2019 Overwatch League season to be played on current PTR patch

Overwatch League commissioner Nate Nanzer has confirmed the upcoming patch for the first stage of the next Overwatch League season.

As I mentioned during the pro PUGs last week, our goal is better align Overwatch League patches with what is live in the game. Stage 1 of @Overwatchleague 2019 Season will be played on the patch currently on the PTR.
— Nate Nanzer (@natenanzer) January 17, 2019

The changes that will go into the live patch include changes to Reaper, D.Va, Brigitte, and overall armor across the entire cast. The specific changes are as follows:

General

Damage reduction from armor reduced from -5 to -3

Developer comments: Before this change armor reduced all incoming damage by up to 5, maxing at half of the normal amount. This change reduces the damage reduction to 3, while still capping at half. This change will be mostly noticeable on heroes that fire quickly or in a burst of shots (such as shotguns), and which do more than 6 damage per shot. For example, Soldier: 76’s Heavy Pulse Rifle will now do 16 damage per shot to armor, up from 14, an increase of 15%. Armor was a bit too strong overall, especially when being healed quickly and often. This change will help more heroes fight against higher armored enemies.

Brigitte

Rally now has a maximum duration of 30 seconds

Developer comments: Sometimes Rally could cause a snowballing effect where it was too difficult to deal with the increased health of Brigitte’s allies before she built up another one. This change puts a cap on how long her Rally effect can last to make it a bit more manageable in those situations.

D.Va

Defense matrix cooldown has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds

Developer comments: This change allows D.Va’s enemies to try to play around her Defense Matrix by increasing its downtime between uses.

Reaper

The Reaping life steal increased from 30% to 50% of damage dealt

Developer comments: Reaper’s passive is one of the main tools he has which allow him to play aggressively when near his enemies. This change allows him to keep the pressure up as long as he can stay near his enemies enough to keep dealing damage. This change is particularly effective versus tanks, as they tend to do less damage than damage heroes, and also take more damage from his Hellfire Shotguns due to their larger hit volumes.

The second Overwatch League season begins on February 14 with a grand finals rematch between the Philadelphia Fusion Philadelphia Fusion OWL Rank #11 AimGod Min-seok Kwon flex support MN3 Yoon Jae-hee dps ZEST Kim Hyun-woo (김현우) dps Belosrea tank FiXa Kwon Young Hoon (권영훈) support and the London Spitfire London Spitfire OWL Rank #12 Landon flex support SparkR William Andersson dps Backbone Jamie O'Neill dps Hadi Daniel Bleinagel tank Admiral Oliver Vahar support .

I just had a fun, yet unlikely thought that I feel is worth sharing.
Due to how the soft region locking will affect contenders 2019 season 1, players who were signed to an organisation prior to October 28th 2018 are not counted towards the non-resident player limit. This rule will no longer count for season 2. But it does create an interesting hypothetical. This rule will prevent any team from north america fielding a full Korean team as no team has 2 starting players that are region locking exempt.
Well kinda, there is a very sneaky work around which could lead to the most stupid end scenario in the word. Where a full Korean team wins the 4 back to back Contenders NA title for Fusion University.
Though fusions current starting roster of Snillo, Alarm, Bernar, Naist, Changsik and Elk only has 2 players eligible for this exemption (Alarm and Bernar). There is a work around the org could use. Late 2018 the org chose to loan whoru to Korean team Meta Athena. This crucially means that he is still on his original contract with the fusion. A contract which was signed prior to the cut off date. Thus making him region locking exempt . Therefore if fusion wanted to they could build a full Korean roster that is eligible to play in contenders NA 2019 season 1. All they would need to do is bring back whoru and find a Korean main support (assuming whoru or naist plays hitscan well enough)
Granted this is unlikely due to fusion recently signing CarCar to the roster, but the meme dream is still a possibility.