Ana's 'Overwatch' appearance on PC is screwing up the ESL tournament

UPDATE: July 19, 2016, 5:08 p.m. EDT Tournament play was postponed due to server issues.

When you're in the middle of an esports tournament and a major game patch hits, there's nothing to do besides play on and adapt.

During ESL's Atlantic Showdown Overwatch tournament, the latest patch went live on PC, introducing the new hero Ana and changing the abilities of other heroes, shortening the game's overtime mode and forcing players to change up their tactics.

The online tournament was delayed for about a half hour as players downloaded the update as fast as their Internet connections allowed them. The teams that were supposed to play were put on hold because one player's computer was having an issue downloading the patch, so Exaequo and Deathmatch Gang played in their stead.

While the update was available to play on the public test realm (PTR), which is essentially an open beta for players to test out incoming updates, players in the tournament didn't have nearly enough time to master Ana or fully try out the updated heroes.

One of the analysts for the tournament, Mitch "Uber" Leslie, said on stream commentary Ana is "pretty broken on the PTR," implying that the new hero is overpowered, which is a common issue with new characters in competitive games.

The first teams playing in the new patch didn't try their luck with Ana, but Exaequo's Link played as D.Va and Deathmatch Gang's Dennia played as Zenyatta, two characters which had the biggest changes in the patch. Before this patch, D.Va and Zenyatta were rare sights in the tournament, so their buffs likely made them much more appealing hero choices.

After a couple maps were played, the analysts were kicked out of the server and were unable to get back on, so viewers were unable to see the ending of the match. The next game was postponed after one of the teams was unable to stay connected to the server.

The ESL Atlantic Showdown is the first Overwatch international tournament, kicking off less than two months after the game released. As the patch hit, the tournament was in the middle of the third round of European qualifiers, with the third round of North American qualifiers starting the following day.

As teams start practicing more with Ana and some of the other updated characters, they will likely be more and more common as the tournament continues. At least until the next patch hits.

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