📝 Welcome to OWTV Fantasy 2026!

It's your chance to again take up the role of General Manager of your OWCS team and build a roster to win it all.

If you’re completely new to fantasy, I would point you towards the how to play page of the website, but once you've gone over the basics, come back here to read about some of the important differences this year, changes to the format, and top tips for everyone from beginners to seasoned veterans!

They went to Korea!

Due to popular demand, we’re happy to announce the addition of OWTV to Fantasy Korea! Since the WDG format differs from NA/EMEA, Fantasy Korea will run separately from, but in parallel with, the existing Fantasy NA/EMEA.

Regular season

With every team playing two matches a week, you’re going to be more rewarded for setting up your team and transfers to hit the right matches compared to NA/EMEA, where one strategy is trying to maximise the team’s double matches for that week.

LCQ and seeding

After the regular season in Korea, the top four teams will play Playoffs Seeding Decider Matches, and the 5th-8th teams play in an LCQ (Last Chance Qualifier) to fill out the last two slots in the playoffs. These happen in the same week, so you’re drafting players who will be competing in two different brackets. This will see two camps of strategy emerging. The seeding matches will likely feature more expensive players, who will play more matches. Whereas the lower-cost players in the LCQ will only play up to two matches. Getting the draft correctly here will be a difference-maker on the leaderboard.

Playoffs

The top six teams will merge once more for the playoffs. In this stage, you could try to get good price-to-points mileage from the third-place match. Instead of trying to maximise the number of players in the grand finals, you could look to take a punt on a cheaper player losing in the semifinals but then scoring well in the third-place match. This can open up multiple strategies and gambits to maximise the number of games your team plays and clinch the fantasy leaderboard.

Beginner tips

Filling out your team

Managers often find a lot of value in concentrating their budget on a few expensive players and then filling out the roster with ultra-low-cost players. If you’re just starting out and you’re still familiarising yourself with all the players and different roles, we would encourage you to go for a more balanced roster. You can always tune in to our weekly fantasy articles to get more insights as the competition develops!

Who needs a team comp?

Your OWTV Fantasy team must have a tank, two DPS, and two supports, however, you don’t have to win maps with your team. Individual scores are everything. So you can stack your squad with two hitscan players and two Lucio one-tricks if you want to, and if they happen to be big point scorers, then you absolutely should!

Fixture-maxxing

Level 1: Find out which players are playing two games this week
Grabbing players who are set to play multiple games is a good first step to scoring some precious extra points. More games equal more points.

Level 2: Looking further ahead
As you grow as a manager, managing your limited transfers and long-term thinking becomes increasingly rewarding. Keeping tabs on players who will play multiple games in the future, planning your limited transfers around them while avoiding unnecessary transfers, will get you a lot of points in the long term. (WARNING! If you hit submit on a transfer, it will process immediately and you won’t be able to get your transfer back, so be sure!)

Level 3: Consider utilising penalised transfers
Beyond your two free transfers per week, you can opt to take a 25-point penalty to do an additional transfer. Typically, you want to avoid this, but if you need to “fix” your team after misjudging the meta or a player is unexpectedly benched, taking the penalty could be worth it.

Getting your money’s worth with price changes

We plan to make fewer price changes than we have in the past. So keeping an eye on price changes will be easier, but much more important. If there’s a player you have your eye on who’s on a hot streak, you might want to pick them up before their price goes up. You can do this after the weekend is over, but before prices change each week. On the flipside, if you’ve got a real stinker on your squad, ditching them before their price gets docked can keep your budget safe for the rest of the stage.

Set goals and manage risk accordingly

Winning isn’t necessarily the be-all end-all. Many managers set their own rules. For example, limiting yourself to only picking players you like, picking from a single region, avoiding transfers, “set it and forget it”, etc., and that is a very fun way to play, especially if you join in the fun with like-minded people. The OWTV Discord is a great place for this.

If you’re aiming at the top, however, you need to manage some extra risks. If you want to climb the leaderboard, you have to find edges that most people might miss. On the flipside of that, if you think you have no edge for a given week and just want to protect your ranking, you will find there are always “template teams” floating around the OWTV Discord #OWCS-Fantasy channel, and those will often be very safe picks. They might not send you to the Top 10, but some weeks, if you just don’t know what to do, copying someone else’s homework isn’t a bad option.

Tips for everyone

There have been some big changes to both Overwatch and its competitive format that are worth considering as we head into the season.

In NA and EMEA, the shorter season means more players will play two games each week, and more games equal more points. It's equally important to think about how competitive you think those matches will be. Generally speaking, competitive matches will be higher-scoring than one-sided affairs. So, if your favourite team has a week that you think they’re going to clobber everyone, maybe consider players that are slated for closer matchups. There’s no shortage of teams that have double-match fixtures each week! (Especially in Korea, where every week is a double match fixture for all teams.)

Identifying the meta, both in terms of in-game and in fantasy, will help you know who is likely to score big in any given week. With the launch of Overwatch Season 1, we see more Tanks getting healing as part of their sustain package, whether through perks, passives, or just plain old Roadhog self-heal. This increases their scoring potential significantly (since both damage and healing are directly converted into fantasy points), but only so long as the players you pick end up playing those heroes!

Tips from the pros

No, not those pros, fantasy pros! We reached out to some of the best OWTV Fantasy managers and thought leaders to get some final thoughts and suggestions for you all.

“Trust your gut” - Camembeire (2025 Stage 3 Fantasy Winner)

“If I could give just one tip for fantasy players, it would be: Build your roster around the good, cheap players, not the expensive ones. There are expensive high-scoring players in every role, but your options are more limited for good, cheap players.” - Unbound (OWTV Fantasy genius)

“Interacting with the community is the best way to climb, as they come up with strategies you would have never thought of. The OWTV Discord is where I spend a lot of time discussing strategies, and I would not have reached the high ranks without their help. Also, having a friend you want to beat keeps you dedicated to it and makes you want to be better than them at all costs (ATP_OW for me) “ - DarkPhantom341 (Frequent top 10 manager)

We’re so excited to bring Fantasy back for 2026 and expand it even further, both through the inclusion of Korea and the additional coverage and commentary we plan to provide this year to up the fun even further. Be on the lookout for our first preview next week!