Stage 2 of Overwatch League 2019 will introduce Baptiste, Paris and map order changes
Big meta changes in store for the second phase of this year's premiere competition.
Stage 2 of the Overwatch League 2019 kicks off next month, and when it arrives on Thursday 4th April we’ll finally get to see how the pros handle new hero Baptiste, as well as the recently released Paris map.
To spice things up even further, the latest patch for the game introduced some fairly significant adjustments to the existing roster of heroes.
Armor effectiveness is now generally improved, knockback consistency has been adjusted, and various tweaks have been made to the way that shots are affected by damage boosts. Take a look at the official patch notes for more detail, where you’ll also find details of individual hero changes too.
Paris will also get its first showing in the game’s premier tournament with the start of Stage 2.
Additionally, the order of play for maps is being tweaked. As draws are more common on assault maps, they’re being positionally swapped with hybrid maps to reduce the chance that a match is decided part-way through the third map.
Here’s how the map pool looks for Stage 2 as a result:
- Control: Lijiang Tower, Oasis, Busan
- Assault: Paris, Temple of Anubis, Hanamura
- Hybrid: Blizzard World, Eichenwalde, King’s Row
- Escort: Junkertown, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Rialto
Tiebreakers will be based on one of the two Control maps not already played in a series.
Finally, matches overall are taking longer than expected and so the schedule will be tweaked to accommodate longer sessions. Although the organisers originally expected each match to last around 90 minutes, they proved to run closer to 105 minutes. The schedule page has the revised times if you want to check them out.
Before Stage 2 begins, we’ll get to wait the Top 8 teams from Stage 1 duke it out in the bonus playoff bracket this weekend. Check out our playoff post from earlier today for the full details of who’s playing who and when.
