Bans: Fabulous and Feline
Surprising absolutely no one that’s played a Competitive game over the past few weeks, Jetpack Cat has been catching more bans than any other new Hero. In Role Queue 5v5 Competitive matches across the globe, poor Fika faces ban rates from 66.5% on North American servers to a staggering 80.7% on South Korean servers. Sheesh.
2/16 – 2/23 Ranked Role Queue Average Hero Ban Rate for 2026 Season 1 New Heroes split by Player Region, all ranks
A true fashionista never steps fully out of the spotlight, though: Domina hangs behind only slightly as the second most-banned new Hero across all regions. Her closest margins are in North America, where she lags only 7.2% behind Jetpack Cat. We’re not sure if she’d prefer to be the top dog (pun intended) in this race, but we’re certainly not about to tell Domina what to do.
The other three new additions to Season 1—damage dealers Anran and Emre and support Mizuki—barely show up on the chart in comparison to their counterparts. Anran leads the lower pack with an 8.2% ban rate on European servers and Emre gets a ban rate participation trophy, never racking up more than 2% of bans in any global region.
Ranked Role Queue Ban Rate over time for Jetpack Cat and Domina since 2026 Season 1 Start on All Platforms and All Regions (excluding CN)
When looking at ban rate trends for our Heroes since Season 1 launch, a mystery appeared. Jetpack Cat’s ban rates skyrocketed at season start along with Domina’s as the community learned how to use them effectively in Competitive play. While Jetpack Cat’s ban rates stabilized and then lowered—as they historically do for new Heroes—Domina’s rates saw a consistent uptick.
Our balance team believes Competitive players might be following the perception that Domina is overpowered, even though her win rate says otherwise. Her ban rates may drop over a longer period as clear counters to Domina emerge. Have a bonus hint from our devs: look to aggressive Heroes like D.Va and Reinhardt to shut Domina down.
The Wins of Change
Speaking of win rates, let’s see how successfully you’ve all been racking up victories with our new Heroes and how recent balance changes affected those numbers.
Ranked Role Queue Un-Mirrored Win Rates for 2/16 – 3/1 for 2026 Season 1 New Heroes in All Ranks on PC in All Regions (excluding CN)
Before the Feb. 24 mini balance patch mostly catered to our newest Heroes, Jetpack Cat and Domina finally had to share the statistical spotlight with someone else. Swift support Mizuki earned a 53% win rate, but his counterparts weren’t as lucky. Anran was the picture of balance with a near-even ratio and Emre enthusiasts needed to hit a few more grenades, racking up only a 47.6% win rate.
Our community often asks what Team 4 does with these numbers. Our balance and development teams get to look at these data points—as well as hundreds more we could never fit into a blog—to get a concrete statistical read on Hero effectiveness. These can help guide the team towards Heroes that need to be looked at for minor buffs or changes.
Bumping up Emre’s primary fire damage and Anran’s Dancing Blaze distance increased their win rates almost immediately; after the weekend, both have settled near a respectable 50%. Despite Domina’s Ultimate cost increasing by 12%, her win rate fell by less than a percentage point. That’s a good indication that balance changes were needed. And Jetpack Cat? She got sent to a more reasonable orbit.
Trimming Those Nails
Jetpack Cat's dominance in both win rate and ban rate ended up being quite the cat-astrophe for Competitive. Two Perks—Territorial and Claws Out—were toned down in the Feb. 24 patch to make Fika a bit less fierce. Another set of data shows why that was a viable choice for the balance team.
2/16 – 2/23 Ranked Role Queue Match Win Rates for Jetpack Cat and Wuyang on PC in All Regions (excluding CN)
In order from left to right: Jetpack Cat, Territorial + Claws Out; Headbutt + Claws Out; Territorial + Transport Shielding; Headbutt + Transport Shielding. Wuyang, Falling Rain + Balance; Ebb and Flow + Balance; Falling Rain + Overflow; Ebb and Flow + Overflow.
For any Hero, combinations of Minor and Major Perks should be relatively even across the board as far as win rates are concerned. Take Wuyang’s Perk selections on the right-hand side: there’s only a 3% deviation between rates and that translates to very little difference between choices. Jetpack Cat’s Perk win rates go down in an obvious slope with nearly double the difference between the most and least “successful” Perks.
Associate game director Alec Dawson offered insight on this, noting that Jetpack Cat’s two most aggressive perks were not only the more aggravating ones to go against, but were also statistically her best by a wide margin. The changes enacted on Feb. 24 should make her less viable in 1v1 duels so it’ll be easier to deal with the aerial menace.
Thanks for coming on this chart-filled journey with us. Let us know in the comments or on social media what other stats you’d be interested in seeing in the future and we’ll see what we can do.