📝 Korea fantasy Week 4 preview

Welcome back to the OWTV Fantasy preview! Week 3 is in the books, and with it, we’ve finally seen some tank players coming out of the bench.

If you haven’t read one of our earlier previews, here’s a quick reminder of our goals: We try to offer thought-provoking options for your team, and help keep you up to date with any major developments that might affect OWCS Fantasy. We will do this by looking at the fixtures for the week, players we think offer notably good value, and any other clever ideas we cook up! We also play along with our own team, Fantasy Watchpoint, and share the rationale behind the team we put together each week.

Fixture review

If you’re looking to review the fixtures yourself, we’ve included a full Fixture Difficulty Rating (FDR) to help you visualise them and make your own decisions. We’ve pre-colored them according to our own opinions:

• Green indicates what we think should be a favoured match
• Yellow indicates a matchup that could go either way
• Red indicates little upset potential

Off the bat, the region’s top teams, ZETA DIVISION, Team Falcons, T1, Crazy Raccoon, and RØDE ONSIDE GAMING, all have excellent Fantasy fixtures this week. Especially Team Falcons vs. Crazy Raccoon; Korea’s El Classico, in particular, looks like a points mine, and Falcons also get a second match where they test how far RØDE ONSIDE GAMING can punch up.

T1  continue to be a high-scoring team after strong consecutive returns from players like Skewed and Proud. They also stand out as a team to target. They face ZETA DIVISION in a tough matchup, followed by ZAN Esports, who started the stage strongly but got swept by Falcons last week. This series will be a major test of whether ZAN Esports can break into the top tier. ZAN Esports then get a more favourable fixture against Poker Face.

Crazy Raccoon, ZETA DIVISION, and RØDE ONSIDE GAMING all have a more balanced week overall, with one tough match and a more comfortable fixture, making them strong options.

Poker Face are a hard avoid this week with two difficult fixtures. Meanwhile, New Era and Cheeseburger face each other in what looks like a relegation battle, before running into Crazy Raccoon and ZETA DIVISION, respectively. If you need a budget enabler, these teams may be the place to look, but their overall scoring ceiling remains limited.

Fantasy metawatch

“Main tank diff" is a phrase we haven’t heard in a long, long time. This week, we’ve seen Someone (1.45 PCM) take full playtime over Hanbin (1.40 PCM), while Junbin  (0.11 PCM) and MAX  (1.82 PCM) have started splitting time more evenly. ZETA DIVISION gave the “closer” role duties and the easier fixtures to Bernar (1.39 PCM), and looked like they prepared Mealgaru (0.79 PCM) to play the tougher matches. The highlight of the week was D0NGHAK (1.20 PCM) returning from the bench to help reverse sweep Crazy Raccoon by pulling out the Doomfist into Mauga on Suravasa, forcing Junbin into playing mystery heroes for the rest of the map.

Despite the shifting player rotations, the meta still revolved around D.Va and Zarya, with Hazard joining them as a core pick, and the occasional Mauga or Orisa. Falcons coach NineK noted these heroes are gaining traction due to the bruiser movement speed passive below 50% HP, a sub-role perk so strong that even MCD (0.15 PCM) couldn’t resist swapping roles to try it out and banishing Yate (0.11 PCM) to Lucio jail.

On DPS, the Emre virus has officially reached Korea. Hitscan players are now consistently picking Emre, while flex DPS players are increasingly opting into Tracer over Vendetta. This is a trend we also saw during the NA and EMEA playoffs, and it may finally push flex DPS players, such as ZEST (1.31 PCM) and Checkmate (1.06 PCM), into stronger Fantasy-scoring territory after a few underwhelming weeks.

The support meta remains relatively stable, with most teams defaulting to the Lucio/Kiriko backline unless banned out. When that happens, we typically see Juno/Brig or Ana/Brig comps. Of course, we also got another week of Viol2t (1.93 PCM) flaunting his Jetpack Cat against weaker opposition, with Proper (1.69 PCM) and knife (1.63 PCM) taking turns waiting out their ride on their final map of the week against New Era.

Overall, we still believe the strongest approach is to build a well-rounded roster around the 20 cost range, targeting the top 5 teams, though this week it may be more viable than the previous two weeks to include a few cheap enablers.

(Not quite) cost-effective players

Continuing with last week’s trend of a lack of reliable, cheap options, we’re doing things slightly differently this time. We're highlighting two tiers of potential picks: one premium option and one player in the 21-and-under cost range. This week specifically, we are focusing on differentials; it’s all about upside swings rather than playing it safe.

Tank: 

If you want to stay safe, you can simply stick with Attack (2.13 PCM). However, if you’re looking to take a swing against him… 

• D0NGHAK, T1 (cost: 22) (1.20 PCM)

He was the hero of last week’s reverse sweep against Crazy Raccoon and played full maps against Cheeseburger, suggesting continued high playtime this week in what should be a competitive series.

