A coin toss is currently causing a stir in the Overwatch League. After a random decision and a mistake by the commentators, chief Nate Nanzer now promises that such a thing will never happen again.
Which coin toss is it about? The Overwatch League playoffs for the first phase of the 2nd season take place on the weekend of March 22. The best eight teams of the Overwatch League have been divided into four matchups to compete against each other.
In the playoffs, it gets serious after the “regular season” and ultimately it’s about who wins this phase of the season and takes home a prize pool.
These matches were determined based on the win statistics that teams achieved in the 1st phase of the regular season. Two teams, however, were exactly tied with one other team each:
- Philadelphia Fusion and Toronto Defiant, both in 3rd place
- San Francisco Shock and Seoul Dynasty, both in 6th place
Why are the placements important? They determine against whom a team plays in the 1st round:
- The team that finishes 3rd plays against the 6th.
- The team that finishes 4th plays against the 5th.
A team that finishes higher in the regular season has the chance for a statistically weaker opponent in the playoffs.
This is how the placement was decided: To decide which team gets 3rd or 4th place or 6th or 7th, the teams could either play an offline match or let a coin toss decide.
Fusion and Defiant opted for the coin.
What went wrong: The first official coin toss of the Overwatch League was personally conducted by league chief Nate Nanzer. He tossed the coin. Heads stood for Toronto Defiant, tails for Philadelphia Fusion. The toss and the result were streamed on Instagram.
Even though the coin showed heads, Nanzer declared Philadelphia Fusion the winner. A mistake he could only clarify in a later stream.
This quickly led to confusion in the community.
These are the consequences: Just shortly after the mishap, Nate Nanzer corrected himself in another stream and apologized for the mistake. However, he further responded to the incident.
In a reddit thread the league chief made it clear that such a thing will not happen again and the coin toss will not be used again:
Sorry for screwing that up. I PROMISE we will never decide something this way again.
This means that every tie will now likely be decided by a match between the tied teams. However, the coin toss might not even be the biggest problem of the Overwatch League.
What do you think about the coin toss?
The meta of the Overwatch League currently annoys many more people. However, this was celebrated with a funny scene:
