On the 24th of May 2016, Overwatch was released worldwide. In the year since, we have been given 3 new heroes, 2 new standard maps and a variety of balance changes all affecting how the game is played on the highest level.
TakeOver
We are starting our trip through the past at TakeTV's Takeover, which took place soon after Overwatch’s launch. These were the dark days of no hero limits. Throughout the two days we often saw double McCree and double Winston and not to mention the D.Va stalling efforts during overtime. This resulted in the games being a lot harder to spectate and fully differentiate between two players. At this time, we also saw a lot more of some old favourites: Widowmaker and Mercy. This all combined into creating a confusing spectacle for new viewers; it was a lot harder to identify certain players on the same team due to them playing the same hero, in addition to this, Widowmaker’s one shot, one kill potential and Mercy’s regular resurrections while hiding out of sight meant that it was hard to keep track of who was alive and who was dead. Another element that contributed was the lack of a kill feed, which only got added to the game later on. Casters were forced to try to break down the mess that was in front of them, no easy feat.
ESL Atlantic Showdown
Moving forward to the Atlantic Showdown, we saw drastic shifts in the meta, most notable is the introduction of a hero limit, where each team has since been limited to only one person on each hero. This along with a drastic buff to Zenyatta meant that we often saw dive compositions, where the team would focus on mobility instead of pure strength/dps. These changes gave way to arguably the biggest upset of Overwatch esports so far, when Rogue was able to finally stop Envyus after their hystoric 57-win streak. At this period of time, EU was able to push out NA during the playoff finals, resulting in an all-EU final between Rogue and REUNITED with both teams utilizing their mobile DPS to good effect with some of the then world’s best Genjis and Tracers.
World Cup 2016
When BlizzCon approached us in November, it brought the Beyblade meta to the world stage, where Ana would nano boost a Reaper's Death Blossom causing chaos and almost guaranteed team wipes. This was shown when TviQ eased through Finland’s back line – not even a sound barrier could save them. This period was based off of a single hero who teams had finally found how to play most effectively (helped by some buffs): Ana.
MLG Vegas
To end 2016, we were greeted with MLG Las Vegas; a tournament that placed the best of NA against each other on a scale we have not seen much since. Soon after the World Cup, Ana’s nano boost was nerfed so that the recipient would no longer get additional movement speed. This brought an end to the beyblade, but in its place came something far worse…the triple/quad tank! Even before the Ana nerf, Ninjas in Pyjamas were using this to varied effect, but the removal of the speed meant that Reaper, the tank killer, was no longer as widely used if at all. In this meta the ‘shield war’ was the most important factor in every game: battling it out to break the other team's Reinhardt shield the fastest. Usually, whoever won the shield battle would win the resulting team fight as well.
Overwatch PIT Championship
Earlier this year, both NA and EU teams battled against their region companions with a meta that has been one of the most diverse metas since launch. At this time, the favourite composition was the dive comp, most notably used to near perfection by Rogue, which have dominated the NA scene since moving to Las Vegas. In addition to the dive comp, both triple tank and 2/2/2 compositions were still viable. This created more diverse games with no guarantee of what line-up the teams would take resulting in more tactical game plans.
To this day we have experienced this flexible meta, however, with a new set of balances hitting the live servers along with the anniversary event, the forth coming year will continue to feature an ever-changing meta helped by hopefully even more amazing heroes and maps.
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