The Overwatch League has announced a few changes to hero pools. The most notable change is that hero pools in the Overwatch League and ranked play will be synced.

Watchpoint will announce each week's unified hero pool for the Overwatch League, Overwatch Contenders, Open Division and ranked play. The first unified hero pool will be announced this Sunday.

In their news post, the Overwatch League said, "We are moving to a universal Hero Pool because it enables Overwatch League players to practice with available heroes in scrims and Competitive Play and allows the entire Overwatch community to get a consistent experience both playing and watching."

Hero pools will be determined by a new "algorithm-driven system" that compiles play rates from "high-level Competitive Play matches" from the previous two weeks. Much like before, all heroes with play rates above a certain threshold will be eligible to be removed but heroes with higher play rates will be more likely to be removed. No hero will be removed two weeks in a row.

The Overwatch League's hero pool for the upcoming weekend of matches will remain unchanged. The heroes banned are Sombra, Reaper, D.Va and Ana.