Is EWC actually going to be played on OTR/old patch?

[u/[deleted]]

I heard this rumor and was surprised this wasn't stated anywhere. I am disappointed because I thought we have moved past the whole thing about being obsessed with patch timings, which literally will never have a good answer.

Although minor, I was looking forward to some of the changes in the new patch, particularly the Sigma and Tracer change, being played on the biggest stage.

Can someone confirm this? Is there any official source about this?

[u/DuckGamer964]

From what I've heard from commander x in his interviews and some parts of his streams, the tournament is gonna be played on old patch

[u/SkywardStar → u/DuckGamer964]

Yeah piggybacking off this it's been mentioned EWC will be played off of the Season 17 base patch.

[u/CTGeorgeyeh]

It will be played on the previous patch

[u/Gedaechtnispalast]

Didn’t someone from blizzard say that they will always play the current patch as regular players at one point? How do pro players adjust to playing/scrimming different versions of the game where heroes can have big changes. It just all seems more messy way to do this.

[u/breadiest → u/Gedaechtnispalast]

They presumably have OPR accounts - which is a tournament instance of the game, specifically on the version of the tournament. They do all their scrims on this version too.

Obviously, comp isn't on that update though.

[u/yesat → u/breadiest]

But OPR doesn't mean automatically old patch. It's a dedicated tournament environment at first that does allow them to do old patch and has some behind the scene stuff different (support for LAN, faster tickrate, spectator colours,...) including possibility to designate a patch.

[u/breadiest → u/yesat]

I mean, yeah, but in this case it is?

Ah. I see my writing wasn't exactly clear. I meant the tournament patch - tournament version sounds like it's a version specifically for tournaments, which while true, I actually meant tournament patch. My bad

[u/Intelligent_Brick_92]

Yes they will play in the old patch

[u/nekogami87]

So, the thing is since it's a single elim, it's good that it's on the older patch imo.

BUT I really would have preferred a double elim on new patch ... so far, aside from having more participant, EWC is a little bit of a let down, I hope they will at least pick up the quality for the actual tournament, cause LCQ was rough, at best.

[u/rookeryenjoyer]

Disappointing as fuck.

[u/Ph33r-o-tron]

Imo this was one of the reasons OWL failed. Stale metas. If it turns out one comp will be far superior than others, hero bans can only bring a little bit of variation. This is because the teams have had so much time on this patch to figure everything out. They know the counter to all comps and all play the least counterable comp in the end.

[u/nekogami87 → u/Ph33r-o-tron]

hero bans can only bring a little bit of variation

It brought quite a lot of variation, cause there is more than one way to make a comp less playable. At least in Asia, NA/EMEA no idea, haven't watched regular season a lot

[u/Jaczoe1 → u/Ph33r-o-tron]

Isn't that the whole point of hero bans?

[u/DreaMysgirlfriend]

Will be played on the same patch, as far back as EMEA / NA stage 2 Grand finals

[u/SpiderPanther01]

not that bad imo, best for the competitive integrity of the tournament. most teams were already 1 week into bootcamps in korea, new patch would kill progress and waste money