Think about the current trend, or "meta", in the NBA. The Golden State Warriors with Curry, Thompson, and Durant have essentially changed the NBA "meta". They have made the 3 point shot so valuable that no other team has the team comp to counter it. Now the other teams are trying to build their rosters to fit in with this current 3 point meta. A meta change in the major traditional pro sports happens but not very often. Also, it should be noted that the meta doesn't change depending on what stadium they are playing in.
In professional Overwatch there is a unique challenge that is not present in traditional pro sports. Meta change.
Meta change happens rather quickly. With weekly game updates from Blizzard sometimes meta changes happen weekly. Granted sometimes the weekly game update doesn't always impact the meta but it does change on a much more regular basis than traditional sports. There has even been times where a meta change has come down the pipe during the middle of an ongoing tournament.
The challenge for the Blizzard dev team is that as players become better at certain characters the hidden strengths and weaknesses get brought to light. Sometimes when a character is seen to be too strong or too weak then the dev team will make changes to balance the game. Sometimes these changes cause some characters to start being played and others to stop being played, changing the meta. Another factor that often times changes the meta is the introduction of a new character to the game. Each map also has its very own meta. Like pharmacy on Lijiang Tower Garden or Sombra on Volskaya defence, these comps aren't popular on most maps but run very competitively on these maps.
As the start of Overwatch League draws closer I wonder what steps Blizzard is going to take to minimize the impact of game updates and meta changes. I am also curious to see if meta changes have a positive impact on the fans. There is an argument the meta changes allow just enough change in the game to keep it interesting. I guess we will find out if that is true once OWL finally kicks off.
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@dwelling