📝 OWCS China Stage 1 Week 2 review

After four rounds of Swiss and three seeding decider matches, the standings have been set for next week’s Round Robin Stage in OWCS China.

DEG, a streamer team of one-tricks, has been knocked out after going winless in the Swiss Stage. Less predictably, Homie E, a team that went undefeated in Open Qualifiers, was also eliminated. Weibo Gaming might be 3-0ing every team in its wake, but on the whole, OWCS China can still surprise us.

Game of the week: Weibo Gaming 3-0 JD Gaming

Weibo Gaming vs. JD Gaming was the closest a 3-0 could possibly be.

JDG kicked off this match with an audacious throwback to 2023, overwhelming Weibo Gaming with a Sigma-Bastion-Symmetra comp on Lijiang Control Center. In response, Weibo took Night Market by countering Hwang “Belosrea” Gyu-tae’s efforts to make Winston work in the year 2026. Lijiang Tower ended with a thrilling 99-to-99 final fight on Garden. After falling to a headshot from Li “Pineapple” Zhuo’s Sojourn, Oh “MAKA” Eun-seok rushed back as Jetpack Cat, eliminating Pineapple and keeping Chen “Sunzo” Cheng alive. The ensuing back-and-forth overtime brawl had clutch plays from both teams, but not even a 2k from Pineapple could remove Weibo Gaming’s presence on point. (If you must watch a single teamfight from this series, watch this one.)

The second map, Blizzard World, featured a variety of interesting comps. JD Gaming successfully attacked Point A using Winston dive, though they quickly swapped to Orisa once Sunzo started playing Mauga. JDG’s Winston dive would return at different points throughout the map. Because D.Va and Ana were banned, however, Sunzo could run amok as Mauga.

The dream of different team comps ended on Runasapi, as both teams opted to play the meta-mandated D.Va-Vendetta rush. Zheng “Shy” Yangjie dealt significant damage on Emre, creating a fun dynamic in which Li “Mewtwo” Xianyao seemed to charge Sound Barrier twice as fast as Lee “LeeSooMin” Soo-min just from all the extra healing he was doing. JD Gaming took the lead with 1:30 left on the clock, but Weibo scraped out a win in overtime by the skin of their teeth. Just like Lijiang Tower, the final fight of Runasapi involved a last-second Pineapple 2k.

The matchup between these two squads has been an ongoing narrative since OWCS China’s inception. For now, JD Gaming continues to chase Weibo’s shadow as the perennial second-best team in China. Will they ever manage to surpass Weibo Gaming? No one can truly predict the future, but one thing’s for certain: these two teams will keep giving us some of the best and most exciting Overwatch this region has to offer.

Player of the week: Gong “JAYA” Jun

It’s a great meta for Vendetta players. Naive Piggy played three matches this week, and JAYA spent most of that time on Vendetta, putting up performances against one-trick streamer Wang “Wangming” Ming and veteran DPS Ou “Eileen” Yiliang that would have you typing “Vendetta diff” in chat. More than once, JAYA has found picks that turned the tide of losing situations, like when he killed four in Naive Piggy’s Numbani C defence against Milk Tea after his team had already lost their tank.

Week 2 match summaries

All Gamers 3 - 0 Naive Piggy

All Gamers vs. Naive Piggy started with two scrappy, back-and-forth rounds of Control. In the third round, All Gamers’s focus fire looked worlds better, and the caster Murong “Chen” Chen remarked, “It seems like AG have finally woken up.”

All Gamers stayed awake for the rest of the series. On Blizzard World, Naive Piggy nearly capped Point C, but Hua “Alphari” Yankai received a Nanoboost and stalled out the payload with some heroics on Tracer. Naive Piggy committed a truly egregious C9 on Point B of AG’s attack, giving All Gamers five minutes to take Point C and win the map. Aatlis was a cycle of Naive Piggy winning a few exchanges and then lacking the support ults to clear All Gamers off the Flashpoint in the final fight.

(In a fun coincidence, Chen’s offhand remark might have been truer than expected, as a tired-looking Alphari admitted in the post-match interview that he hadn’t slept well the previous night.)

