After this year, the Overwatch League will no longer be making special skins to honor the League’s MVP. Earlier today came the Overwatch League announced the hatching of two special Overwatch hides in honor of the San Francisco Shock and Byung-sun “Fleta” Kim’s second championship win to earn the 2020 MVP award. But hidden in the announcement on the Overwatch League website was this small caveat:
Don’t miss it as this will be the last time a skin will be created for the Overwatch League MVP.
The player special skins started in 2019, when the League released a hero special cosmetic commemorating the MVP’s talents from the previous year. Sung-hyeon “JJoNak” Bang earned the first such skin, one smooth looking octopus theme Zenyatta, for his talents as well as that of the League deadliest supporting playerIn 2020 Jay “Sinatraa” Won the League’s second MVP and earned one Zarya look with an alien theme
Shortly after Won’s skin was released he left the Overwatch League to pursue a professional career Appreciation, but his skin remained. However, after an ex-girlfriend issued a statement claiming Won her sexually and emotionally abused, the Overwatch League released its own statement saying it would remove Won’s Zarya skin and issue credit for anyone who wanted a refund.
Blizzard also made the video announcing the skin privately, deleted tweets, and seem to have removed skin references from overwatchleague.com. Won was banned for both Appreciation team and every future Appreciation professional competitions pending investigation.
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It is currently unknown why the Overwatch League would end the tradition of awarding special skins to its MVPs. It could be because the skins are designed to showcase the winning MVP’s personality and signature hero and as such are sort of an enduring representation of them in the game. By eliminating MVP skins, Blizzard may be protecting itself from a future where it may need to distance itself from other problematic MVPs.
Kotaku has reached out to Blizzard for comment.