It has been officially confirmed for a while now that hero pools will be making their way to both Overwatch and the OWL. However, we now have exact confirmation as to when the first round of hero pools for the OWL will be announced. In short, make sure to tune in to the Watchpoint: Postshow after the games taking place on March 1.

🏊 Let’s take a short dive into the near future of #OWL2020! Here’s what we know about hero pools. pic.twitter.com/2S1dNgFQaq — Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) February 24, 2020

This announcement confirms what had previously been stated on hero pools, that players would have one week’s notice to know which heroes would be out of rotation in the coming week. So, for teams and players that are set to play in Week 5 (Defiant, Mayhem, Eternal, Outlaws, Uprising, Justice, Fusion, Reign, NYXL) these will be the heroes that are banned.

As for future weeks, it’s likely that the trend will continue to announce the upcoming week’s bans on Sunday night’s Watchpoint: Postshow. So, to learn which heroes are out of rotation in Week 6, viewers will likely need to tune in after the final day of games during Week 5 to find out, and so on.

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Who is Likely to be Banned?

While the picks will be somewhat random, the pool to be chosen from will be determined based on each hero’s usage, or pick-rate. Each week, one Tank, one Support and two DPS heroes will be cycled out of rotation. According to the Stats Lab, it seems most likely that the Week 5 bans will target Reinhardt, Lucio, Mei and McCree, with Ana and D.Va also having high potential to be rotated out. The league’s overall hero usage can be seen below.

These numbers could look slightly different after next week’s matches, however, the top six picks have become fairly clear thus far as the meta begins to solidify. Considering that, this may be the perfect time for hero pools to make their entrance into the league and are likely to keep things very fresh.

The Game Haus will continue to provide more updates on which heroes are likely to be banned each week and provide confirmation once we know for certain.

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