One last NA/EMEA Fantasy weekend to close out 2026
So recently it started, and so soon it ends. The final regular-season week, not just of NA/EMEA Stage 3 but of OWCS in 2026, has passed us by. In EMEA, four of the six teams finished with a perfectly balanced 2-3 record after Virtus.pro claimed a hollow victory against a somewhat vainglorious Twisted Minds. NA, meanwhile, reminded us that nothing ever happens, with the same four teams reaching the playoffs for the third time this year. Check out this week’s recap article if you want more of a retrospective, but for us, it’s onwards and upwards to the playoffs!
Our goal with these articles is twofold: to offer thought-provoking options for your team and to keep you up to date on any major developments that might affect fantasy. We will do this by looking at the week’s fixtures, players we think offer notably good value, and any other clever ideas we cook up! We’ll also play along each week with a team picked by our writing staff!
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
A quick reminder on how we approach the FDR for playoffs: rather than predict the result of each series, we estimate how many series each team is likely to play. In each region, one team will play two series, one will play four, and the other two will play three. So you obviously want to avoid whoever is going out in the first round and, if possible, figure out who will win the lower-bracket final.
We’re pretty sure that Team Liquid and Dallas Fuel will be NA’s grand finalists, but much less sure how they will get there. In EMEA, on the other hand, we’re almost certain that Twisted Minds will have a relatively smooth road to the Grand Finals, and Team Peps’ road will only be interrupted by their inevitable first meeting with TM.
In reality, the more important thing is to minimize the number of players from teams that will only play two series. In NA, we’re ignoring the Week 1 results and running with the broader historical trends, assuming The Kafe will be the first to exit.
In EMEA, it’s a little more pick-your-poison. In our opinion, either 1234 or Team Risk are likely to be eliminated early, and if you’re in a less French time of your life than the Fantasy writers, you might see a world where Peps go out early as well. Regardless, make your predictions before you build your roster. Then either align your picks with them, or offset them 180 degrees from each other so you win either way.
Fantasy metawatch
Doctrine is an absolute point farmer. Anyone playing him is putting up good numbers at a minimum, even in losses, so long as they aren’t complete stomps. I would go so far as to suggest that support is a great place to spend a big chunk of your budget right now, as the role is consistently giving you the most bang for your buck.
On the flip side, it’s a little harder to suggest spending big on DPS. zeruhh is at the top of the DPS rankings for Stage 3, and that puts him just barely inside the top 10 overall. No other DPS is in sight until his teammate Tr33 and JaeWoo appear around 15th, and the next DPS after them shows up around 20th, by which point you’re well out of ideal picking range.
Tank… what can I tell you that won’t be obvious? Not much. The best-scoring tanks going into the playoffs are Attack, GoldenPants, TVNT, and Kellan. Three of those four are simply the best-performing tanks in their region by reasonably wide margins, and then you have Mr. Baller himself, fantasy darling and pride of Great Britain.
Oh, one word of warning: Willys saw more and more playtime across the stage, and it seems entirely possible that he and KroxZ will be hard-splitting playtime this weekend. Caveat emptor.
Cost-effective players
Part of balancing your fantasy roster is recognising that you can’t just pick all top-cost players. You need to find some budget options to fill out your roster, and we’ve selected a player from each role to help highlight a few valid options.
Tank: GoldenPants, 1234 (cost: 19.5)
He’s occupied every other possible slot in this article during Stage 3: honourable mention, dishonourable mention, and staff team member. After another good showing this week, he gets top billing. The only caveat is that we think 1234 are likely to be the first team eliminated in EMEA. If you agree with us, maybe look elsewhere (cough Attack cough). Otherwise, lock him in.
DPS: SeonJun, Dallas Fuel (cost: 20.0)
If you look at the cumulative stats for the stage, SeonJun is only an okay fantasy player. If you look at just this past week, when he was off ping, he was a pretty good fantasy player. That’s despite handing out two crushing 3-0s and spending an inordinate amount of time on Junkrat. He should play even more series against better opponents this weekend, and, Lord willing, he’ll post an explosive scoreline for a 20-cost player.
Support: UltraViolet, Team Liquid (cost: 21.0)
We usually try to keep player costs lower than this for this section, but everyone just got an extra five budget to work with, so it might be okay to splurge just this once. And if there was ever a player to splurge on, it’s UltraViolet. Despite a dismal Week 1 on Sombra and a Week 3 focused more on speedrun times than fantasy scores, he still holds the top PCM spot among supports. If you made the Fantasy writers guess, TL will be the ones entering the Grand Finals from the lower bracket, which would give him four series to farm.
OWTV Fantasy staff team
Tank - Attack, Team Liquid (cost: 22.0)
DPS - JaeWoo, Twisted Minds (cost: 21.5)
DPS - SeonJun, Dallas Fuel (cost: 20.0)
Support - Cjay, Dallas Fuel (cost: 23.0)
Support - UltraViolet, Team Liquid (cost: 21.0)
Attack has been an absolute demon on both D.Mon and D.Va. He’s the highest-performing tank in fantasy this stage, and we think he has the best fixture in North America, making him a no-brainer for us going into the playoffs.
Given his team’s dominance and JaeWoo seeing 100% of the playtime, he should probably cost more than 21.5, but we’re not complaining. TM are probably rushing to the Grand Finals, so we’re only taking one of their players.
As we mentioned above, SeonJun does us all a favour by scoring mildly while he’s on ping. That makes him cheaper than he would otherwise be, as his real value unlocks after the last price changes of the stage. The best time to pick up SeonJun was last week. The second-best time is this week.
You could very easily substitute Simple in for Cjay here. But based on the regular season, we think the North American playoffs will be more competitive than EMEA’s, which should mean better scoring potential for an already high-scoring player.
There’s nothing really to add that we didn’t cover in the cost-effective players section. UltraViolet is priced well, leads supports in PCM this stage, and will likely play the maximum number of series possible.
Last week, we outperformed and climbed to 87th place, at least before we took a penalty to optimise our team a bit more this week. We’re well positioned to outperform again, though with the budget increase, we’ll see whether we’re crafty or just part of the crowd.
All that said, this is the final NA/EMEA Fantasy article of the year, so if I don’t catch you around the OWTV Discord, it’s been a pleasure writing for you all. I hope you found these articles useful, or at least enjoyable to read. This was a new hobby for me, and it has been tons of fun to figure out. I look forward to next year and, hopefully, an OWCS format that makes for an even more fun Fantasy experience.