When the Overwatch League was first announced to have 12 teams and split over four stages I just assumed it was going to have a balanced schedule. 11 opponents played 4 times each would have broken up nicely for the regular season. However the people behind the Overwatch League instead decided to go with an unbalanced schedule. Teams will play 40 games for the regular season, meaning instead of playing every team 4 times each, 4 teams will only be played 3 times. With 10 games left to go, the playoff race is incredibly close. There are only 4 wins currently between positions 3 to 8 in the overall league table. As a result I wanted to see if a teams unbalanced schedule could have a significant impact on which teams makes the playoffs. Rather than looking at the 40 games for each team which has large overlap between opponents, I figured it would be easier to look at the missing matches.

Below is a table that shows the 4 opponents that each team will only play 3 times, the missing/skipped opponents for each team. These matches are the source of unbalance in the schedule. The teams highlighted in red are currently in a playoff spot at the end of stage 3. From this we can see that the Gladiators have what would appear to be the easiest schedule, skipping matches against four current playoff teams and the current top 3. On the other end of the table no team is skipping matches with all non playoff team but 4 are coming in with skipping only one playoff team. This would initially suggest their schedules are harder than everyone else.

One of the important things to note is that with the teams split into two conferences, the four missed opponents will be from the opposite conference to the team. With the Atlantic Conference currently looking a lot stronger than the Pacific, this could favour a couple of the Pacific teams when it comes to grabbing a playoff place.

So lets try to quantify these matches and opponents to really see who is going to finish the season with an easier or harder schedule. The first thing I looked at was the average league table position of the 4 opponents for each team. For this the 5 teams, who came in under 6, are on average missing matches against a playoff level team. This gives a rough idea of the relative strength of the missed matches for each team. However its important to look at the actual strengths of the opponents as well. For example Boston and New York are only separated by one league position but there’s 5 wins and a 41 point difference between them, which is pretty significant.

The next thing to look at is the wins and point difference of each of these missed games and see if that changes how we see the strength of each teams schedules. Gladiators once again come out on top with 21.75 wins for their four missed opponents, closesly followed by the Valiant with 20.25. Houston have dropped a few places from the league position chart above. This is in large part to the fact that one of their missed matches is against Shanghai. The table below is heavily swayed by both New York and Shanghai who have a 90% and 0% win rates respectively. Philadelphia are the highest of the Atlantic teams and, with them currently holding the last playoff spot, this potentially easier schedule could prove pivotal.

The points difference for the four missed opponents tells a similar enough story. The separation of the two LA teams is even more over the rest of the teams in the league. Houston look like they will be in a tough position with one of the harder schedules overall and certainly in comparison to their main playoff position rivals.

Below is a quick comparison table of each of the above rankings just so you can see how each of the stats effects a team. The Gladiators and Valiant are definitely coming in with some of the easier schedules. With one of them just in and the other just out of playoffs this could prove vital to their chances. This may also make Florida fans feel a bit better about themselves knowing that they had potentially the hardest schedule of the season. There is also a big difference depending on which conference a team is in. The Atlantic teams have been in general been stronger this season, with 9/10 stage playoff places taken by Atlantic teams. As a result these teams in general have a harder schedule with 4 guaranteed matches against each other.

It is hard to say how much this will actually impact when it comes to the end of Stage 4 and the playoff places are finalised. But with a few teams really close in the table and multiple playoff spots still up for grabs, it will be interesting to see if these easier or harder schedules make any difference over the next five weeks.