When does Season 21 of Overwatch competitive begin?

The next ranked season will bring Hero Pools into the game.
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Since game director Jeff Kaplan revealed all the big changes coming to Overwatch over the next few months, the community has been buzzing. The biggest of those changes is Hero Pools, a feature that will effectively “ban” a few heroes from competitive play per week. Many players are likely ready for this feature to be immediately available, but it’ll be over a month before Hero Pools hit the live servers. 

Hero Pools will be tested during Season 21 of competitive play, which begins March 5. Every season of competitive play lasts approximately 60 days, giving players plenty of time to climb the ranked ladder. Season 20 started on Jan. 2, so the entire month of February will still be played as a part of the current season. Developers moved the season end dates from Tuesdays to Thursdays when Season 20 began. 

March will be a month full of change for players and fans. Hero Pools will hit the live servers on March 5 and the Overwatch League will use Hero Pools beginning March 7. For competitive play, specific details about Hero Pools haven’t been provided. The design team will curate a list of heroes to be banned on a weekly basis. The Overwatch League will operate under much more specific rules. Every week, one support, one tank, and two damage heroes will be disabled based on play data from the previous two weeks of play. 

Season 20 of competitive play will end on March 5. Season 21 will begin immediately after. Specific season end times vary based on region and developer availability. Season 20 began at approximately 12pm CT, so Season 21 will likely begin around that time on March 5.


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Liz Richardson
Liz is a freelance writer and editor from Chicago. Her favorite thing is the Overwatch League; her second favorite thing is pretending iced coffee is a meal. She specializes in educational content, patch notes that (actually) make sense, and aggressively supporting Tier 2 Overwatch. When she's not writing, Liz is expressing hot takes on Twitter and making bad life choices at Target.