What we learned from the Overwatch League’s Echo exhibition matches

When the Overwatch League gets bored, we all benefit. After official online matches on March 21 and 22 were canceled due to a California shelter-in-place order, a few Overwatch League teams and talent figures decided to play anyway. On March 22, the league held exhibition matches on the Public Test Realm (PTR) so that professional players could try Overwatch’s newest hero, Echo.

The exhibition matches, referred to as “friendly” matches, were quick and hilarious. Casters Mitch “UberShouts” Leslie and Matt “Mr. X” Morello did double duty as observers and producers. Serious teams like the San Francisco Shock and Los Angeles Gladiators let loose, running team compositions that would never see the light of day in the Overwatch League. Here’s what we learned from these exhibition matches.

Flex DPS players will go wild on Echo 

Echo, the game’s newest damage dealer, has a kit that’s practically tailor-made for DPS players who love projectile damage and a little bit of chaos. Her ultimate, Duplicate, allows her to copy an enemy player’s abilities and charge ultimates at a whopping 650 percent increase. It’s no surprise that professional DPS players had a ball with her, even though they most often chose to duplicate tank heroes.

During the San Francisco Shock and Seoul Dynasty match, each team’s DPS players got a chance to use Echo on at least one map. Flexible players like Park “Profit” Joon-yeong of the Seoul Dynasty and Jay “Sinatraa” Won of the San Francisco Shock were obviously having way too much fun on the hero. Sinatraa managed to gain 75 percent of Echo’s ultimate charge in under 20 seconds on Junkertown by attacking the Seoul Dynasty in their spawn.

When the Los Angeles Valiant and Los Angeles Gladiators went to battle, the Valiant’s Kai “KSP” Collins and Kyle “KSF” Frandanisa took turns on the hero and copied the Gladiators’ best tanks. Chris “MirroR” Trinh and Jason “Jaru” White were a little more creative with Echo, copying support heroes and whatever DPS the Valiant threw at them.

Hitscan heroes are Echo’s counter 

When Sinatraa tested Echo with lead game director Jeff Kaplan on her release day, he initially noted that hitscan heroes would be an effective counter for the high-flying hero. These matches proved him right.

Sniper expert Lee “ANS” Seon-chang made his debut on the San Francisco Shock and was able to do massive damage to Echo and the enemy team. MirroR of the Los Angeles Gladiators played Soldier: 76 and even Torbjörn against Echo with a good level of success. McCree and Ashe were also effective against Echo. 

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