They said they would be keeping an eye on feedback so just wanted to put mine out there.
This has personally taken the fun out of stadium completely for me. I played it most of last night with an open mind, and I just wasn’t feeling it, like at all. If it wasn’t for the D.Va All-Star reward I wouldn’t be playing stadium at all anymore, and it WAS my favourite game mode until this point. The no mirror picking has really ruined this mode for me.
I really hope they do decide to revert this change.
In not a fan of the draft either. I wouldn’t mind it if it allowed mirror matchups and defaulted to tanks picking last just as a way to keep them from getting full team countered.
Stadium in general felt like a more causal mode than standard comp and felt more like the place to 1-trick a hero. To go from that to suddenly having to play and learn builds for 4 heroes is too much, and kind of against the type of player that stuck with stadium.
I, personally don’t mind draft, I do think it’s an interesting way to add strategy in a mode that isn’t competitive at all. However, no mirror picks can absolutely go. I think it’s ridiculously stupid and makes the mode somewhat gimmicky. It feels like a feature they added just to add a feature
tbh that’s the main reason I’m not enjoying it is because of the no mirror picking. I should have also added that in the main post 
Tbh I feel the same way, I love playing mercy but she isn’t viable a lot of the time in comp so I have to play other supports. So when stadium came around, I was so excited! Perfect timing, especially with the ban update. But now they’ve nerfed mercy into the ground, took away a power that made everyone’s mercy build viable, then drafts. I was salty but still fine with that, BUT THEN no mirror picking?? Also giving the enemy to opportunity to counter swap…I thought the point was the builds not the hero match ups like comp. Anyways…I thought this was gonna be good for tanks, just to see my main picked by the other mercy on my team, then the enemy stealing that pick and 3 counters on the enemy team for my tank. Long story short, im not playing stadium this season, blizzard gave me 2 months of my hero being a viable pick and now i cant even play her in the game mode.
Anyone else having games cancelled because people leave after the draft ends? I’ve had a few already.
And it’s definitely no fun having to play character #4 because all three of my primary characters have been selected. Had to do that multiple times already.
I’m kind of contemplating whether the D.Va skin is even worth it at this point. I don’t even play her but it was fun playing towards something, but the way Stadium is now it’s not even that fun to be worth it.
We played a few games last night and some people left as soon as the game started, I guess they didn’t get to play the hero they actually wanted to play. We were laughing that we spent more time in the character select screen than actually playing the game.
I really don’t know why Blizz keep getting in a good place with their games and then having them decide “you know what, people are having fun and enjoying this, let’s completely change it”.
Stadium has been my favorite mode for the last two seasons, and I am having a really hard time finding any enjoyment with it now.
The draft feature has added unnecessary time to an already extremely long game mode.
In addition I can not put into words how much I am hating the no mirror characters aspect. I play this game for a little bit of fun after work, and in my free time I want to be able to play a hero that I enjoy. The draft nerfs that.
It acts as a hero ban, which would be fine if the full roster of overwatch heroes was available.
Entering the game mode already means roughly half of the characters you may have experienced or enjoy playing are gone. To then put the added restriction of no duplicates is exhausting.
Some people are happy that it cuts out one tricks, but it’s doing more than that.
This feature doesn’t just get rid of the character you one trick. It also gets rid of your back up, and maybe even your tertiary pick.
If multiple of the characters you play are not even in the mode, when you end up towards the end of the draft there are many times you are looking at options that you do not enjoy playing or have little experience on.
Nothing beats getting off of work, or finally getting some time to yourself and being stuck in a match for 40 minutes with a group of bitter people because you are locked into a character you are unfamiliar with affecting an entire team’s rank.
I know many people are just going to argue to diversify the characters you play, but overwatch has over 40 characters now. The likelihood that most casual players have the time, energy, or desire to learn 40+ characters in the name of versatility is, in my opinion, an unreasonable request.
Another side effect of the draft that I have noticed is a lot of weird nonsensical team compositions. The combination of being able to see the enemy teams character selections, combined with the character restrictions have left a lot of teams with compositions that just do not work well together.
The jury is also out on the payload race mode. While I do see some potential in it, so far it’s been more chaotic and buggy than it has actually been enjoyable.
I feel like instead of rushing to add new features Blizzard should prioritize fixing its bugs, making the servers more stable, and improving match making. Not this menagerie of nonsense.
