Now that I have my internet back in working order (I hope) I can get back to business. I could talk about the big roster moves in the Overwatch League, but this week is “BluishOblivion Goes Gaming” week because the world is too depressing to talk about right now. When more teams actually announce their final rosters, which teams were supposed to have at least 8 players signed on November 15th, I’ll post about that later this week. Here’s to hoping for something good. (Uprising did pick up Swimmer, part of my dream pickups I predicted when Season 2 ended.)

Instead, today I talk about Meta particularly at the professional level. Meta, for those not in the know, is the most effective group of players currently in the game. We had the dive meta, which was fun. GOATs, which arguably wasn’t. As a tank main in Overwatch, GOATs didn’t bother me too much. This new double shield meta, Orisa/Sigma, is interesting enough. But I argue, it isn’t the meta that’s the problem.

Professional players at the OWL level are expected to be the best of the best. Which to me means that they don’t have to bow down to a meta. Look at what happened when teams played to their strengths rather than just went with the meta because they were supposed to. Houston started to thrive. Chengdu never did things the normal way and didn’t do too poorly. Then look at the teams who struggled with GOATs but still tried it anyways. (I’m looking at you Uprising.) Being so stubborn to go against the grain cost more teams than it should have.

With the new PTR, it seems they haven’t pinpointed exactly what the meta is going to be. And I think that’s great. Maybe this means there were enough changes to give more flexibility to teams. Maybe this means I can venture back into competitive because I won’t get flamed for picking D.Va. Who knows? But, what I do know is that I expect exciting from these top tier players. I expect them to pull out a Symmetra on some maps even though it’s not meta. I love watching the unexpected Torb picks. It adds variety to watching the matches. Best of all, it gives us hope as casuals that we don’t have to pick Sigma just because we’re an off-tank.

I can’t wait to see what the PTR brings to the competitive scene. With Season 3 of Overwatch League coming out in about 80-something days, the PTR needs to get released soon to make sure that any balance changes that need to happen take place before we get mid-season and everyone gets confused. But.. let’s bring D.Va back. Signed, D.Va mains everywhere.