Overwatch screenshot of Viking Torbjorn from the Halloween Terror event

[Update]: Blizzard has released another statement on the whole issue.

[Original Story]: If you've given the official subreddit even a single glance today you're no doubt aware that a large amount of 'onetricks', players that only pick one specific hero regardless of circumstances, have received a 24 hour ban. There is currently a lot of misinformation being spread around, but the root cause behind all of the suspensions appears to be a large amount of reports filed by their fellow players.

When one of the banned players asked Blizzard's Customer Service to review their ban, here's the answer they were given back: "If that means that you are picking up a particular character, completely ignoring the rest of the team composition, and the requests from people, that they cannot accommodate you to your play-style, then the reports are justified I'm afraid." In other words, it seems that Blizzard is getting really serious about cleaning up the Competitive Mode, though I don't think banning people willy-nilly is going to accomplish that any time soon.

However, I do understand where Blizzard is coming for, and as such I don't envy their position as this is not an easy problem to solve. Here's the dilemma:

FOR: Everyone has the right to play whatever hero they want, as long as they are trying their best to win. Just because someone has picked Hanzo or Torbjorn does not mean they are trying to lose the game, so banning them just because of their hero choices is completely silly. This goes doubly so for heroes like Torbjorn which can work on a surprising number of maps, as proven in the recent Overwatch World Cup, but usually get hated on and reported before the round has even begun, all because of 'everyone knows' that Torbjorn is terrible on X map.

AGAINST: While playing a specialist hero is perfectly fine on maps that favor them, things quickly become problematic on maps that don't. Trying to break the Hanamura A-point choke with a Torbjorn on attack is an exercise in pure frustration. This goes doubly so for teams that want to run a specific strategy (like dive), yet cannot because one of their teammates simply refuses to switch. So the question is, do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, especially in a mode that's designed entirely around serious competition?

If you were hoping I would give you some sort of poignant answer that would solve the whole conundrum, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you as I have absolutely no idea on how to approach this issue. Both sides are equally right and equally wrong, so picking only one is a recipe for disaster.

The one thing I do know, however, is that Blizzard should at least personally review a couple of games before banning someone for improper conduct. To do anything else would just be inviting trouble, because the moment this news spreads among the community people will start reporting every Hanzo, Widowmaker, or Torbjorn they see - no matter if they are willing to swap or not. Either way, its going to be interesting to see what happens next as Blizzard is treading completely new ground here.

Overwatch screenshot from the Christmas event

I can only hope the Overwatch community will be this friendly to each other one day