Stage 2 will be played on patch 1.34. As a result, new hero Baptiste and new map Paris will be eligible for play during the stage.

The patch for Stage 2 will be the same patch that was just released to the live servers. The patch includes the addition of Baptiste and changes to many of Overwatch's heroes.

The Stage 2 map pool has been revealed. It will include assault map Paris for the first time in the Overwatch League or Contenders. It will join Hanamura and Temple of Anubis in the assault stage pool. Other maps in the Stage 2 pool will be Busan, Lijiang Tower, Oasis, Blizzard World, Eichenwalde, Kings Row, Junkertown, Watchpoint: Gibralter and Rialto.

With the new map pool also comes a new map order for sets in Stage 2. Assault maps will be the second maps of matches instead of hybrid. This is because assault is more likely to decide the series part-way through a match because of a draw.

Matches will now be scheduled for longer time blocks in response to matches repeatedly running over the scheduled time slot. The new time slots are visible on the Stage 2 schedule.

The league office will also be adding additional tiebreakers to reduce the risk of a tie for seeding in the stage playoffs and the playoffs at the end of the season. The exact changes to the tiebreak rules will be announced later.

These changes won't take effect during the stage playoffs and instead will become active at the start of Stage 2 in April. The start of Stage 2 is April 4 between the Philadelphia Fusion and New York Excelsior.