Evolution Never Over: The Way of the Meta

Being in maintenance mode means there won’t be any more balance patches, new heroes or reworks for Heroes of the Storm. These game updates are usually used by the developers to alter the meta and guide it towards the direction they want. The game is currently in a quite balanced state and doesn’t have any out-of-the-charts characters (Rehgar is quite strong but he’s not out of control), such as the overtuned Zagara from the patch 54 cycle. There will always be stronger and weaker heroes, but those strengths and weaknesses are, precisely, what define the meta.

Without the developers to direct the meta, this responsibility relies wholly on the playerbase. Knowing there won’t be any more updates allows players to come up with counterpicks for the strongest heroes and slowly alter the importance of each character in the roster. We can notice this evolution by looking at the popularity vs. win rate charts provided by Heroes Profile:

Patch 55.2 data is taken from the May hotfix to the beginning of the current game iteration. Patch 55.3 didn’t include any balance changes and only put the game into maintenance mode, that’s why we can compare both versions. Its chart covers the time window from when it was released until today. The higher a hero is positioned vertically, the more games they have appeared in (pick rate). The win rate is represented in the horizontal axis, with Rehgar sitting on top for both patches. The bigger the portrait of a hero is, the higher their ban rate is.

We can observe how Ragnaros has become more popular and stronger, how Genji’s win rate has fallen, or how Imperius is getting closer to winning half of the games he appears in. Generally speaking, less popular heroes can experiment huge win rate changes, as their sample is much smaller and can be “easily” altered. These changes can be caused by counter strategies or the emergence of new viable builds (sometimes both these situations are closely related). That’s how the meta evolves organically. The distribution moves along the chart in a slow but continuous flow. However, some of you may wonder: is it too slow?

Directed Evolution

Even if we don’t have the potential to nerf, buff or rework heroes, there’s something we can do to force more drastic meta changes. The Heroes of the Storm community has already observed how the meta evolves when the most popular heroes are banned. We’re talking about META Madness. At the six editions of Khaldor’s tournament we’ve watched teams come up with insolit, wild and sometimes unplayable drafts once and again. This idea of banning heroes throughout a whole tournament could be adapted to force meta changes.

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META Madness 6 Grand Finals.

To keep some consistency across tournaments, these hypothetically banned heroes should be the same in all the events. The list could be made by pro players and tournament organizers and change two or three times a year, or even more often. This global ban list wouldn’t be as populated as META Madness ones, it would only feature one or two heroes per role (or the ones with the highest win rates across the whole hero pool).

The main problem to apply this global ban list would be Storm League, where none of the heroes would be banned by default. Competitive players would try to play and train the heroes they’re able to use at tournaments, but high elo players who don’t participate in the esports scene would play the best overall heroes, which would probably be in the ban list. This situation could be avoided with inhouse games, which we’ve already seen during some of the biggest roster shuffles. It wouldn’t be easy to organize, but it could work.

Theoretically speaking, this global ban list concept could be applied in the Heroes of the Storm scene. It would require a huge effort from both the players and the tournament organizers, but it could make the scene much more spicy. Would it be actually viable? Would it be good for the game? Would it be worth it?

Do you prefer an organic evolution of the meta or forcing it with hero bans? Let us know your thoughts!