OWCS Fantasy: Your guide to the Midseason Championship in Paris
Ici C’est Paris, welcome back to the OWTV Fantasy preview! Grab yourself a milk coffee and a croissant and buckle up for the OWCS Midseason Championship Fantasy.
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
Here is our predicted group bracket. Keep in mind that Group Stage matches are FT2, then the Playoffs stage is single elimination and FT3. There will be a Third Place Match that is also FT3, while the Grand Finals is FT4:
Group A may be labelled as the group of death, but on paper it feels fairly direct. While there are several strong teams, we believe there are four teams that are a clear step above the rest.
Group B is where things get far more interesting. We expect coach Junkbuck's top three teams (excluding his own Team Falcons), Crazy Racoon, ZETA DIVISION, and Geekay Esports, to claim three of the four available playoff spots. The final qualification ticket, however, should be a three-way battle between JD Gaming, Spacestation Gaming, and VARREL. We're giving the edge to JDG, who managed to break Weibo Gaming's 41-match unbeaten streak in OWCS China.
The playoff bracket is packed with classic rivalries. When it comes to rematches, we're backing the winner of the latest meeting. However, there are several potential first-time matchups that could steal the show if our predictions hold true.
- Twisted Minds vs. Dallas Fuel, a clash of different styles between EMEA and NA.
- T1 vs. Weibo Gaming, where the two teams are known for having a soft spot for main tanks, and unfortunately, for falling short when the lights are bright.
- Team Falcons vs. Dallas Fuel, giving us a chance to see how North America's best stacks up against the reigning Esports World Cup champions.
Finally, Team Falcons are a team worth keeping a close eye on. Their results this season haven't been strong enough to qualify them for any major tournament this year, and without the defending champion invitation, they wouldn't even be here. But if last year proved anything, it's that Falcons seem to have the EWC DNA. After all, they lifted the trophy in 2025 after fighting their way through the LCQ.
Fantasy metawatch
There is no major meta shift that we are aware of, we’re expecting the same stuff to be played: Sigma/Mizuki comps, some Cat/Bastion here and there, and the Mauga/Shion comp. So expected the high scorers to be your usual suspects that performed well in the regional stages.
Drafting strategy
The strategy for this tournament is pretty straightforward.
For the Group Stage, your goal should be to maximize games played. The best way to do that is by targeting teams you believe will drop to the lower bracket, giving them an extra series. Our preferred teams to target in order are: Geekay Esports, JDG, Weibo Gaming, T1, Twisted Minds, VARREL, SSG.
The main concern with Twisted Minds and T1 is their ability to win their matches too quickly. On the other hand, the risk with VARREL and SSG is that they lose too quickly.
For the playoffs, you want to prioritize players from the teams you believe will finish in the top four, as reaching the semifinals guarantees an extra match, whether it’s the Grand Finals or the third-place match. Our preferred teams to target in order are: Crazy Raccoon, Geekay Esports, Virtus.pro, and Team Falcons.
Fantasy stars per team
In this segment, we recommend a player from each of the participating teams:
- Crazy Raccoon: CH0R0NG (cost: 21): Has been a monster scorer all stage in Korea Fantasy.
- ZETA DIVISION: Bernar (cost: 22.5): Broke the single series points record and has the mimic backline supporting him.
- T1: Proud (cost: 20.5): Hitscans always tend to perform better during LANs.
- Team Falcons: MER1T (cost: 20): Always performs well when the stakes are highest.
- Virtus.pro: FiXa (cost: 20.5): One of the surprise standout main supports in Stage 2.
- Geekay Esports: ZIYAD (cost: 22): A potential set-and-forget option if Geekay follows the path we expect, with Finn carrying him both in and outside of the game.
- Twisted Minds: Quartz (cost: 22): LAN, with mastermind coach player Youbi and the Batman of Landon beside him, is a recipe for success.
- Weibo Gaming: Leave (cost: 18.5): Scored well at the last major and now has Doubi, aka Shy on Symmetra, to help enable him even more.
- JD Gaming: Kaneki (cost: 17.5): JDG could have huge group-stage points potential, with Kaneki and Roxy standing out as their best assets.
- All Gamers: Ezhan (cost: 17): Only for the biggest AGG believers.
- Dallas Fuel: Kellan (cost: 20.5): For anyone still riding the Kellan challenge.
- Spacestation Gaming: UltraViolet (cost: 18): Sitting at 35% ownership, he is the safe option if you do not want to potentially start behind the crowd.
- Team Liquid: Vega (cost: 17.5): Cheap supports are the play when a team isn’t expected to perform well.
- VARREL: Sley (cost: 17.5): The Master Oogway of Korean main supports, high carry potential, and VARREL will lean heavily on him.
- Team Secret: cuFFa (cost: 17.5): Qualified through a seven-map banger, but the bracket doesn’t look kind to his team.
- 9z Team: Clear (cost: 16): The “clear” candidate from 9z if you’re looking to do a hole strategy.
OWTV Fantasy staff team
- Tank - ZIYAD (cost: 22)
- DPS - Proud (cost: 20.5)
- DPS - Youbi (cost: 20)
- Support - Kellex (cost: 20)
- Support - LeeSooMin (cost: 17.5)
We are doubling up on Geekay, as we believe they are the team that will play the most games overall this tournament.
For our T1 coverage, we had to choose between skewed, Proud, and ZEST, and we settled on Proud. That decision could easily have gone either way between Proud and ZEST, while skewed felt slightly less appealing to us in an FT2 format, where supports may not benefit as much as they would in FT3.
LeeSooMin also stood out as slightly underpriced, so we backed him purely on value.
After that, we had 20 left in the budget. Our options for a second DPS at that price point were JaeWoo, Youbi, ZEST, and MER1T. We did not want to double up on T1. MER1T would have been the obvious choice if not for Coach Junkbuck’s reassuring interview, which made us think Team Falcons are unlikely to drop a group match. As for Youbi, we are assuming the “saviour” will play the entire tournament, especially with Twisted Minds not performing at their best lately.
This will be the only article we release for this tournament, since everything will unfold over the weekend, but we’ll update you on our transfers on Twitter/X. Until then, enjoy the weekend and may it be full of peak Overwatch.
The One Player Per Region League (OPPRL)
In the same vein as the 'Kellan Challenge', we're going to run another community challenge for EWC. In the spirit of International LAN, we are going to do... One Player Per Region! The rules are quite simple.
- Put the tag [OPPRL] in your Fantasy Name*
- For the group stage, all five players on your team must be from different regions. There are more regions than slots on your roster, so choose wisely! For our purposes, the regions are:
- Korea
- EMEA
- North America
- China
- Japan
- Pacific
- South America
- For the playoffs bracket, you must have a representative from every region with a team in the bracket
3.1 You may have two players from one region if you already meet rule 3!
* If you are a Gmail user, I would suggest making a new fantasy account by using the email format YourEmailAddress+OPPRL@gmail.com. Gmail ignores everything after the + and routes it to your normal email address, and that way you don't have to juggle multiple emails
Here is our team for this challenge:
- Tank - D0NGHAK (cost: 21)
- DPS - LBBD7 (cost: 21.5)
- DPS - Leave (cost: 18.5)
- Support - Sley (cost: 17.5)
- Support - Cjay (cost: 19.5)