Tracer is back in Overwatch League, but for how long?

Last weekend’s matches brought the biggest changes to Overwatch League 2020 so far. Hero pools had a real impact on the compositions that were being played. It even helped to bring a fan-favorite hero, Tracer, back into play.

Tracer has always had special importance among Overwatch fans. She appears on both the Overwatch League’s logo and the box art for the game itself. It was exciting to see Overwatch’s poster girl come back in a big way. 

Back in action

Teams played Tracer for 66% of the game time last weekend. In comparison, she was only played for 16% of the overall season so far. The new meta composition that quickly developed was a variant of the dive meta from Overwatch League season one. New additions to the composition were Sombra in place of Genji, and Brigitte instead of Mercy.

The last time Tracer was a key part of the meta was 2018, so there were moments where the weekend’s matches felt like we had gone back in time.

Longtime Overwatch League fans will have been happy to see some old favorites showing off their Tracer skills. Tracer legends Jong-ryeol “Saebyeolbe” Park, Terence “SoOn” Tarlier, and Jae-hyeok “Carpe” Lee were all in action over the weekend.

Will we see more Tracer this season?

While Tracer is not out of rotation for the next matches, two key components of the weekend’s dominant meta, Sombra and Winston, are out.

Without Winston, teams are less likely to run the aggressive dive compositions that Tracer is effective in. With the return of Reinhardt and McCree, we may see a return to the McCree/Mei composition that dominated before hero pools. However now that there is a new hero pool each week, we can never say for certain that any hero won’t be played again this season. 

With the announcement that the rest of the 2020 season will be played online, we will have to wait until March 21 to see what the next meta will be and whether Tracer has any place in it.