The ongoing qualifiers for the ESL Overwatch Atlantic Showdown have been receiving some flak due to not having a hero limit imposed in its rule. While the idea was sound on paper, no hero limits should provide with more variety of team compositions being played out, the results however, was the complete opposite. Check out here to see why the spectators and pros are not too keen with what happened with no hero limit for professional teams.
We have updated the rules of the Atlantic Showdown based on your feedback:https://t.co/AqPsGpdmNG pic.twitter.com/qvL6jokXCr
— ESL Overwatch (@ESLOverwatch) July 8, 2016
As such, the ESL has updated its ruleset for the next rounds of qualifiers. All matches henceforth will have a 1 hero limit, as it should for the moment, to help in increasing match variety.
Another major change is how hybrid and payload maps counts a win. The initial ruleset eschews the sudden death mechanic in-game in case of both teams managed to complete a map (which, by pro standards, it’s the majority of the times) in favour of rewarding both teams a tie and one point each.
The problem here is that payload and hybrid maps are the most popular choices to be played, and it can lead a best out of 5 match to not be resolved by a winning three games. Case in point: A match by Gale Force e-Sports and Northern Gaming Red (unofficial archive here) had to went on for almost two hours, playing six maps. First three games were a draw, the next two were a win for either side for a 4-4 score, after five games in which a final, sixth map has to be played to determine a winner.
While this could be a fringe case, the amount of draws happening in most matches should be taken account too. As such, time and distance will now be the determined factor to which team wins for payload and hybrid maps. Basically, stopwatch is back in a way.
Thankfully, the teams going for the other three qualifiers that will be commencing throughout the month will not suffer the same fate as before. As a side note, the Gosugamers Weekly tournament has also reverted back to using one hero limit rule.
While no hero limits should be something interesting to watch and play, at the moment the balancing and the meta do not produce such results just yet.