Blizzard has recently released a new Patch. While it is not as big as the patch that introduced Season 2 and Eichenwalde, it is still an important patch. There are a number of small changes that will change the way the game feels. And it could lead to Eichenwalde getting some more competitive playtime. 

First off Blizzard has adjusted the payload speed on Eichenwalde. They have sped it up, thus giving the defense less of an advantage. This was a major complaint that people had: the map seemed to favour the defense too much. People are also complaining about the first choke point but Blizzard pulled out their statistics to bust that myth. Jeff stated that "the first point on Eichenwalde gets captured 75% of the time (even though the choke feels intimidating). Out of the Hybrid maps, only Kings Row has a higher capture rate on the first point (82.8%)."

Jeff's full post can be found here. So you were correct in thinking it favoured the defense. But not in the right place. There are a couple of heroes that can flank the first choke point. And with dynamic hero switching it is possible to take the first point and then switch to another, more useful hero for the rest of the map.

And if your team dies taking the point, then Mercy can revive. Naturally, netting her the Play Of The Game. But in the new patch Mercy will not be popping up into your POTG so often anymore. Blizzard identified that Mercy was showing up too much in the Play of the Game, and has made some changes to the algorithm. If a Mercy does a good job of healing someone, then killing someone, boosting damage, etc. then of course that will still get rewarded. But it seems like they don't want 2x revive to be more important than the triple kill, rightfully so. Mercy POTG compilations like the one below might thus become a lot more exciting.

For full patch notes check here

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