📝 OWCS Fantasy NA/EMEA Week 3 preview

Welcome back to the OWTV Fantasy preview! Week 2 was definitely a little more complicated to navigate, but hopefully it helped get us all calibrated for Week 3!

If you haven’t read our Week 1 preview, 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.

A (slightly less) new statistic

We’re going to leave this in for another week as we continue to familiarise everyone with PCM!

PCM stands for “Points/Cost/Matches”; this lets us quantify how much value a player provides relative to their cost. It comes up quite often in our suggestions, so we wanted to make it easier to reference.

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

There are a lot of *GREAT* fixtures to look at this week. In NA, Dallas Fuel and Spacestation Gaming both have very competitive fixtures, with LuneX potentially having an equally high-potential but more budget-friendly option, but with the caveat that even when they do perform well, they don’t seem to score high. In EMEA, it’s much the same: Twisted Minds and Virtus.pro have two fixtures each (that overlap, mind you!). Geekay Esports also has two reasonable fixtures at a slightly more reasonable budget.

Fantasy metawatch

We’re starting to see the meta shift slightly going into Week 3, and while some of the core trends still hold, there are a few important changes fantasy managers should be aware of.

One of the biggest developments is that Initiator tanks are being played less frequently than in the opening weeks. We're seeing Zarya enter the meta much more heavily.

On the DPS side, NA is also beginning to migrate away from Emre, meaning the “Emre good” rule may not be as automatic as it has been so far. Hitscans are still strong, but it’s becoming more important to track which teams are actually committing to those heroes.

With Team Peps now relegated, Fantasy managers should start planning how to phase out Peps players from their squads. They’ve been good value assets so far, but their time has come to an end. It’s also worth preparing for the next relegation candidates. Relegation battles are also great targets for fantasy points, since these matches are often more competitive and tend to go the distance. For NA specifically, we’ve broken down all the possible scenarios for Team Liquid, Disguised, LuneX Gaming, and Extinction, and which teams are most likely to make playoffs or drop into relegation.

Looking ahead to the playoffs, four teams are guaranteed to make a deep run: Dallas Fuel and Spacestation Gaming in NA, and then Twisted Minds and Virtus.pro in EU. All four of these teams are current favourites to make it all the way to the grand finals, and as such, managers are likely to get three to four games from these players. These players cost more, but they’re good, long-term pickups if you decide to sign any of them this week, especially since all four teams have two high-scoring potential matches this week. Picking these assets up for week three could give you an edge over other managers and set you up for long-term success in the playoffs.

Last week, we noticed that a -15 points transfer penalty can absolutely be worth it if it allows you to bring in a player with two matches over someone with only one. Double fixtures remain the most consistent advantage you can build around, and if that extra transfer puts you in a position to gain an entire additional series worth of points, the math often works out in your favour.

Cost-effective players

Part of balancing your fantasy roster is recognising that you can’t just pick all the expensive 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: sniper, Extinction (cost: 18)

Even though sniper only has a single match this week, they are still one of the most cost-effective tank options available. Sitting at 1.24 PCM, they entered the matchweek as the 4th-highest tank. More importantly, Extinction still have a realistic path to playoffs, meaning Sniper also doubles as a potential playoff punt. At 18 cost, they can function as a dead spot that frees budget for upgrades elsewhere, and if Extinction do qualify, sniper could end up being one of the biggest steals of the stage.

DPS: Ade, Al Qadsiah (cost: 21)

Although Ade’s cost increased to 21, they are still projected to score quite highly, putting up a 1.95 PCM last week. The Korean is squaring off against Twisted Minds this week, and it could go all the way. And since he’s been playing Emre in matches, he has significant potential to score high. Furthermore, since Al Qadsiah have already qualified for the playoffs, Ade could be a good long-term pickup for your roster.

Support: zzz, LuneX (cost: 19)

zzz is one of the best sub-20 support options this week. LuneX have a double against Team Liquid and DSG, both of which should be competitive series. With LuneX fighting for a playoff spot, motivation is high, and zzz has already shown solid efficiency with a 0.79 PCM, making her the second-highest-scoring support, with two matches this week at a sub-20 cost. If you want a budget support with both floor and upside, she’s a very clean option.

Honourable mentions: Finn/Haku (cost: 21/18)

Geekay have a double this week and are currently favoured to claim the final EMEA playoff spot. Both Finn and Haku have been putting up good numbers, sitting #1 and #2 in support PCM this week at 1.74 and 1.42, respectively.

OWTV Fantasy staff team

• Kellan - Tank (cost: 23)
• Kronik - DPS (cost: 22)
• kevster - DPS (cost: 23)
• FiNN - Support (cost: 21)
• Grapes - Support (cost: 17)

For Week 3, we’re continuing to build off what was a successful Week 2. Our decision to bring in Kellan proved to be one of the most important transfers of the stage so far. He ended the week as the highest scoring tank and 3rd highest scoring player overall, and every team in the top 10 of the leaderboard had him locked in. With a 1.51 PCM in Week 2, Kellan has more than justified his place in our roster.

Unfortunately, Kronik didn’t deliver at the same level. He finished 19th in overall scores, largely due to spending time on heroes not named Emre. Despite this, we’re sticking with the Dallas duo for another week, as Fuel once again have a double-fixture, and Kronik’s Week 2 output of 0.88 PCM still gives him room to bounce back.

Our big gamble last week was taking the -15 hit to swap zzz out for FiNN, and it was completely worth it. FiNN finished the week as the highest scoring support and 2nd overall, matching Kellan with a 1.51 PCM. If we hadn't taken the FiNN gambit, we would've fallen down the weekly standings to 745th and the overall standings to 114th. FiNN saved us 502 positions in the weekly leaderboard and 81 in the overall leaderboard.

Heading into Week 3, we’ve parted ways with Zorrow and SirMajed, as both only have a single match this week. Instead, we moved early to bring in Kevster and Grapes, some of you keeping an eye on the VIP section of the leaderboard may have already spotted those early manoeuvres.

Kevster has been putting up absurd numbers, recording 1.84 PCM last week, second only to Ade, who topped the week at 1.95. Even though Kevster costs 23 to Ade’s 21, the efficiency is still excellent. He also finished as the second-highest-scoring DPS, and with a double coming up against tougher opposition, his ceiling remains extremely high. With Geekay already proving they can beat teams like Al Qadsiah, and Twisted Minds looming as the region’s top dog, Kevster should have no shortage of high-intensity fights to farm fantasy points for us.

As for Grapes, while he only has a single this week, we needed an enabler to make the roster work, and we’re happy to take that risk. With Extinction’s volatile results and the relegation battle heating up, we fancy our chances that Grapes can still return solid value.

We’re very excited to see how many of you manage to catch us in the leaderboards as we bring the regular season to an exciting finish.