Grading the 2019 Winter Wonderland Skins

With the release of the 2019 Winter Wonderland come a handful of new skins. You can check out all the new cosmetics here. The event will run until January 2, giving players three weeks to grab as many of these skins as they can.

This list is a grading of the newly-released skins from worst to best, as well as looking into the inspirations behind each skin.

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

Holly Moira – D

Holly Moira is unlockable with nine wins in the second week of the event. This skin feels like a bit of a let-down. While the bow on her chest is a nice touch, the rest of the skin feels like they splashed some red, green, and white across the character. The green hair feels shoed-in and does not quite fit with the gold patch around her eye. The one saving grace of the skin is the gold embroidery across the red of the coat, which does feel very festive and fitting with the holiday theme. But the purple tubes of her backpack clash so hard with the entire outfit that it garners the lowest grade.

Snow Angel Mercy – C

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

Not every skin can be as good as last year’s Sugar Plum Fairy, but Mercy’s new skin just feels so mediocre. There’s not really anything wrong with it but nothing that catches your eye or wows the player. The snowflakes on the blaster and skirt are fun and the snow angel emblem is neat, but they are hard to see and fairly unremarkable. It’s like the Mercy player on your team that keeps everybody healed but never damage boosts – it’s nice but it could have been so much better.

Ugly Sweater: 76 – B

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

The last of the epic skins will warm your heart when you see it. Seeing the ever-serious Jack Morrison don an ugly Christmas sweater is up there with Grillmaster:76 in the top Soldier moments. Beyond the sweater, the skin is fairly minimalistic with nice accents of bronze on the metals and his side-arm. But that sweater with the pine trees, the helix rocket symbol, and reindeer Pachimari is sure to catch anyone’s eye. One can’t help but want a glass of eggnog to go along with their pulse ammunition.

Mountain Man McCree – B-

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

The lowest grade of the new legendary skins seems to have scared Jesse McCree to go off and hide amongst the Rocky Mountains. Mountain men existed in these mountains from 1810-1880, so the perfect time for a cowboy outlaw to lay low and use his marksmanship to make money in the fur trade. While many pursued beaver or bearskins for their lucrative demand, it appears McCree prefers fox as his prey and has the skin of one as his serape. His belt buckle has changed to “BAFM,” while his half-chaps and mechanical arm are warmed with thick white fur. With a bushy white beard and fringed elk-skin shirt, Grizzly Adams himself might show up in the next competitive match.

Rat King Reaper – B

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

Despite Blizzard producing “The Omnicracker” t-shirt last year showing Junkrat as the Rat King, they opted to give Reaper the skin in-game. His iconic mask has been easily shaped into a rat face with large ears, a crown, and glowing red eyes. These eyes also appear in the eye sockets of the rat skulls on his guns. The regal shades of purple on his coat and boots match extremely well with the gold accessories. The maroon also pairs well, with the gold rat insignia on his cloak feeling straight out of a fairytale. It’s always fun to see Blizzard continue themes through skins, but in the current meta it seems like the Rat King has a leg up over Nutcracker Zenyatta.

Jötunn Doomfist – A-

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

In Norse mythology, the Jötunn (often called Frost Giants despite not necessarily being large) were constantly in conflict with the gods. It is fitting that the head of Talon gets this skin and its symbolism as they clash with Overwatch. Another parallel is that these giants represent the forces of chaos and destructive nature, which is the ideology that Doomfist preaches. Moving to appearances, this is a really clean skin other than the issue of his constantly-changing skin color but that’s a whole different issue. The sharp texture of the ice and stone on his gauntlet provides a lovely contrast to the fur and leather of the clothes and boots. Plus, the helmet feels straight out of Skyrim. The one issue is that the runes on the belt don’t seem to make sense. From left-to-right they roughly read: defense, ecstasy, hope, solace. ‘Defense’ somewhat makes sense with his ‘The Best Defense…’ passive, but the rest seem out of place. Anyways, it seems like with this skin Doomfist will be able to Rocket Punch his way over the Bifrost to Asgard.

Rime Sigma – A+

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

This skin is the least surprising of them all, being shown at Blizzcon over a month ago. Nevertheless, it is stunning. Seemingly inspired by the Lich King of World of Warcraft, a large glowing skull is his belt buckle with two smaller skulls across the front of his shoulders. Another link to Warcraft would be the telepathic similarities between Sigma and the Lich King, but Sigma lacks the Helm of Domination in this particular skin. The hyperspheres have been given a vicious visual update, with the corners being drawn out into deadly spikes. The frost emanating off his figure, icy crown, and soulless blue eyes round out the evil appearance. This skin is beautifully made and a must-have from this event. Wait no, the fact that his toes are still out gives him an F and the worst grade of all.

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Featured Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

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