Overwatch League sets its new online-only schedule for spring

For the next month-and-a-half, the league’s clubs will only compete online against opponents in the same geographic region as they reside. For example, this week’s slate of games sees the San Francisco Shock, Los Angeles Gladiators, Los Angeles Valiant and Seoul Dynasty, all of which are based on the west coast of the US, playing against one another. Some teams will need to play more frequently in the next while to catch up to the number of matches they were originally scheduled to have played by this point in the season.

Blizzard originally balanced this year’s schedule around the fact that teams would play against opponents in their own conference twice. With this updated schedule, that’s not possible anymore; some teams will play more than three matches against the same opponent, while other squads won’t play against each other at all. Ultimately, the changes may lead to further tweaks down the road as Blizzard tries to build a balanced playoff format.