The debut of the Overwatch League’s second season is upon us. Set to resume on February 14th, 2019, the return of GOATS and free OWL tokens coincides with another year of fantasy Overwatch. While most drafts are finished by now, understanding the impact of different player roles under High Noon’s scoring format will remain useful for Unlimited League managers adjusting their teams or Standard League managers considering trades and waiver wire acquisitions. Following a similar piece made under the Winston’s Lab fantasy scoring format, we break down the general features of High Noon’s fantasy Overwatch scoring and analyze data from OWL’s first season to predict the continued dominance of flex supports and why DPS, flex tanks, main tanks, and main supports should then be prioritized consecutively.



Scoring Format



In both Standard and Unlimited High Noon leagues, managers start seven players: two DPS, two supports, two tanks, and one captain (from any role). In Standard leagues, your league takes turns drafting players until you have 12 players to pick a starting seven from for your weekly matchups. In Unlimited leagues, you just choose your top seven players from the entire OWL each week and compete against everyone else’s selected players. While the roster construction and league format is different for both, the scoring format is the same: players receive .5 points per elimination, 1 point per 1,000 damage done, and 1 point per 1,000 healing done. Unlike Winston’s Lab, where player deaths and ultimates affect score, the High Noon format rewards aggressive play and sheer hitpoint output without punishing inefficiency. Thanks to High Noon user Jyeran’s combing of the Overwatch League’s Season 1 player data, we are able to analyze how impactful each role should be in Season 2.



Prioritizing Player Roles



Average points output is the greatest indicator of impact when prioritizing between different player roles under High Noon’s fantasy Overwatch scoring format. Although differentiating between DPS players is tough in the current meta, it is important to consider player roles when choosing your team’s captain and between main or flex players for your team’s tank and support slots. Another statistic worth monitoring, particularly for Standard leagues, is the presumed stability of a player’s role — as indicated by how many different players got playing time at that role last season, compared to how many teams there were.



As expected from a format predicated solely on damage, healing, and eliminations — flex supports are the most impactful role, followed by DPS, flex tanks, main tanks, and main supports. On average, flex supports outscore all other roles by 25% and outscore main supports by a whopping 45%. While flex supports should therefore be the top priority for each manager’s starting support and captain slots, the scoring output of DPS and tank players is high enough to warrant monitoring in Season 2. As DPS players are typically outscored by flex supports by 10%, there’s a chance that especially dominant DPS players (e.g. Carpe and Profit) might deserve the captain’s slot as the meta evolves this season. Similarly, as flex tanks typically outscore main tanks by just 18%, certain aggressive main tanks (e.g. Fissure and Guxue) might outscore their flex counterparts.



The ideal fantasy player is a bellcow that gets all possible playing time. If we can figure out which roles are most likely to face player turnover, then we can optimize how we monitor roster moves as the season progresses. There were just 12 teams in the Overwatch League’s first season with 36 DPS players, 13 flex supports, 13 main supports, 18 flex tanks, and 14 main tanks getting significant playing time. Using that information, we can calculate that DPS and flex tank players are most likely to be replaced at some point, while support players and main tanks are least likely. The data represents how many of a certain role the average team is likely to play throughout the season, meaning that the average team is 39% more likely to try a new DPS (1.5) than a new support player (1.08). As such, managers should value the relative stability of their supports while monitoring the relative instability of DPS players and flex tanks when considering roster acquisitions or trades.

Words are by Théo Salaun aka Tepojama, who can be reached on Twitter, and featured image is by Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment