Overwatch 2 Season 12 lets you “permanently avoid” players you don’t like

If you’re an avid player of Overwatch 2, or any competitive FPS for that matter, you’ve probably already come across a player you hate playing with. Yes, we’re talking about that one person who’s constantly toxic, throwing insults and potentially the game when something doesn’t go their way. Unlike other shooters, Overwatch 2 lets you place these players into avoid slots, preventing them from matching with you (although these can time out). But in the Season 12 update, you can now “permanently avoid” them.

According to Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 Season 12 patch notes, the dev team made one crucial change to the game’s innovative Avoid List feature by introducing three “Pinned Slots.” Placing players into these slots will allow you to “permanently avoid” them in matchmaking, giving you the peace of mind you need to rank up fast in competitive play. Of course, 12 Recent Avoid slots are still available, which are helpful in blocking players you dislike, albeit to a lesser extent.

It is worth pointing out, though, that players in the Recent Avoid slots time out after seven days, so you’ll need to re-enter their username if you really don’t want to play with them. You can also refresh their remaining time on the list using the Reset Avoid Expiration feature. However, if you’re in higher ranks or regions where players are scarce during off-hours, the people on your Recent Avoid slots can still appear in your matches since the game won’t have enough players to pull from.

Overwatch 2 Systems Designer Gavin Winter noted, “As queue time increases, we’ll slowly begin ignoring players at the bottom of the Recent list.” “The new system also automatically replaces the player with the shortest duration on your Recent list if the list is full, preventing you from having to micromanage the list,” he finished.