Failed to make top 8 ewc

Losing to ball one trick

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - NA Stage 3 - Regular Season

i KNOW this has been said a million times but I was watching the Liquid vs Kafe match and I realised that it is really unfair that if you force your cat to peel for someone and use the tether, you only really get the maybe 2 second window before the cat can use it again. Like if you think about lifegrip, it's something that you can force out prefight, you can play around it, you can (try) kill the lifeweaver so it's not an issue. But on cat, it's infinite lifegrip to any position on the map at any time, with basically no cooldown. It really, REALLY isn't fair and it goes against the games whole ethos. Overwatch is about trading, building advantages, positioning, and then going crazy with your mechanics. Cat tether nullifies most of that in my opinion.

The reason why i say a meter and not just a cooldown is because I think if it was on a short meter like 2.5 seconds (with a slow recharge), it could be used like dva matrix, where it has offensive and defensive uses, and you have to aware of what might happen that you need to use it for. Sure you could fly bastion in and drop him somewhere, but then you couldn't take him out for a while, or you couldn't magically save your ana from a dive. It also makes you need to think about where exactly you're going to drop people. It isn't just free positioning. A note on the meter as well, if it drained while you were in the third person view at all is something to be considered. It's movement speed and a third person view. Maybe it should be on a resource even if you're not tethering someone, considering how Viol2t was using it in the finals against TM. Also, it heals! I think people forget about this, it's constant, free healing along with everything else it does.

That's all.

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - EMEA Stage 3 - Regular Season

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - EMEA Stage 3 - Regular Season

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - NA Stage 3 - Regular Season

Chills (source)

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - EMEA Stage 3 - Regular Season

OWCS Major 1 is added for 2024 since the date and event matches Champions clash for 2025-2026.

• English Streams Rebounded Spectacularly: After losing a third of its peak audience in 2025, English broadcasts surged +169.1% to achieve a record-breaking peak of 155,795 viewers.
• Co-Streaming Fueled the Explosion: This turnaround was directly driven by a shift toward community casting, which expanded unique broadcasting channels from 80 to over 250 YoY.
• Sustained Japanese Growth: Japanese viewership climbed consistently across a three-year horizon, growing +138% in 2025 and hitting a new peak of 75,058 in 2026.
• Untapped Hyper-Growth Markets: Arabic and Spanish streams led 2026 growth with staggering gains of +315% and +281%. Expanding local talent pools and dedicated co-streaming hubs will instantly capture these infrastructure-starved communities.

I saw this post today and after I wrote a reply, I decided to just make it its own post because I think more people should hear it. I have a longer post I've been working on about these things, but for now I'm giving the short version of my manifesto on win rates, pick rates, and balance discussions by OW players, redditors, and content creator coaches.

