Blizzard has finally shared how hero bans will work in competitive Overwatch 2. The new step will let teams ban heroes they think are overpowered or annoying to play against, without letting them game out who their opposing team might want to play. The feature is a common part of other competitive games like League of Legends, and is a meta-game in its own right.
For Overwatch 2, Blizzard hopes to use the “Ban Phase” mostly to let players remove heroes they find frustrating, and gather data to use when the game is rebalanced. When you first launch into a competitive match, you’ll get the option to select your “Preferred Hero,” which signals to your team who you don’t want to ban. Then you’ll rank three heroes you want to remove from the match, with your first choice given the most weight, and your last choice, the least. Blizzard says all teams and players vote simultaneously, but chat will be blocked off between opposing teams until voting ends.
Once all the votes are in, they get tallied using the following guidelines:
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The team with the most votes for a specific hero will be considered the “first” team, and will guarantee that their chosen hero is banned. In the case of a tie, the first team is decided randomly.
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Then, the other team becomes the “second” team. If the heroes they voted to ban were not the first team’s banned hero, then their most and second most voted heroes are banned.
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If the second team’s most or second most voted pick was also the first team’s, then the second team’s third most voted hero is removed instead.
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And finally, the second most voted hero on the first team is banned, with the same caveat the second team had.
When the number of votes for a hero is tied, the game picks the hero voted by the most players in the lobby (and not the total amount of votes). Ties beyond that are broken randomly, and regardless of how the votes shake out, there’s a limit of two bans per role. If you don’t want to ban any heroes or don’t know who to ban, you can also skip voting and let your teammates decide for you.
Blizzard first announced it would add hero bans to Overwatch 2 with its Season 15 announcement, which introduced a perks system to the game. Hero bans are set to arrive with Season 16 on April 22, which will also include the new Stadium mode, five-on-five matches where players earn currency to spend on upgrades between rounds, and have the option to play in third-person.