teams who still want to use dive compositions can opt for D.Va or Wrecking Ball but would still have to work around two essential DPS picks.
Genji has been the second most-picked hero across the board in the league’s past few months with a 78-percent pick rate thanks to a series of buffs to the cyborg ninja. Tracer is another core pick of the dive composition. And, like Genji, she’s also out of the picture for the next two weeks. If teams go by the double shield meta, then Mei is likely to take up a DPS spot, possibly alongside Sombra as a pseudo-replacement for Tracer.
Lastly, Brigitte was nearly ubiquitous over the past month, which made her a prime target for the Hero Pool draw. With Zarya’s ban, however, teams could default to double shields and Brigitte could give way to Baptiste without much friction.
The latest Hero Pool draw will apply to the final two weeks of the league’s regular season, which take place between Aug. 14 and 23. The upcoming playoffs, however, kick off on Sept. 3 and will have no hero restrictions.
