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How hero bans work now: Roster, Preferred Hero and Lobby Bans
The short answer
In Competitive, every player ranks three heroes to ban, worth 7, 5 and 3 votes. Each team bans two, four in all, with no more than two from one role. A fifth, the Lobby Ban, adds both teams' votes and can break that limit. Since 16 June 2026, your Preferred Hero casts 3 votes against its own ban.
In this lesson: 7 parts
How it works
The vote.
You rank three heroes: 7 votes for your first, 5 for your second and 3 for your third. The ban screen shows your team's total for each hero, and each team's top two are banned, under Blizzard's rule that “no more than two Heroes in each role can be banned”.
The Lobby Ban.
Blizzard calls it “a 5th ban slot that can break the 2 hero Role Limit”. It lands when both teams voted for the same hero and their votes together reach 10, so one 1st-place and one 3rd-place vote are enough. One role can lose three heroes in a game.
Your Preferred Hero.
Your Roster shows your favourite heroes to your team. The first is your Preferred Hero unless you change it, and it “contributes 3 negative votes during Hero Bans”. That cancels one teammate's 3rd-place vote, as long as you also vote to ban at least two other heroes. It can't stop a team that wants the hero gone. A guide that says your favourite gets no protection was written before 16 June 2026.
Only Competitive.
Quick Play has no bans.
A ban rate isn't a grade.
It shows what players vote against. In WinCon’s tests it didn’t help predict wins, so the tier lists show it without grading on it.
Tonight's example
“Most banned”, by rank: the Stats page's tile and the tier lists' ban column, from Blizzard's numbers. Tonight, in Competitive at every rank:
- **Zarya** is banned most, at 35.8%. Next come Doomfist (35.2%) and Jetpack Cat (33.2%).
- Zarya's meta grade is C: a 46.6% win rate, 13th of 15 tanks. Banned most, and graded below average.
- All 54 heroes' ban rates add up to 408.7%: about four bans a game, plus the odd Lobby Ban.
Pick your rank to see how it changes.
Try it
Predict, then see the coach
Choose your rank and role. The page builds a 5v5 Competitive game from the Coach's example teams: a map, four teammates, and four bans from tonight's most-banned heroes at your rank, two per team and no more than two per role. Three heroes are left for your slot.
- Map
- Neon Junction
- Tank
- D.Va
- Damage 1
- Junkrat
- Damage 2
- Anran
- You · Support
- Open
- Support 2
- Ana
- Banned
- Zarya, Doomfist, Jetpack Cat, Vendetta
Four heroes are banned. Which support would you play?
In your games
- Put the hero you most want to play first in your Roster, and vote to ban at least two other heroes so its 3 votes count.
- Watch your team's totals. Adding your votes to a hero your team already ranks high helps that ban land.
- Keep a backup ready for the role that loses the most heroes at your rank (lesson 3).
Zarya tonight
Next
How we know
- Blizzard's patch notes, 16 June 2026: The votes, the Roster, the Preferred Hero and the Lobby Ban (June 2026 patch notes). Read 10 Nov 2026; the notes from July to the 5 Nov 2026 hotfix change nothing about bans.
- Blizzard, “Introducing Hero Bans”, April 2025: Competitive only; four bans, two per team, at most two per role.
- Blizzard's numbers: Ban and win rates, Competitive, fetched Nov 10.
- WinCon's prediction tests: Ban rates didn't help predict wins (the tier lists' note).