It’s incredible how awful this change was, actually. Stadium fans, content creators, everyone took one look at the idea of mirror bans and said “Wait, don’t do this Blizzard! It’ll end badly, you don’t understand what you’re doing. Here are 50 reasons why”
Blizzard said “shut up you ungrateful morons, we’re adding it anyways.” They got backlash much harder and RIGHTFULLY. Then they ran away, tucked their tails, hid, and pushed it live anyways. Whoever decided this was the play should be barred from ever making a decision for Stadium ever again.
Nice job, Blizzard! We’re back to overly fragile AND egotistical behavior from you. Just what we wanted, obviously. A disaster that plays out exactly like Hero Pools. Phew! I was having more fun than ever in the last several years in OW but fortunately that’s gone!
Adding to feedback: no mirrors just adds to one-sided matches when a player forced to play a hero he is not as good at. Maybe its good at masters+, where the roster a player has is larger, but for us, metal casuals, it becomes one more thing that decides a game before it starts.
Also, stadium is a mode that is advertised as one that allows to play your favorite hero in all matchups. No mirror goes directly against it.
I am excited to try drafts. the idea sounds interessting.
With a wide hero pool I shouldn’t have any issues. Just never had any reason to play as even with a wide hero pool, most heroes I love aren’t there yet, and most heroes I truly hate are already there.
So I am kinda excited but my excitement is a bit lower as tracer hasn’t yet joined.
will try again tonight.
only played it at release for the title.
ideally this also makes its way to regular comp.
I would prefer if someone banns my hero thst he actually has to play said hero. seems a lot more fair to me than blindly letting them bann what they dislike.
tbh I wish I felt the same. Unfortunately I have an unhealthy obsession for owning every Mercy/D.Va skin, so I know I’ll really regret it if I don’t do it 
. The thought of playing more of this type of stadium is really bumming me out though lol…
Are you someone who is set on playing one hero, or do you play a few?
I like playing a bit of everybody. Depends on my mood, (I have 100% of the Xbox achievements and sprays, so I am confident and comfortable on literally every hero). I just don’t like feeling limited in what hero I can be. I feel like hero picks shouldn’t be limited like this in stadium overall.
Hero bans I feel like wouldn’t be a bad idea, but not banning mirror picking and not letting people pick the same hero…
In fairness, this community says this with every change. People said the same things about Stadium as a mode when it was announced, and the community is usually wrong. I think we are at the point where the devs have to make people try things.
And that’s the thing, they’ve sucked the fun right out and turned it into a chore. If I want to play ranked Stadium as a certain couple of heroes, I have competition not just from my teammate, but also the enemy team now to be able to lock in to who I’d like to play.
Rankings is on the line, if the 3 heroes I usually play/enjoy are taken, I’m now putting our teams rank on the line, and I can totally see people getting angry at someone who wanted to play hero A, B or C but was forced to pick D because the others were already taken.
I’m pretty sure this was just implemented for Overwatch league. “You guys should watch this because your favourite players can’t just lock in their mains anymore!” And I think that’s the thing, Overwatch league players don’t play the game for fun, it’s their job. The rest of us play for fun but have to now adapt around the pro players rule set or play the watered down QP stadium mode.
Thats true however this change feels a little different because it feels like freedom is being taken away while Stadium introduced new freedoms by introducing unique builds and Perks.
I love the idea of a draft. It allows for some sort of strategizing and planning so you dont feel hard countered out the rip. BUT the no mirroring is too restrictive with the hero pools we have and can make matches feel more helpless especially for tanks. tanks should pick last and be picking at the same time to avoid intentional countering. if there was a second tank role it wouldn’t be an issue but as it stands now it is a very big issue.
TLDR; allow mirroring. tanks pick last and at same time.
Someone always thinks they are the next Steve Jobs or Henry Ford and know better than their customers, but they are just not that. I know some folks who build and own multiple businesses, are in the 9 figures net worth and none of them has that attitude. They are where they are because they listen to their customers and give them more of what they want than the competition does. Blizz seems to have some employees who think they are up there with the 0.001% of visionaries who know better.
“don’t you all have phones?!?” comes to mind.
While that is the case, the backlash was immediate, strong, and hasn’t gotten any better unlike countless other “controversies” OW has had. Sometimes people overreact, other times they have the most basic of foresight and can identify a bad decision before it’s made
If Blizzard wanted to force people to try something new, they should’ve stopped at drafts, because that’s the change some Stadium players asked for. Then we got mirror lock outs.