Blizzard has recently announced they have three new maps on the docket and it got me thinking of what heroes may be around the corner in terms of viability. With the meta settling into a triple DPS battleground favoring high mobility and target selection, let’s look to the future of Overwatch and attempt to predict who could see a resurgence in the competitive scene. We’ll start with the least hero likely to return, or someone who is a bit more niche, and move up to the most likely. Starting us off is a familiar face who dominated the meta for a short time and who then fell off and plummeted towards the bottom of the meta-reports.

Something interesting that could possibly raise Reaper’s spirits, is the amount of Area of Effect (AoE) healing there currently is. With the payload healing output of 10 health per second, the new Lucio rework AoE healing output from anywhere between 16.25 healing per second and 46.8 healing done per second, and Ana’s Biotic Grenade healing for a flat amount of 100 health and increasing the target’s healing by an additional 50%, this could lead us into our next metagame: the return of triple tank/death ball compositions. As someone who has filled the role as “tankbuster”, Reaper could see either some Offensive and Defensive options if this future does come to fruition.

While Reaper’s breath back into competitive play may be hinged on specific maps and a metagame shift, he may still be relegated to a more niche or very specific role if all the boxes are check. His base movement speed of 5.5 is quite low when compared to other heroes’ mobility, given the fact that most of his Offense counterparts have some other form of movement either vertical or horizontal. Perhaps an adjustment of his “E’s” cast speed or a minor flat movement speed buff could see him pushed further into the spotlight.

In OGN’s APEX Overwatch League Season 2, both Envyus and Cloud 9 had their respective share of Reaper play. Cloud 9 had a unique strategy with him on Numbani and as for Team Envyus, they peppered it in through their run on a handful of maps. The most recent semi-successful Reaper play we’ve seen comes from the hands of Lee "Twilight" Joo Seok of CONBOX Spirit. During their debut in APEX Season 3, CONBOX Spirit ran a solo support, triple DPS composition with Reaper guarding some of Numbani’s hallways and tight chokes. It didn’t go as well as it could have, but none the fewer people it is interesting that people are still open to experimenting with Reaper.

With the end of the Reaper/Mei metagame, Blizzard may be a bit gunshy when it comes to tweaking our favorite shotgun wielding wraith. Without getting too deep into balance discussion, I think If Blizzard did want to tweak Reaper they could allow his Wraith Walk to be canceled l or perhaps a minor base movement speed buff would allow him to run down his foe’s a bit better. Maybe even an interesting interaction with his health globes or maybe a new ability entirely. Anything is possible and it’s interesting to see how Reaper may look in the future.

As someone who has never really found a solid slot to fill, Sombra is seeing a surprising amount of play in the upper echelons of Korea and even in North America. Since her release around mid November, Sombra has to be plagued with identity issues for a while now. Some team’s run her in a DPS role with added healing, others take her the complete opposite route running her a Control support with the added benefit of some damage.

A handful of players and known be using Sombra as a trademark. With varieties coming from relying on her as a pocket pick or using her as a staple in the team overall strategies. Players such as CONBOX Spirit’s Twilight. His Sombra play from the promotion tournament was a highlight of my feature tracking the team’s story, thus far. With some new life coming into the team, in the form of 2 new DPS players, this frees up Twilight to really control the battlefield and Hack key targets. Someone like Kim "Rascal" Dong Jun takes Sombra in more of a Tracer-Esq route, diving the backline Hacking key targets and then assassinating them. The famed KongDoo Panthera DPS star has been applauded by many has had one of the best Sombra’s in the game. A prime example of this was his play versus Flash Lux on King’s Row during APEX Season 2.

More and more teams seem to be trying to push Sombra’s limits. We see Twilight run it quite heavily on a majority of CONBOX Spirit’s Control maps, while Rascal and another Sombra native, Libero -- tend to run it on certain Payload and Assault maps. With these stark differences in playstyle, Sombra still has some maturing to do in terms of how she fits the metagames mold, but something that could benefit her coming in the future is the three new maps that are on their way. Even apart from the newly announced maps, she has seen use in more than half of the map pool.

With Sombra’s surge into the spotlight as of late, we do have to talk about the two main things that really make Sombra “work”; her healing per second statistics (HPS) and her ultimate charge rate. When Sombra hacks a health pack, it respawns at a very rapid pace. When hacked by Sombra, the small health packs respawn in roughly two seconds and the large health packs respawn in roughly four seconds. If the health packs are used in full effectiveness, this results in 37.5 healing done per seconds for the small health pack and 62.5 healing done per second for the large health pack. To put this into perspective, Mercy does around 60 healing per second.

