Overwatch Hero Pools Limited to Masters and Grandmasters

Overwatch's hero pools feature will be limited to Master and Grandmaster matches starting in the next title update, Overwatch developer Scott Mercer announced Friday.

Hero pools, introduced as a method to keep the Overwatch meta game from stagnating around one dominant hero composition, is more important at higher skill levels. Below Masters, competitive sees diverse compositions even without hero pools, according to Mercer.

Overwatch Hero Pools Limited to Masters and Grandmasters

The change will arrive in Overwatch Patch 1.48, which has yet to receive a release date. In the interim, hero pools will be disabled across all skill levels in the Competitive queue Monday.

Mercer says Blizzard defines a Masters or Grandmasters match as one in which the average SR among all the players in a match is equal to or greater than 3,500.

In the future, hero pools will be determined using usage rates from Overwatch League games.

"While initially our data showed that there were many similarities in hero usage between online high-level Competitive Play and OWL matches, online hero usage over the last few weeks has seen a lot of changes due to the release of Patch 1.47’s balance updates, Experimental Card, and Echo," Mercer wrote on the Blizzard forums.

"There were some significant differences between online hero picks versus the most played hero compositions in Overwatch League. Yes, I’m looking at you, Mei and Reaper."

Between Overwatch League season, high-level Competitive matches will be used in its place to determine the hero pool.