Why would you run Rein here????

Kings Row has traditionally been the home of Reinhardt compositions. At first glance, this seems to be logical, given its long windy second point with relatively little high ground or need for vertical movement paired with the streets being almost a choke the size of Reinhardt's shield. But, there is actually little to suggest that Reinhardt or Zarya, a class which is often chosen along side Reinhardt and who also suffers from a lack of vertical mobility, is actually good on the first point of King’s Row, where teams pick these characters with an almost fanatical zeal.

It seems easy to single down the use of Reinhardt on first point as a spill over for his use on second or an recall to a meta over a year old, because let’s face it: Reinhardt has almost zero effective counter play to the attacking team getting height advantage with heroes like Soldier 76 or even Bastion or McCree.

The only effective area for Reinhardt to effectively intercept any composition taking height is at the bottom of the back stairs, an area which requires pre-planning by the defenders and is harder to engage at in a meta where Lucio is a niche hero that sees only situational play.

This is where you have to engage to really stop people taking height

So we haven't managed to stop them taking high ground but that’s OK because…

We can just rotate to statue yeah?

This is the argument I've seen as the counter play to having low ground against an enemy with high ground — let’s just rotate to statue and just stand behind our Reinhardt shield there. While that’s maybe a slightly better angle you haven't actually countered high ground — it still matters — you’re still at a disadvantage, as you still don’t have a counter to that soldier uncontested on high ground.

You still have the same threat — the positions are just slightly different — your rotation means effectively nothing.

Going Blank: the logical conclusion to taking high ground.

The relevant time stamp should be at 1 hour and 1 minute if it doesn’t embed properly.

This is the logical end point to countering Reinhardt tank compositions by punishing the fact Reinhardt or the other heroes that synergise with him don’t have any access to Bastion — and with Bastion’s high ground positioning looking over the point there’s nothing the defenders can do. Blank esports used this composition with great effect to counter tanks and break the first holds of multiple Overwatch Pacific Championship teams and snowball into second.

So what should I be doing?

Running dive on King’s Row first point is a much more flexible and proactive composition that can deal with multiple threats and opposing compositions in ways that Reinhardt comps just can’t. Suddenly you have access to high ground as well as having agency against pick compositions like double sniper that can’t deal well with dive getting in their face. So, don’t get caught up in the idea that Kings Row is the “Reinhardt map.” Its not actually that good.

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A huge shout out to gyhwa for cleaning up my awful grasp of English.