• Mealgaru, ZETA DIVISION (cost: 22) (1.74 PCM) 

“The Closer” ranks as the third-highest points per map player after Someone and skewed over the course of the regular season. He appears to be slowly taking more maps away from Bernar, making him a high-risk, high-reward pick.

DPS:

• MER1T, Team Falcons (cost: 22) (1.74 PCM)

He has two strong fixtures, including a blockbuster match against Crazy Raccoon and a potentially competitive series against RØDE ONSIDE GAMING. With just 8.1% ownership, he stands out as a very appealing punt.

• A1IEN, ZAN Esports (cost: 20) (1.05 PCM)

He got benched in week 2 for Probe, but now that Probe is suspended, A1IEN emerges back as an option. He has low ownership at 7.5% and a favourable matchup against Poker Face, where he could generate some valuable points.

Support:

• Vigilante, Crazy Raccoon (cost: 22) (2.05 PCM)

If you can’t board the skewed train this week, Vigilante is the standout support differential. Sitting at just 6.8% ownership, he is the second-highest scoring support in the region both overall and last week, and benefits directly from being involved in the high-profile Crazy Raccoon vs. Team Falcons matchup.

• MCD, New Era (cost: 17) (0.15 PCM) 

MCD is a fun budget option if he continues to play tank this week, otherwise, he will be facing Cheeseburger in a matchup where a double flex support setup can inflate his scoring.

Honourable mentions:

• CH0R0NG, Crazy Racoon (cost: 21) (1.82 PCM)

The cheapest support involved in the Korean El Clásico. He’s a very viable option if you’re already locked into T1 assets or can’t stretch to a 22-cost support.

• WoochaN, Cheeseburger (cost: 17) (0.73 PCM)

The highest scoring sub 18 cost asset available. WoochaN will face New Era in what will potentially be a relatively close match where he can farm consistent points.

Starting fresh this week? We got you

With NA/EMEA Fantasy now wrapped up, you might be looking to dip into the OWCS Fantasy Korea for the first time or simply stay engaged during the downtime before the next stage. Here is a starter team we suggest: 

• Attack - Tank (cost:22) (2.13 PCM)
• Proud - DPS (cost:23) (2.07 PCM)
• ZeSin - DPS (cost: 16) (-0.46 PCM)
• skewed - Support (cost: 23) (2.23 PCM)
• Faith - Support (cost: 16) (0.73 PCM)

This team may not look perfect at first glance, but starting from Week 4 with a fixed budget of 100 puts you at a natural disadvantage after several weeks of price fluctuations. That said, Fantasy isn’t only about stacking points or chasing rank straight away. It’s a great way to follow and invest in matches you normally wouldn’t be interested in, and helps you get familiar with teams, players, and the evolving Korean meta.

If you want to catch up on what happened in Korea’s Fantasy during the regular season, feel free to check out our articles for Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3.

OWTV Fantasy staff team

• Attack - Tank (cost:22) (2.13 PCM)
• Proud - DPS (cost:23) (2.07 PCM)
• MER1T - DPS (cost: 22) (1.74PCM)
• skewed - Support (cost: 23) (2.23 PCM)
• WoochaN - Support (cost: 17) (0.73 PCM)

We initially planned to take a bet against Attack this week, but with the state of tank rotations across the top teams, we’re not willing to take the risk anymore. The man is an absolute unit, and it feels like the safest decision is simply to stay with him rather than try to outsmart the most owned player in the region.

Proud was our carry last week, finishing as the highest scoring player for the second week in a row. He helped us recover some ground, as we finished 94th for the week, moving us up from 792nd to 517th overall.

The main change this week is in DPS, where MER1T is our punt. knife’s return has been underwhelming since his strong Week 1 performance, and MER1T offers similar value at just 8.1% ownership. The stars are aligned, so we’re simply following the path and taking the swing.

The entire backline is being overhauled. Despite stating last week that KIVIS (1.63 PCM) was a long-term hold, and only recently transferring Irony in, skewed’s performance outscoring both our supports combined has changed everything. skewed is now the second most owned support after Viol2t, and we can’t afford to miss this train after already missing Viol2t earlier in the stage. Alongside him, we’re bringing in WoochaN as our budget support option. He has a reasonable chance to score well against New Era, even if his matchup against ZETA DIVISION looks far more difficult.

We’re hoping these transfers carry our momentum into Week 4 as we continue the push up the leaderboard. That said, this comes at the cost of a -15 point penalty, so we’ll need our new setup to immediately justify the hit. 

On the positive side, we also managed to catch a price rise on skewed, which helped soften the impact and gave us extra budget to work with moving forward.