The Overwatch League returned for some online matches this weekend with everyone working from home. This presented a unique issue, though, because Sunday nights are when picks and bans for the next week are made.
For the past few weeks, before the league was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the casters had been using a lottery or bingo ball machine to randomly choose which heroes would be banned for the upcoming week.
With all of the casters working from the safety of their own homes, Salome “Soe” Gschwind’s cat Nori replaced the bingo ball machine last night—and the feline brought about the ban most fans were looking for.
With a bunch of eligible hero names on cards facing down, Soe presented Nori with an opportunity to save the league. The cat, obviously not knowing anything about Overwatch or which card had which hero, somehow picked Mei, leading to an outburst of joy from everyone on the stream.
Mei, along with her slowing ice gun and giant ice walls, has been wreaking havoc on the league all year. She’s had a pick rate as high as 98 percent on a week-to-week basis and has been a mainstay in a number of team compositions.
This week, there will be no Mei (or McCree, Brigitte, and Wrecking Ball). And it’s all thanks to a cat. Maybe the Overwatch League has truly figured out the formula.
