Overwatch 2 Making Big Change to Stadium Competitive

by

Starting with Season 19 of *Overwatch 2*, competitive matches will now be shorter. Like Quick Play, they will only consist of five rounds instead of the previous seven.

Stadium is a game mode that debuted in Season 16, where two teams of five players competed in a best-of-seven series. Players could customize their heroes between rounds with Powers and Items, changing how they played. Season 18 brought Stadium Quick Play to *Overwatch 2*, offering a more relaxed experience with features like backfill and crossplay, and shorter matches consisting of five rounds.

Competitive Stadium in Overwatch 2 Now Best of Five

As a big Competitive Play fan, I’m really interested in the changes coming in Season 19, Haunted Masquerade! It sounds like they’re taking a page from Quick Play’s book and cutting the number of rounds down to five – it used to be seven. Apparently, the game director, Aaron Keller, announced this on Twitter. He says it’ll make matches faster without losing what makes Competitive Play, well, Competitive!

As a big fan of Stadium Powers, I’m really excited about the changes! Basically, matches will now be first to three wins instead of four, which should make things faster-paced. To make up for the shorter matches, we’ll be getting Stadium Powers in rounds 1, 2, 3, and 5 – the same as Quick Play – and we’ll earn Stadium Cash at a quicker rate so we can build up our stuff faster. Plus, it looks like the Mercy Rule is going away completely, since it only triggered after three losses, and it wasn’t even a thing in Quick Play anyway. It all sounds great!

This is a good move for *Overwatch 2*. Although the Stadium mode was popular, the best-of-seven matches could be very long, sometimes lasting 30 to 45 minutes. Players generally liked the best-of-five format in Quick Play, so while some will miss the longer matches, most seem happy with this change.

Overwatch 2 Season 19 is bringing a lot of new content to Stadium mode! Players will be able to try out Hazard, Sojourn, and Torbjorn for the first time in this game type, and a Stadium version of the Busan Control map is also being added. To add a new layer of strategy, new consumable items called Gadgets are being introduced. Plus, the Armory has been improved with better search and filter options, making it easier than ever to create your ideal Stadium build.

Read More

2025-10-14 21:35