Image: Ubisoft/Michal Konkol
In Jun. 2018, as part of the Operation Para Bellum update, the Sixth Pick mechanic was added. This allowed both sides to reselect one operator in secret before the start of the round.
Earlier this year, in Mar. 2022, Operation Demon Veil replaced this with an Attacker Repick, allowing the attackers to replace as many operators as they wish during the drone phase, while the defenders could no longer change anything.
After six months of Attacker Repick, here’s a look at how it’s being used and how it differs from Sixth Pick:
What Changes Have Happened?
The biggest change of note concerns IQ.
IQ has remained an important operator through four years of meta shifts but is very dependent on the site and defenders brought. This meant she was Sixth Picked onto and away from depending on what the Reveal Phase showed of the defenders.
Now, IQ is one of the least Repicked attackers in the pool as she’s fallen out of favour due to nerfs to operators such as Valkyrie and the fact that Attackers cannot be surprised to the same degree anymore.
In IQ’s place, Attacker Repick has primarily become a tool for Hard Breach picks. The most common change is Hibana to Thermite, followed by Hibana to Ace, depending on the site.
Below is a table showing every combination of changes. The operator in the first row is the new operator, while the first column shows the replaced operator:
The full range of Attacker Repicks.
The Most and Least Popular Attackers
Taking a wider look at all attackers, here’s a wider look at how often each was picked onto and away from:
Once again, it highlights IQ as the primary use case during the four years of Sixth Picks. Now, there’s no one dominant operator.
This is mainly due to the sheer number of Repicks that are occurring. In three years and nine months, a total of 32,203 Attacker Sixth Picks took place during all competitions tracked by SiegeGG. Meanwhile, in the last six months alone, there have been 21,557 Attacker Repicks.
When considering the time difference, Attacker Repicks happen at a rate 4.8 times more often than attacker Sixth Picks. For every attack operator that was ever Sixth Picked, now an entire team’s worth is Repicked.
This is because before, a team could only change one operator per round, but this shows that the attack is making good use of its new utility.
The full range of Sixth Picks on the attack.
And on Defence?
Attacker Repick is obviously not used by the defence, but looking back at how the defence used Sixth Pick, there are several interesting findings.
Firstly, 60.65 per cent of all Sixth Picks were by the defending team, which is surprising as there are less surprises to adapt to by the defence. Meanwhile, the attackers may want to make a change depending on anticipated possible site changes.
The most popular operator to pick onto and away from was Valkyrie, which pairs perfectly with IQ being the most common attacker to be Sixth Picked. It was a four-year cat-and-mouse race that is now over.
The full range of Sixth Picks on the defence.
“Wasted” Picks
With the attackers now allowed as many changes as they want, the number of “wasted” picks -- where a player has Sixth Picked or Repicked to the same operator, from Sledge to Slege for example -- has increased dramatically.
During Sixth Picks, 2.4 per cent of all picks saw no change in operator, while this has risen during the age of Repicks to 9.89 per cent. This means that around one in 10 times, just because a player has entered the repick menu doesn’t mean they’ll actually make a change.
Players of Note
One per cent of all Sixth Picks ever tracked by SiegeGG came from Thiago "xS3xyCake" Reis, a remarkable figure. Reon "Anitun" Sakai, meanwhile, tops Attacker Repick figures with 0.87 per cent of all Repicks.
Its effect?
So a defence-favoured tool was taken away, and now the attack are using the tool to a much greater degree. You may expect this to lead to much more offensive favoured games, but there was not a single offence favoured league in the world in Stage 2 and it’s rare to find a single map too one-sided.
In part, this is because Attacker Repick also gives the defenders an advantage by eliminating the Reveal Phase. Now, defenders can bring an off-pick such as Kapkan and keep it as a surprise, whereas this was much harder in the past. When combined with a Mute and Mozzie, this can leave entire attacks in the dark.
While the change hasn’t caused massive single-side skews, it has changed the way the game is played at a more fundamental level, as Lauren "Goddess" Williams and Seth "supr" Hoffman pointed out while looking back through Stage 1:
So, you know, if I’m a better IGL than every team in the world, or almost every team in the world, then a lot of my strengths as an IGL were kinda hindered cause now teams can just have pre-rehearsed setups and strategies with Repick cause you always know where the site is going to be and what operators you want to bring so there’s less in-game adaptations. It’s more just, “ok, the sites here, they have this operator, let’s run this”.
Rogue’s Berlin Major run shows that rigorously learning lineups for every possible defensive setup is not necessary. But, the game is definitely more aggressive now as Goddess points out in the clip above and as viewers could see particularly in the Rogue vs FaZe Clan grand-final.
This is, however, just how Attacker Repick is affecting the game now. This mechanic will likely be around for even longer than Sixth Pick and see multiple metas shift through it. We may still see a return to a Valkyrie vs IQ-like rivalry somewhere in the operator pool in the coming years, or the novelty may wear off and usage decline.