A clever decision by Overwatch's professional esports team Florida Carnival was ruled "illegal" by Blizzard over the weekend. The team suddenly attacked the opposing Paris opponent by teleporting and crossing the roof, and was forced to replay. They eventually won the race, but even Blizzard admitted the banned act was fun.
The Florida Carnival team's strategy is based on The Beauty and The Light of Order, two heroes whose abilities can help the team move around the map. At the beginning of the round, their little beauty player places an ice wall on a nearby roof. Usually this is not possible: a wall usually needs to be placed on solid, flat ground, but you can occasionally place it on the outside of the map. After the little beauty wall was raised, the Light of Order placed a teleporter on it, taking the entire team to the roof, surprised their opponents, and easily won the first team battle.
Former Watch Esports League coach David "Dpei" Pei said on the livestream: "You can't teleport to the wall, Blizzard mentioned this last year or a certain year. This is not allowed. ”
The Revels eventually won the game, but before moving on to the next game, the league's livestream was delayed by 20 minutes until Blizzard ruled. As the livestream continued, Blizzard announced that the team had to rematch. However, even without exploiting the loophole, the Carnival team still won the game in the end.
Shortly after the ruling, Overwatch league chief Sean Miller tweeted that the rule was made clear before the season began:
"While we know it's an interesting game, the ruling here is that using the Wall of Beauty to teleport through the Light of Order to an unusable location is a exploit and was never allowed in OWL matches. This rule was communicated to the team and players before the start of the season. ”
For the Carnival, though, it's become an internal joke with their fans. The day after the match, the official Twitter posted a picture reliving the fun game.