📝 A clash of elites, and a playoff decider: OWCS EMEA Stage 3, Week 4 Preview

Week 4 in EMEA is at hand, and we have a massive game over second place with Twisted Minds and Virtus.pro battling it out, while Gen.G Esports and Goud Guys ANM will be fighting over the chance to head to the playoffs.

You can catch up on anything you’ve missed from the previous week in our Week 3 summary.

EMEA Week 4 - Day 1 (September 27, 2025)

Gen.G Esports - Goud Guys ANM

Gen.G Esports and Goud Guys ANM find themselves in nearly the same spot this stage: both took down Quick Esports but fell to Virtus.pro and Team Vision. The only difference is the record line — Gen.G at 1-3, Goud Guys at 1-2.

During week 3, Goud Guys ANM cruised to a 3-0 victory over Quick Esports, with Loïc ”KroxZ” Ricci and Simon “sxj” Debono shining throughout the game, with KroxZ playing his now signature Roadhog for large parts of the series, but also still looking competent on other picks, such as Hazard and Winston.

Earlier in the weekend, Gen.G Esports struggled against Team Peps, having a hard time winning team fights consistently due to the number of early deaths among GenG. Even though these mistakes were present, this GenG squad looks to have a higher level of coordination than previous iterations of GenG teams this year. This was especially present on the Symmetra compositions led by Jamie “Backbone” O’Neill, self-proclaimed “The Thinker”.

This fixture is looking to be a hot one, as both teams will be treating it as a must-win game, as they fight for a spot in the EMEA playoffs over the last two weeks of the stage.

Al Qadsiah - Team Peps

Al Qadsiah are on an unstoppable streak. Having already beaten all top contenders in Virtus.pro, Twisted Minds, and Team Vision. Landon "Landon" McGee didn't want to jinx himself in his most recent interview but claimed the regular season is over. However, Team Peps found their spark after last week’s matchup against Gen.G Esports, and they'll be looking for a cunning upset if Al Qadsiah leave the gates open even a little.

If Al Qadsiah are found complacent and Team Peps manages to win a map or two, then you cannot count out this ambitious Team Peps roster. Any type of result here would be huge come the end of the regular season for Team Peps.

Game of the week: Twisted Minds - Virtus.pro

Potentially the decider fixture for the #2 seed in the playoffs. Another massive trial for Virtus.pro, right after their gruelling gauntlet against Al Qadsiah last week. Back-to-back victories for Twisted Minds will mark them as favourites for this fixture.

Twisted Minds possesses a similar playstyle to Al Qadsiah, and they’ll be taking a few notes from Al Qadsiah’s 3-0 win against Virtus.pro to come out on top. However, it would be prudent to assume that Virtus.pro will do the same and tweak a few things to avoid a repeat of their defeat in Week 3.

There are a few key elements in this matchup to look out for. We will see whether or not Virtus.pro will change their double-flex-DPS composition and play Niclas Smidt “sHockWave” Jensen on hitscan, to match Twisted Minds’ Ibrahem “Quartz” Alali. During last week’s match, Virtus.pro decided to play Ilari “Vestola” Vestola as their tank for all three maps. We’ll see if they continue honing Vestola against these top teams, or if Jonas “eisgnom” Stratemeyer will step in to shake things up.

Finally, a major part of Al Qadsiah’s win over Virtus.pro was due to Abdulelah “LBBD7” Alfaifi’s flexibility and ability to switch multiple heroes to counter Vestola’s. We’ll see if Quartz can match that level of adaptability and whether or not it’s even necessary to win against Virtus.pro.

EMEA Week 4 - Day 2 (September 28, 2025)

Quick Esports - Team Vision

Quick Esports have a trio of very difficult matchups in a row over the next three weeks, starting with Team Vision.

Team Vision will be looking for a convincing win here to bounce back from their 3-0 defeat against Twisted Minds, and set themselves up for success against Team Peps on Week 5, which will likely be the deciding match for fourth place, and Virtus.pro the week after.

Vision was outplayed last week, not on an individual level, but as a team. Despite the likely outcome of this matchup, they will need to use the opportunity to get back on track as a team and work on their communications in preparation for the final two games of the regular season.

Goud Guys ANM - Twisted Minds

For both Goud Guys ANM and Twisted Minds, this will be their second game of the week. Twisted Minds will be expecting this to be a straightforward victory, while Goud Guys will bring their usual dose of chaos.

Goud Guys will be coming off playing GenG Esports earlier in the weekend, where they can be more hopeful of an upset. This fixture will be their hardest of the stage so far. While they'll be hoping for positive results and they're never low on confidence, the Roadhog-based compositions they found success with last week might set up Quartz with a lot of charged railgun shots to swing back with.

While Twisted Minds' priority for the week is the Virtus.pro match. They cannot afford slip-ups against teams they expect to beat. Twisted Minds are the heavy favourites going into this fixture and will be keen to keep their current 2nd seed going into the playoffs.