On Week 2, Day 3 of OWCS Korea, Crazy Raccoon rolled out of Colosseo’s spawn doors playing Symmetra, Torbjorn, Wrecking Ball, Lucio, and Baptiste. This composition’s core heroes of Symmetra, Torbjorn, and Wrecking Ball had never been played together in OWCS before, and for good reason. Sure, Torbjorn saw some playtime as a niche anti-dive pick, but Symmetra was forever relegated to TP-out-of-spawn rollouts, and Wrecking Ball largely struggled to remain relevant in the 5v5 era.
It was easy to write off Crazy Raccoon’s comp as a joke. Crazy Raccoon is one of the best teams in the world, and their opponent VEC remains winless to this day. The team had ample opportunity to troll by playing seemingly random heroes. When the Chinese caster Chen saw Crazy Raccoon’s silly team comp, however, he instantly recognized the signature heroes of Please Not Hero Ban, a Japanese one-trick team that had secured a spot in OWCS Japan through qualifiers. “This is a Japanese comp!” Chen said on his co-stream.
One day later, Please Not Hero Ban (PNHB) made their debut in OWCS Japan, winning 3-1 against Aplomb Tiger. PNHB’s one-trick heroes were Symmetra, Torbjorn, Wrecking Ball, Illari, and Baptiste. As their team name suggests, Please Not Hero Ban lived and died by their silly heroes, only switching when hero bans forced them to. For a brief moment, Crazy Raccoon and PNHB were the only two teams to have played Ball, Sym, and Torb together.
And then something strange happened. Suddenly, everyone was playing PNHB’s composition. Every match in Week 3 of OWCS Korea featured some Wrecking Ball, Symmetra, or Torbjorn gameplay. Team Falcons put Proper on Symmetra. What Al Qadsiah support Landon called the “Torbjorn virus” had spread to the West. Teams were banning Torbjorn not to protect another DPS pick, but because they genuinely didn’t want the other team to play Torbjorn.
What in the world was going on?
A Fresh Meta
Wrecking Ball, Symmetra, and Torbjorn may seem more at home in a Bronze ranked lobby than a professional esports match, but the team composition makes sense in the context of the recent Hazard meta. Hazard dominated competitive play for much of December and January. In late January, Hazard finally received a small nerf—his Violent Leap cooldown was extended by one second—but he was still played more often than not.
Symmetra and Torbjorn, while niche picks, are both very strong against Hazard. Their turrets prevent Hazard from easily jumping into the backline, and Symmetra’s primary fire shreds through any protection offered by Hazard’s Spike Guard. The two builders are also extremely survivable, and their ultimates are perfect for controlling and stalling map objectives. Wrecking Ball, on the other hand, became a more viable tank option after the Hazard nerf. “True Hazard meta was the patch before. The +1 to his leap allows for more flexibility in comp selections,” said Jon, a private Overwatch coach who previously worked in EU Contenders. “Plus, the longer something is meta, the more common it is that you see new stuff being cooked up.”
But the Ball-Sym-Torb comp isn’t just good at countering Hazard. After a series of small, incremental buffs—or “power creep,” as Avidity coach Raelyni put it—Wrecking Ball, Symmetra, and Torbjorn are now strong heroes on their own merits. Recently, DPS players have found unexpected success climbing with Sym and Torb on the ranked ladder. “Pros basically started picking Sym and Torb as a result of their dominance in ranked, and it’s spread like wildfire,” said Unter, coach of Spacestation Gaming. “The characters mostly regarded as a joke have been realized to be quite strong.”
A combination of hero bans and a brand-new patch have pushed teams to experiment more. During their match on Friday, Gen.G and Sakura Esports played 17 heroes in a single map. Raelyni noted that “a lot of the new comps are appearing in response to builders and also the response to that response.” She described the current meta as “rock-paper-scissors,” and added that teams are gradually shifting away from strict adherence to Sym-Torb.
“It’s a super fresh meta and this week teams only really had a couple of days to start figuring it out,” Unter said. “Everyone’s playing Mystery Heroes in an attempt to crack elements of it… I don’t think anyone really has it figured out yet.”
A Brief History of Please Not Hero Ban
As any fan of the 2019 Clockwork Vendetta can attest, this isn’t the first time a team of one-tricks have pioneered a new meta. OWCS pros may have stumbled into the Ball-Sym-Torb comp based on whatever was working in ranked, but the one-tricks of Please Not Hero Ban had already been playing this comp for years.
Please Not Hero Ban was formed as a spiritual successor to Ojama Delta Hurricane (ODH), a team of one-tricks that placed fifth in Korea’s 2023 Overwatch Contenders Summer Series. ODH’s Ball one-trick, UYOU, wanted to create a new one-trick team to compete in OWCS’s Japanese region. He brought along fellow ODH alum Catlight (formerly known as Cistern) and filled out the rest of the roster with one-trick players from Japan. “UYOU told me that since I was the best Torb in Japan, it would be easy for [Please Not Hero Ban] to take first place,” said RLG5656, a Japanese streamer and PNHB’s Torbjorn player.
UYOU was confident in the Ball-Sym-Torb comp because he had found success with it on ODH back in 2023. ODH had even taken first place in the 2023 Summer WDG Open Tournament. “Perhaps Ball Sym Torb was always stronger,” RLG5656 said. “It may be the perfect comp.” (He followed that statement with a laughing emoji.) RLG5656 may have had a point: currently, PNHB is tied for first in their group.
Other teams will likely move away from forcing Wrecking Ball, Symmetra, and Torbjorn when the meta develops. European and North American teams have shifted towards a Sojourn-Torbjorn DPS duo. Even PNHB themselves have deviated a bit from their standard team composition; they surprised us all earlier today by banning Torbjorn and subbing in Meruna to play Sojourn. Nevertheless, Please Not Hero Ban have achieved the ultimate cultural victory—Overwatch esports fans worldwide are calling Ball-Sym-Torb “the PNHB comp.”
Comments