Homie E 0 - 3 Solus Victorem

Is it true that BABAYAGA feeds a lot on Vendetta? Well, yes, but there’s a fine line between feeding and fragging on Vendetta, and Solus Victorem is coordinated enough to back him up. Compared to Homie E, Solus Victorem found better value out of ult fights. They also spent more time running Symmetra, a hero that requires a significant amount of communication to execute properly. While SV didn’t look fully practiced on the Symm comps—in their close 3-2 Suravasa, they gave up on the Symm after one Flashpoint—their willingness to keep trying this coordination-heavy hero is emblematic of the team’s strengths.

Finally, kudos must be given to Solus Victorem’s immortal flex support, Noy, who had only one death across three maps.

Homie E 0 - 3 Milk Tea

After Milk Tea’s losses to Naive Piggy and Homie E last week, another Milk Tea defeat by the hands of Homie E seemed likely. But Milk Tea kept their season alive in an unexpected 3-0 victory, with their coordination noticeably improving compared to their previous matches. Maybe Homie E should have stuck to their tried-and-true Zarya—they spent much of the match looking uncomfortable on Hazard and Orisa comps.

Naive Piggy 3 - 1 DEG

The funny OTP streamer team may have been eliminated from the Swiss Stage, but at least they got their one. DEG won their first and only map of the season while Limbo’s one-trick, Doomfist, was banned. Limbo found surprising value on Hazard, and DEG took advantage of Naive Piggy’s strange decision to mirror Juno-Brig against a team with a Brig one-trick.

In the post-match interview, Ma “Lateyoung” Tianbin said that he realized Zarya was difficult to play into DEG after the first map, so he decided to try out Orisa to counter Doom. Limbo showed off his legitimate talent on his one-trick in the three maps after Control, but Doomfist is still Doomfist at the end of the day. The rest of the series was smooth sailing for Naive Piggy and Lateyoung’s Orisa.

All Gamers 3 - 0 Solus Victorem

The most memorable moment of this match happened during the first round of Busan, when Chen “Lengsa” Jingyi on Jetpack Cat dragged Noy’s Kiriko off the map but then accidentally fell off the map himself. After a relatively close map of Control, All Gamers took care of business with a quick 3-0 on Aatlis and a near full push on Runasapi.

Milk Tea 1 - 3 Naive Piggy

In a demoralizing first round, Milk Tea earned zero elims on Lijiang Garden. Milk Tea looked better on Numbani, where Luo “TCC” Weitai’s Lucio was no longer banned, but Naive Piggy still finished the map with relative ease. Overall, JAYA terrorized Milk Tea on Vendetta for three out of the four maps in the series. Milk Tea took their single map win on Esperança thanks to a combination of a Vendetta ban and Eileen’s Mei.

Notably, Lateyoung somehow achieved two separate environmental kills with Orisa’s spear on Suravasa.

Hero bans and map picks

Data sourced from OWCS 2026 Hero Bans / Metas.

Thanks to DEG, China has the dubious honor of being the only region in OWCS to ban Doomfist. Meta heroes like D.Va, Zarya, Vendetta and Symmetra still lead the pack in tank and DPS hero bans—no surprise there—but in the support category, OWCS China teams can’t seem to stop banning Mercy.

The Chinese OWCS broadcast often refers to the Mercy ban as an “empty ban,” because it doesn’t offer much strategic advantage in a world where everyone just defaults to playing Lucio-Kiriko. In the All Gamers vs. Solus Victorem post-match interview, Jia “LiGe” Chengjie implied that hero bans matter less in matches between two teams with a clear power differential. “We felt like it didn’t really matter,” he said. “We could just casually ban a random support hero and start playing.” (Five of the matches with Mercy bans this stage have been 3-0s.)

OWCS China has seen more map diversity this week, with more teams playing Suravasa and Runasapi. Lijiang Tower continues to be a clear favorite among Control maps. Now that the two lowest-performing teams in the Swiss Stage have been eliminated, next week’s matches will hopefully involve fewer quick 3-0s, and Escort and Hybrid maps might be played more often.