Crafting the Ultimate Overwatch League Team

In the Overwatch League, forming a cohesive team that works well together can often be the most important detail that will let you win a match or series. You might be better off taking a player who is slightly less skilled on paper, if they mesh better with the team and the group performs better as a whole. It’s the old adage of the group being better than the sum of their parts, and we’ve certainly seen teams secure wins when, on paper, they should have lost. But where’s the fun in choosing which balanced team to support and cheer for, when you can theory craft your own team of superstars from all possible candidates.

When it comes to planning the ultimate Overwatch League team, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, yes, you do need some kind of balance on your team. You can’t just have 6 DPS mains roll out onto the field, it wouldn’t go well (until it did, after all, if Quickplay has taught me anything, it’s that 6 DPS heroes can in fact push a payload). So, don’t head over to the Overwatch League website, sort by role, and just choose 6 Tanks, or DPS, or something.

Another thing to consider is the team’s nationality composition. Or, more accurately, what language do they speak when making call-outs. It doesn’t matter if you can get the best players on their hero on the same team, if they can’t communicate. So, let’s try to keep in mind how they’ll be interacting outside of just clicking heads when we build our team.

So, let’s jump right in and build the perfect roster to take down the rest of the teams. Starting with DPS, we’d want to pick up players who have shown their skill on a variety of heroes. Byung-sun "Fleta" Kim from the Seoul Dynasty and Jae-hyeok "Carpe" Lee from the Philadelphia Fusion would be excellent choices here. While both players play a lot of Widowmaker to a very high level, their Champion pools don’t really overlap a ton beyond that. Fleta is more than capable of taking down the enemy with Genji and Pharah, while Carpe has made a name for himself with his Tracer skills and can flex to Brigitte for a little more support action.

DPS down, let’s look at the Tanks that can shield the team from harm. We want a good mix here, with players who don’t overlap too much when it comes to hero pools. Jae-hee "Gesture" Hong from the London Spitfire would be a good choice, with his Winston, Orisa, Reinhardt providing a lot of shielding power. To complement that, let’s look at Joon-hyuk "zunba" Kim from the Seoul Dynasty, with his Zarya, D.VA, Roadhog combination that would mesh well with his partner in crime. The two players together, should be more than capable of holding down choke points and keeping their DPS alive to deal critical damage.

Finally, let’s look at Support mains. It might not seem like the most glamorous role in the team, but the Supports truly do keep the game moving forward. Making sure your DPS are healed up and ready for action and making sure your Tanks can survive a pounding are key factors in allowing teams to advance on objectives and win games. We would want players who have shown a decent amount of skill under pressure, since they’ll likely be the targets of the enemy from the start. Seung-tae "Bdosin" Choi from the London Spitfire and Sung-hyeon "JJoNak" Bang from the New York Excelsior have both shown an incredible amount of skill under pressure, with Bdosin helping his team win the inaugural Overwatch League season, and JJoNak being crowned the T-Mobile OWL MVP for his incredible skill.

So, now we have a full roster of 6 players, and as luck would have it, they’re all from South Korea, so language barriers aren’t an issue. Sadly, we’re unlikely to ever see this roster come about, but fans can still dream, right? Until then, the eyes of the community are firmly on the expansion teams and seeing what kind of roster they build for next year.