A swap after a death costs about 2.5 points of your next fights, even when you're ahead

Counter swapping is an argument with no number in it. A thread on r/Competitiveoverwatch asked why people don't do it, and the replies said it depends how hard the counter is.

On the record

Usually counter swapping is only viable if you're being hard countered

The other side is just as sure. "Swapping is a really big part of winning GM as tank," says a reply on r/OverwatchUniversity. I make Counterwatch, and the app records what every player in a tracked lobby does after each death, stay on the hero or swap, and who wins the next up to 3 decisive fights of that round. That makes it possible to price the swap itself.

People swap more when a match is going badly, and teams that are behind lose more fights, so a plain comparison would mostly show that. Each swap is held against a stay on the same hero, after dying to the same enemy, in a fight that went the same way. That gives -3.4: stayers win 46.7% of the next fights, same-role swappers 43.4%, over 3,459,694 swaps.

That still doesn't rule out a team that's behind, so I also held the match's kill score equal at the moment of the death. The gap falls to -2.5. Being behind explains about a quarter of it, and the rest is still there when the score is level or in your favour.

Players 10 or more kills ahead have no reason to think they're losing, and they still lose 2.45 points by swapping.

For uploaders the app also knows how long they've played each hero in tracked matches over the last 90 days. Set against the uploaders' own stays, swapping to a hero with under 30 minutes costs 5.1 points, and one with 5 hours or more costs 1.8.

This cut can't hold the match score equal, so some of the gap may be people trying something else in a match they've given up on. Even a hero you know costs 1.8 points, and a swap loses most of your ult charge and your perks.

Unranked is -3.4. Champion has 102 swaps and is left out.

Dying to a counter does hurt the next fights, but less than most charts suggest. Of 2,862 matchups, 97.8% sit within 3 points of what that hero usually does after a death. Only 83 of 2,700 swaps, read by role, killer and swap target, beat staying.

A swap that answers the enemy costs less, and that's the case for making one. Tanks going to Winston after dying to Widowmaker lose 1.8 points, against 3.9 for a typical unrelated tank swap.

Before any of this data existed I wrote down the matchups that should read as hard counters, and the bars they had to clear. The first scoring in September failed: the numbers were mostly noise. On this one they aren't, but the result is thin.

Winston against Widowmaker passed. Roadhog against Winston was excluded before scoring, because the Season 5 rework changed the hook it was picked for, and it never read as severe before or after. One matchup passing isn't much, so these per-matchup numbers aren't in the app. The swap's cost is the part that held up on every check.

The score-held cost is the same, -2.55. The difference is role: there's no role queue, and changing role after a death costs 4.3 points, against 2.6 for a swap inside your role.