The Overwatch League has announced that Hero Pools will now last two weeks at a time and will be followed by two weeks of no hero pools for the remainder of the season.

They also announced that the next tournament, the Summer Showdown, will take place in the first weekend of July and another tournament will follow that one four weeks later.

The next Hero Pool will eliminate Echo, Sombra, D.Va and Brigitte from competitive play for the next two weeks. After that, the final week of qualifying for the Summer Showdown will run without a Hero Pool and the Summer Showdown will also run without a Hero Pool. The next monthly tournament will follow the same schedule structure and then the final two weeks of the regular season will be played with one Hero Pool before teams enter the playoffs without Hero Pools.

There will be no Hero Pools in ranked play at any level.

The Summer Showdown itself will have prize pools $50,000 larger than the May Melee with a pool of $275,000. The format will be the same as the May Melee and the tournament champions will have the opportunity to earn 3 regular season wins, much like they did in the May Melee.

Teams will play a total of 21 regular season matches this year, a total reduced from the 28 initially planned before the pandemic. The schedule was revealed for the next three weeks of the season but no schedule details beyond that were announced.

The deadlines for free agent signings and trade deals have been moved from June 15 to July 31 for all teams.