📝 The battle for fourth: OWCS EMEA Stage 3, Week 5 Preview

Two weeks left of the regular season, and the table has well and truly taken shape. Al Qadsiah, Twisted Minds and Virtus.pro occupy the top 3 spots, with Virtus.pro expected to overtake Twisted and take second once they catch up on matches played. The bottom of the table seems set as well, with Quick Esports taking their expected cannon fodder position at the bottom, and Goud Guys ANM missing their biggest chance for a playoff berth after losing 0-3 to Gen.G last weekend. If you missed any of the Week 4 action, you can catch it all in our weekly summary.

The middle is where the action is set to unfold, with Team Vision and Team Peps involved in a clash for 4th place. The difference between finishing 4th and 5th is significant heading into the playoffs. With the format expected to mirror Stage 2, the 4th-place team will start in the Upper Bracket and the 5th-place team in the Lower Bracket.

EMEA Week 5 - Day 1 (October 4, 2025)

Quick Esports vs Virtus.pro

With a solitary map win to their name in Stage 3, expectations are low for Quick Esports against the European powerhouse of Virtus.pro. Quick's propensity to make it goofy and lean into silly heroes might provide some relief for viewers in what is destined to be a dull one-sided affair.

While you cannot lament Quick Esports too much for enjoying their unexpected appearance in the Overwatch Champion Series, Stage 3, this won’t be more than a warm-up act for the main event later that day, in the battle for 4th.

Game of the week: Team Peps vs Team Vision

The battle for 4th on the 4th is this week's headline fixture. The result has significant implications for the playoffs, and while both teams have spent a lot of this stage so far speaking of their aspirations to break into the top 3 and qualify for Stockholm. Making that leap from the Upper Bracket will be markedly easier.

Team Peps have shown their best look on the Hazard, Tracer, Freya compositions, with a Kiriko, Wuyang backline that can pivot to Kiriko, Lucio depending on the ban situations. They took a round off Al Qadsiah in this type of mirror last week and will be keen to play as much of that as possible in this crucial game.

Florian "Dip" Lefèvre, Leo-Kristian "Zorrow" Sundin, and William "Willys" Ersson have all been bright spots throughout Stage 3 for Team Peps. Though this will be the biggest test yet for the young frontline. While they’ve played tougher opposition, there is a freedom that comes with being the underdog. In this match, both teams believe they can and should win.

Team Vision’s run in Stage 3 has very much mirrored that of Team Peps, comfortably better than the bottom of the pack, far away from an upset against the top 3. The investment and imports that Team Vision have made demand results, and a loss to Team Peps feels more damning for Vision than the inverse would for Team Peps.

Park "Viol2t" Min-ki and Choi "ChoiSehwan" Se-hwan remain the stars of this roster with their Overwatch League experience and accolades, but Team Vision will require all their pieces to play their part to find success. Moritz "Cookie" Schmidt has had a hot and cold start to his Team Vision career, with some limitations in his hero pool harming him earlier on. Against Zorrow, it’s expected that the two will face off in a hitscan mirror for the majority of the series, allowing both to play their best heroes.

Similarly, Luca “Tama” Gal and Willys represent two of the most promising Tanks in the EMEA region. This match serves as a marker for how much progress they and their teams have made since the start of the year. With playoffs looming, the stakes are beginning to rise, and this match will prove an important test for both in their journeys up the OWCS ladder.

EMEA Week 5 - Day 2 (October 5, 2025)

Al Qadsiah vs Goud Guys ANM

Al Qadsiah are currently 5-0 at this stage and recently beat Team Peps quickly and decisively. Looking towards this week, Al Qadsiah will be looking for a dominant win to keep their current momentum going into the playoffs. With more straightforward fixtures left, Al Qadsiah are expected to breeze past Goud Guys ANM and stay on track for their perfect 7-0 regular season.

While Goud Guys had a rougher week, losing to both Gen.G and Twisted Minds 3-0. Despite coming off a dominant win against Quick Esports and showing surprising fight against Team Vision in Week 2, they fell short of that early promise. In their upcoming fixture vs Al Qadsiah, Goud Guys have the odds stacked against them. With their playoff qualification requiring upsets this week against Al Qadsiah or next week against Team Peps, the odds are stacked against them. Though Goud Guys have never been ones to back down from a challenge.

Gen.G vs Twisted Minds

Gen.G esports vs Twisted Minds is a battle of two of the most storied esports teams in Overwatch’s history, with GenG previously running Seoul Dynasty during the Overwatch League alongside multiple academy teams, and Twisted Minds being a mainstay in EMEA Contenders/OWCS for many years now.

During Week 4 of OWCS, Gen.G faced and convincingly beat Goud Guys, with the only real push back being on map 3 Esperança, where Gen.G had to come back from a 100M deficit to fully cap the map and win the series. With the reintroduction of Christian "Khenail" Ríos back into the Gen.G starting roster, they will be looking to keep the momentum from their win in Week 4, with the last 2 games of the stage being their hardest. Gen.G have leaned away from the Symmetra, Jamie "Backbone" O'Neill playing Reaper predominantly instead, making them less predictable and more difficult to ban against. As they face two of the best Symmetra teams in the world, this will be key in them having any hope of a result against Twisted Minds and Al Qadsiah in the final two weeks of the regular season.

While Twisted Minds will be disheartened after losing a heartbreaking map 5 to Virtus.pro. Twisted Minds showed competence on the Symmetra compositions that we have become accustomed to watching them play for many years. Instead of Youbi playing her, Seicoe took the reins, continuing their storied success on the hero while opening up Tracer compositions more regularly. Later in the weekend, Twisted Minds also played Goud Guys, and they had the same result as their Gen.G for this upcoming weekend, 3-0. There were a few more bumps as maps 2 and 3 were closer than the Twisted Minds squad would have hoped for. This could also be due to Twisted Minds preparing for their game against Virtus.pro earlier in the weekend, whereas Gen.G only had the single match.

Looking ahead to this weekend, Twisted Minds will be hoping for an easier result as they play Gen.G, who at this point, aren’t at the same level as the likes of Virtus.pro. With regional playoffs just a couple of weeks out, Twisted Minds will be aiming to avoid a misstep, ensuring they claim their expected third-place seeding. While Gen.G need to cause a large upset to shift their ranking at all.