Weibo topple Falcons as four teams exit the Midseason Championship
Day 1 of the Overwatch Champions Series 2026 Midseason Championship passed with the favourites largely untroubled. Day 2 raises the stakes considerably, with four teams facing elimination from Paris and the first two top-eight places on the line.
Crazy Raccoon 2 - 0 Spacestation Gaming
Day 2 started with Crazy Raccoon dispatching Spacestation Gaming without much issue. They started on Nepal, with SSG banning Bastion and Crazy Raccoon banning D.Va. Xander "Hawk" Domecq rolled out on the Mauga, with Park "JunBin" Jun-bin opting for the Domina, a pick that has become pretty unique to him over the tournament. It paid dividends immediately, as Crazy Raccoon established early control and made it incredibly difficult for Hawk to make anything happen. Sanctum was a slightly different story, with Hawk's Orisa finding more success and Kamden "Sugarfree" Hijada and Benjamin "Ultraviolet" David taking a really good side fight to overcome Jeong "Stalk3r" Hak-yong, but SSG could not close out their last fight and blew the ult bank in the process.
Map two wouldn't show the same signs of life. With Domina and Jetpack Cat banned, Aatlis started with Hawk on the Mauga once again, and JunBin's Hazard was nightmare fuel for the SSG backline throughout, deleting them at will. Stalk3r also had his moments, kiting out SSG to flip a 4v5, and a swift 3-0 followed. While the result wasn't surprising, SSG showed a couple of signs of life against some of the toughest competition in the world, which may inspire some confidence ahead of their lower-bracket clash against the winner of the VARREL/All Gamers match.
With this victory, Crazy Raccoon became the first team to officially qualify to the top eight playoffs.
Weibo Gaming 2 - 1 Team Falcons
In by far the best match of the group stages, Weibo Gaming finally overcame their bracket demons in an absolute thriller of a series. It started out looking shaky. Ham "SOMEONE" Jeong-wan was giving Xu "Guxue" Qiulin the work in the Sigma vs. Ramattra matchup, and despite a very back-and-forth Sanctum, Falcons won a crucial fight to go into the closing stages with a huge ult advantage. Shrine was not so close, with SOMEONE's domination continuing and his backline doing a fantastic job of keeping him healthy, and Falcons took Nepal 2-0.
Neon Junction was where things really got interesting, though. Chen "Sunzo" Cheng was subbed in and immediately showed why he is called the Tank of the Changing Tides, clearly the stronger Sigma in the mirror as Weibo took space on their attack. Falcons committed to an expensive retake but could not pull it off cleanly, surrendering the first point, and a Sunzo masterclass kept Weibo rolling through the second before a great flank from Choi "MER1T" Tae-min held them on the third. The tank differential persisted through Falcons' attack. They were forced to take things very slow and only captured the first point after blowing the entire ult bank, and things looked good for them until Zheng "Shy" Yangjie pulled off a heroic 4K and Falcons C9'd from there to let Weibo level the series.
Colosseo was where things began to fall apart. Falcons surrendered an early lead to Weibo's Cat/Bastion/Ana composition, whose Nano Boost turns were incredibly effective, and from there seemed unable to win a clean fight, always being traded and never in a position to get good metres on the board. It was a scrappy map, but Weibo played the objective well and converted their early lead to beat Falcons for the first time since 2024.
Weibo became the second team to make it into the top eight on the winners' side, a result few would have predicted, while Falcons now face a very difficult lower bracket run.
A very subtle post-match line from Guxue perfectly sums up just how much it means to Weibo to break their losing streak against the Falcons in this fashion.
VARREL 2 - 1 All Gamers
With Weibo Gaming having just secured playoff qualification, All Gamers began their fight to keep Chinese hopes of multiple playoff representatives alive, while VARREL continued on as the only Japanese team in the tournament. Nepal opened with an exhausting first round that stretched deep into overtime, a brutal back-and-forth that eventually went AG's way. All Gamers held more control on Shrine, where Jeong "TOPDRAGON" Seung-yong struggled all round for kills, and a mistimed Rally from Kim "Sley" Jae-hwan sealed the map.
VARREL answered on Shambali Monastery with a scrappy but effective full hold, then made short work of their own attack after All Gamers fumbled an attempt to pin them at spawn. That levelled the series and sent it to a decider. AG picked Aatlis with elimination on the line and came out of the gates swinging, taking two points with no response from VARREL. It took until match point for the Japanese side to finally get their act together and put on the display fans know they are capable of. Three straight points of absolute scrap followed, and VARREL completed the reverse sweep to make All Gamers the first team eliminated from the tournament, with Tomoharu "KSG" Inoue pulling the trigger to crush AG's golden triangle.
JD Gaming 2 - 0 Team Secret
JD Gaming came into this match after a close 2-1 loss to Spacestation Gaming, knowing the squad was capable of more, while Team Secret, the Pacific's only representative, knew they had to punch up to earn another shot at a miraculous top-eight qualification. JDG started strong on Nepal behind a great display from Hwang "Belosrea" Gyu-tae and Li "Pineapple" Zhuo. Team Secret rallied in the second subround off the back of Riley "cuFFa" Brown's Winston, the first Winston pick of the tournament, and Nathawit "HyVision" Prajong's Shion, but JDG were dominant once more in Sanctum to reach an early match point.
Team Secret took the series to New Junk City, but the result was the same. JD Gaming cruised to a 3-0 to send Team Secret home and keep their own qualification hopes alive for another day.
T1 2 - 0 9z Team
The penultimate game of Day 2 saw T1 take on 9z. Unsurprisingly, T1 dominated the match and swiftly won 2-0, sending the lone South American representative home without a map win.
For T1, not much can be said about this win considering the gap between the two teams. The real story of this victory was the set-up for their next match, a rematch against their regional rival, Team Falcons.
Dallas Fuel 2 - 0 Team Liquid
In the pre-match interview, Park "SeonJun" Seon-jun boasted how the Dallas Fuel’s Korean imports were stronger than those on Team Liquid. And given his performance, that claim was accurate as the Fuel closed out Day 2 with a victory against Team Liquid.
Although the match was a lot closer than the scoreline suggests, the Dallas Fuel knew the intraregional head-to-head against Liquid well, and that carried over into the international stage. Team Liquid failed to repeat their 3-0 win from the regular season playoffs and ultimately headed home. The Dallas Fuel advanced further into the Midseason Championship, awaiting either Virtus.pro or Twisted Minds, looking to make the upset and bring North America to the top eight.
Looking ahead to Day 3
Day 2 sent four teams home, with All Gamers, Team Secret, 9z and Team Liquid all exiting Paris. Crazy Raccoon and Weibo Gaming became the first two sides to secure their place in the top eight, and the remaining six playoff spots will be settled on Friday, July 31.
The winners' bracket opens with a rivalry match between Virtus.pro and Twisted Minds, with a playoff place going to the victor, followed by Geekay Esports against ZETA DIVISION under the same terms.
The lower bracket carries harsher stakes. T1 meet Team Falcons in a fierce regional clash and Spacestation Gaming face VARREL for a rematch of their 2025 World Finals matchup, with qualification for the winners and elimination for the losers in both. The losing side from Virtus.pro against Twisted Minds then meets Dallas Fuel on those same terms, before the loser of ZETA and Geekay faces JD Gaming with the final playoff spot on the line.