6v6 Overwatch Is a Joke

Written by Jeremy Grifski in Blog Published July 10, 2026Last Updated June 26, 2026
A screenshot of my masters rank up game in Overwatch open queue 6v6.

Unc is back to gaming, and I need to clown on Overwatch’s 6v6 mode. What do you mean I’m in masters? This cannot be a serious game mode.

Table of Contents

I’m Gaming Again

Lately, I’ve been getting back into gaming. Perhaps it’s because I have some time off this summer, but I usually spend some time in the afternoons and evenings when the kiddo is asleep gaming. Specifically, my game of choice has been solo queue Overwatch.

Y’all know I’ve been playing Overwatch for a long time. I played it basically as soon as it came out in 2016 when I had just finished undergrad, and I’ve been playing it off and on ever since. In fact, I’ve been playing so long that I’ve even complained about the game a few times on the site. Once when I ranted that solo queue is basically unplayable, and again when I hit Diamond for the first time. Hell, I even think I mentioned it when I quit gaming at one point.

Now, I come to you because something funny happened. First, I hit diamond again on support, and I’m casually climbing on DPS. Second, and perhaps way funnier, I hit masters in 6v6. And, let me be clear about something: the diamond lobbies are way harder.

Ranks Are Massively Inflated in 6v6

If I’m being completely honest, there really shouldn’t be anyone my age (barring some pros) that should be anywhere near masters or above. It’s not that people my age are too old or slow to be good at Overwatch, but I would assume most of us are too busy to grind out the game. I get maybe five games in a day, and that’s if I’m only playing Overwatch. That should keep me hardstuck plat.

So, explain to me how I climbed into masters so rapidly. I’m not kidding! I think I went on like a 20 game win streak to go from plat 3 to masters 5. I might have lost a couple of games in there, but most of the games were not close.

This is interesting to me because I should have even less control over the outcome of a game in 6v6. Hell, I fill every game just like I used to before role queue. So, some games I’m playing support, others tank, and some I even play DPS. It’s crazy because I play tank so infrequently that I shouldn’t even fill the role, but I find myself easily outplaying the other tanks. What is happening in 6v6?

What I find really funny is that there are likely insanely good DPS players in 6v6 that are just casually stomping like 5v5 gold supports and tanks. I’ve had Widows that were picking heads as soon as they appeared and still losing because the rest of the team was laughably bad. It’s truly the wild west over there in 6v6.

Stadium Is a Hot Mess

You know, for as bad as 6v6 is, stadium might be worse. Because you start every season from zero, there is seemingly no like underlying mmr to balance the games. I swear the “bronze” games are just as chaotic as the “plat” games, perhaps because you can’t really lose rank until you get there.

I have seen multiple people with the “top X stadium Y” title, and they’re often just incredibly mid. Like, I enjoy stadium because it’s a fresh take on the game, but the ranking aspect of it is a little cursed. Every game seems to end 3-0 because of the snowballing of the first round, and games that go seven rounds feel horrible when you lose. Some of those games are like an hour long!

Also, it does feel bad that you can basically lose the moment you see which two tanks were selected. I was trying to play some Winston recently, and he just feels really bad into most tanks. Also, the back line never really feels very squishy. Like, Ana is out here two tapping Winston. I used to run a lot of Rein, and he was really fun. I wish some of the dive tanks felt as good to play (though, I’ve heard Hazard is good).

All that said, I realize this mode is basically an Overwatch Roguelike that is impossible to balance, nor should it really be balanced. It’s fun for a night with your friends. I wouldn’t spend too much time solo queuing.

What Do You Play?