While Sombra does provide a surprising amount of healing overall, that's not the only thing she brings to the table. Her Hack ability shuts down and soft counters Zenyatta as it removes his shielding, which makes up over 70% of his overall health pool. Once hacked Sombra can see if the enemy has their ultimate charged. This compounds with her ultimate that Hack’s numerous people, allowing Sombra to see who could possibly be a threat after the “silence” wears off. And to top all of that off, if an enemy is below 50% health she can see them through walls. When you put all of these quirky little traits into one hero, it's bound to see some play. To be quite frank, it’s nice to see Sombra start to get a taste of the limelight, but the question remains: does she have a shelf life, or is will she become a permanent fixture of the meta?

Widowmaker is the epitome of a “double-edged sword.” At times, she can outright carry a game, but unfortunately for others, the dead weight you bring to the team can spell disaster very quickly. Of the two heroes I’ve mentioned thus far, Widowmaker takes the cake in terms of whom I see on the horizon for Overwatch moving forward. Not only is she flashy and can make a quick highlight reel, if piloted correctly, Widowmaker embodies the very nature of entertainment. One quick flick and an enemy is killed, two more quick jolts of the mouse and the rest of the team falls to the wayside.We’ve all seen the clip Timo "Taimou" Kettunen put together when he decimated BK Stars in APEX Season 2.

Transitioning into APEX Season 3 however, we’ve seen her roar back with that same intensity and fanfare as Taimou’s highlight reel performance. During the inaugural series of APEX Season 3, Widowmaker was a serious threat coming from a surging KongDoo Panthera. Their ace, birdring, had an amazing showing on it on Control as well as Hybrid. In KongDoo’s last map in their surprising upset vs Lunatic-Hai, they used an odd combo that we’ve never really seen tested or used much before; Widowmaker -- with a pocket Mercy. At first, it seemed like something strange and I never expected anything more from it. Then came the following week's match -- LuxuryWatch Blue (LW Blue) faced off against the underdog team CONBOX Spirit, and we saw the same combo on the last point as well, this time piloted to an even higher degree by veteran FPS player and a new addition to the LW Blue roster; Kim "pine" Do Hyeon.

Now, to be fair, we have seen Widowmaker used without the aid of a pocket Mercy. A prime example comes from Meta Athena’s hitscan DPS player, Ha “Sayaplayer” Jeong Woo. His Widowmaker has always been something he kept in his pocket, but his performance on Offense on Temple of Anubis against BK Stars was simply jaw-dropping. But, this new brew of Widow Mercy seems like something that Korea has been practicing in the absence of APEX. Let’s look at some of the statistics here; a damage boosted Widowmaker body shot does a flat damage (* before Armor mitigation) of 156 damage. A damage boosted Widowmaker headshot does a flat damage (* before Armor mitigation) of 390! That is comparable to Tracer’s Pulse Bomb which clocks in at 400 damage. Not only is her damage insane, but she also allows the Mercy to gain ultimate charge without actually having to heal anyone.

With those outlandish statistics in mind, let us not forget that she also has her ultimate, Inferred Sight, which allows your team to see the enemy through walls for 15.5 seconds. That coupled with some decent mobility and you are looking at one scary glass-cannon. Yes, she is a bit fragile, but if you never allow your opponent to get close to you,  do you really mind skimping on the defense? I don’t think so.

Widowmaker could easily see a ton of play with team’s that have strong hitscan DPS players. Teams like Envyus, Selfless, Immortals and Team eUnited could all break out the Widowmaker at any given time. Will they pocket their sniper with a Mercy? That remains to be seen. I’ll personally be interested to see if that specific composition goes anywhere in the coming months or if it will just be an ace in the hole for teams that can run it effectively.

While these three heroes, in particular, may be on the horizon, we do have to take a nod to some of the heroes that came in at a close second. Some honorable mentions include Junkrat and Orisa.

We do see some teams still pick Junkrat on Nepal/Sanctum as well as holding the fountain on the first point on Defense of Dorado. Outside of that, if Junkrat doesn’t see any changes, I don’t suspect anyone to really experiment with the demolitions expert any time soon.

Orisa was a tough omission; again similar to Junkrat, she does see some play on Nepal/Sanctum. If the meta shifts into favoring tanks again and somehow Dive is valued less than it is now, then it's very possible she could pop up. She has very strong sustained DPS as well as a nice shield to compliment other tanks. While I personally don’t think she’s in a good spot, we could see teams really try and push her into prominence in the future.

Written by: @Volamel

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment and OGN.