Of course, none of you care what I think about the game. All you want to know is what I play. I get asked this regularly by my students. Here’s basically the list:

  • Support: basically anything but Mercy, Lucio, Lifeweaver, Bap, Cat, and Wuyang. I love Zen and Juno right now. I’ve sort of burnt out of Kiri and Moira. Illari is fun too, and I like to mix in Ana and Brig from time to time. Also, I just started experimenting with Mizuki.
  • DPS: I primarily play Hanzo and hitscan, but I change it up a lot. The only heroes I don’t really play are Freja, Genji, Sierra, Venture, and Sombra. It’s been ages since I’ve played Reaper as well, and I haven’t even really tried Emre. Anran is a ton of fun, and I’m starting to mix things up with Echo.
  • Tank: I don’t really play tank because I can’t stand the rock-paper-scissors nature of the role in 5v5. That said, I basically only play like Sigma, Orisa, Rein, and D.VA. Monkey is fun from time to time, and I dabble in Ram. Ball has also been fun lately. I pretty much don’t play Doom, Hazard, Queen, Domina, Mauga, or Hog, and I very rarely play Zarya.

I would show you my actual time played per hero, but that’s a disturbing amount of time I’ve spent on the game.

Beyond that, I’m really excited about Shion. Like Anran, I’ll probably play Shion a lot. Dual-wielding/Akimbo is always cool, and I am addicted to Cyberpunk.

What’s Next?

Typically, my hobbies work in cycles. Once I get bored of gaming (which I hope happens soon), I’ll probably go back to watching anime or reading manga. I still haven’t finished the Dune book I was working on either, and I’d love to get away from screens for a bit.

Also, I have another kid coming soon, and I fully expect my wife and I to be completely glued to screens for next couple of months. As we’re getting barely any sleep, watching some shitty TV show sounds divine. I just hope our toddler doesn’t mind for the time being.

Likewise, I plan to simplify my teaching quite a bit. As much as I love supporting students, it’s been crossing over into my personal life. I need to start setting my strict work-life balance for myself, and I think this year I’ll be forced to do so with two kids.

Otherwise, I’m sure I’ll be on another health kick soon too. Once we get this new house how I like it, I’d like to jump back into my lifting routine. Maybe, I can work to a 225 lb bench. I was over 200 lbs sometime last year, so I think its doable!

Anyway, enough about me! Why don’t you help my bounce rate by reading one of these related articles?

You can also improve my bounce rate by heading over to my list of ways to grow the site. Otherwise, thanks for reading! See you next time.

It’s funny. I always seem to have weird timing with these kinds of articles. By the time this goes out, the title might come off as ragebait.

Just for the record, I finished this article on June 12th, 2026, and I’m adding this extra section on June 26th, 2026 (even though the article isn’t even set to publish until July 10th). The reason I’m making note of the dates is because there are rumblings in the community that Overwatch might go back to 6v6. Obviously, my commentary here is based on 6v6 as it currently exists, a less serious ranked game mode.

Historically, I believe 6v6 became 5v5 because queue times were atrocious. I don’t recall the exact breakdown, but some roles were more popular than others. Therefore, either the game needed to shift to 5v5 or 7v7, and one of these seemed to make more sense at the time.

Obviously, in hindsight, 5v5 was the incorrect choice. Tank is a criminally unfun experience. I refuse to play the rock-paper-scissor simulator.

Regardless, it seems like the community is ready to move back to 6v6 with role queue (not open queue), which means we might see absurd queue times again. Supposedly, there might be a “preferred” role setup, which I guess games like league have. Basically, you get assigned a role based on need in the queue, but you should get your preferred role more often than not. So, I guess even video games have some form of jury duty.

If this happens, I won’t mind too much because tank is more fun in 6v6. However, I’m not sure what will happen with all the one-tricks. I can’t wait to have a mercy main on DPS. That’ll be a good time.

Jokes aside, I just wanted to put this note here in case somehow this article gets indexed high while folks are experiencing the new format, if that even happens. After all, I’m only hearing rumblings of it from streamers, so who knows. If any news comes out before this publishes, I’ll make another note below.

Jeremy Grifski

Jeremy grew up in a small town where he enjoyed playing soccer and video games, practicing taekwondo, and trading Pokémon cards. Once out of the nest, he pursued a Bachelors in Computer Engineering with a minor in Game Design. After college, he spent about two years writing software for a major engineering company. Then, he earned a master's in Computer Science and Engineering. Most recently, he earned a PhD in Engineering Education and now works as a Senior Lecturer. In his spare time, Jeremy enjoys spending time with his wife and kid, playing Overwatch and the latest friend slop, reading manga, watching Penguins hockey, and traveling the world.

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