• Because silver-GM players have 50% personal win rates, pick patterns are not just a bias on win rates, they are fundamental to their production. There is no such thing as an unbiased win rate.
  • If every player were a one trick who never got banned, all heroes would have a 50% win rate outside of champ and bronze.
• If kiriko, cassidy, or sojourn were picked in the same way heroes like junk, pharah and sym are picked, their win rates would skyrocket. Yet we consider pharah and junk situationally strong, while the heroes who don't have hard counters are ironically considered weak precisely because their counters are soft so they don't trigger their player to swap.
• In most ranks, the strength of individual heroes is immaterial. You are all in the same rank. You are a diamond D.Mon, playing against a diamond Junker Queen. It doesn't matter that D.Mon is way stronger than JQ right now. You're both diamond. The game can, by definition, go either way. The important balance questions are whether it's fun/healthy for a hero to be in the meta and be seen in many games, and whether the value they get feels commensurate with the skill they take.
• Strength is contextual. Tracer seems to have shot up this season despite not getting any buffs. It's probably because doctrine and support sombra both synergize with her well. Other dps heroes naturally fell because they're getting crowded out by heroes who are stronger with sombra and doctrine. This is similar, but not exactly the same as those heroes getting weaker.
• The best information we can get from win rate and pick rate stats comes from differences. The differences between patches, the differences between ranks, and the differences between regions, for example. All of these ways of looking at these stats give us a lot more interesting and useful information than just their raw values.
  • There are, of course, some cases where we can be confident raw wr/pr data says what it appears to. Doctrine, sombra, genji and tracer this season have very very high pick rates and win rates. Thus, they almost certainly don't have the pick patterns that tend to produce high win rates, yet they have extremely high win rates. These heroes are clearly stronger than the average other hero in their role right now. But tracer didn't get stronger on her own, sombra made her stronger, so we still have to look beyond just the stats to understand what's going on. One could say that definitely makes tracer strong, but in games where doctrine and sombra are banned what does her win rate become?
• Some heroes can be strong and be healthy for the game! Way too much of the balance discussion is about which heroes are stronger than average and which are weaker than average, and therefore they must get nerfs and buffs respectively because every hero must be equal. Personally, I'm of the opinion that Overwatch recently has been rather balanced. Strong new hero releases are hotfixed fairly quickly to parity and it's okay if they're strong for the half a season where they're new. The important balance discussions we need to have should be about which heroes belong in the meta or have been out of the meta for too long, or in it for too long, and other things of that nature.
  • For example, I am someone who thinks Cassidy gets too much value compared to the skill he takes, particularly with flash. I think his value-ceiling exceeds what his skill-ceiling justifies. He is too well-rounded and being a counter against heroes that are typically more difficult/interesting/complex/fun makes him a fun-vampire. Even when not playing against the heroes he counters he's reliably strong anyway. Now, a reasonable person might take the counter position that he is a "necessary evil" to keep dive and high-mobility heroes from dominating the meta. Or they might argue that the simplicity of his kit makes him a very good onboarding hero for new players. I think that he can serve those functions without being quite this strong on all fronts. This is the kind of reasonable discussion we should be having. Instead, the discussion gets shut down from the jump by people who insist that cassidy is weak despite his strong consistent presence in the picks of top 500 and OWCS players.
    • The argument explaining why Cassidy can be strong despite his win rate is mathematically sound, but it is involved and can be counterintuitive even for those who have a strong background in math or stats. Additionally, players' egos are wrapped up in their mains' strength. A weaker hero means they're personally more skilled and also more likely to get buffed in the future. Many many times I've made points that are just how the math works without any specific claims about a hero, and I still get a dozen downvotes because some players take the fact that raw win rates are not everything as an attack. So, now we're having a silly discussion about stats and math, often with people who are intent on misunderstanding, when the important discussion we should be having is about things like skill curves, fairness, and fun. And, as I'm saying, it's not actually essential that we answer the question, "is he stronger or weaker than the average dps?" I'm not really motivated by wanting him to be exactly as strong as every other hero. I'm motivated by my feeling that he is too strong for the skill he takes, and he is strong in ways that I feel are unfun. This is not a quantitative discussion for either person in the argument, but we're both pretending it is.
  • The flip side is a hero like tracer. There have been seasons where she is too strong and seasons where she is too weak. But I think it's generally agreed that she should have a place in the meta. She is a high skill ceiling hero that is a lot of fun to play and losing to her doesn't usually feel like she got free value with little effort. Last season she had a high pick and win rate in GM+ and I think that's entirely appropriate for her, and Overwatch would be a lesser game if the hero in that spot were heroes like Widow or Roadhog.

Like I was saying, I have a larger manifesto I'm working on that gets into all the nitty gritty about how win rates are produced and all the stats stuff I do find genuinely interesting. But for the purpose of balance discussions, I just wanted to make this post saying that we've lost the plot when we argue under the premise that the best form Overwatch can take is one where every hero has equal pick rates and a 50% win rate. The important balance questions are about skill curves and fun. Win rate discussions very often bury those important questions.

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - Korea Stage 3 - Regular Season

Saw that this Dallas Fuel feature wasn't posted here and wanted to share it here after just seeing it today.

Idk, I'm coping. it was great to see zarya vendetta again, but seeing it dismantle VP was so sad. I begged kevster to get up mid match and fight, and there were flashes, but ultimately just crazy this squad with this talent lost. Im worried they cant break this ceiling. Maybe kevster peaked, or maybe he just needs to get back on tracer, Landon felt a little quiet today, eisgnom was getting bullied and abandoned. Seico looked better on bastion than tracer. I think Mr x brought up a good point that if kev was getting so many enemy resources poured into diving him, and the vp couldn't find wins in the teamfight elsewhere while that was happening, then what was happening?

May just be a coaching problem, but VP felt all over the place today, and left key members isolated often.

I remember during owl season 1 there was a game where one team was playing hog and the other team was playing dive. They were playing on junkertown and when the winston jumped onto the point to stall, the roadhog whole hogged and yeeted the winston off the map. Am i delusional or did this actually happen, and does someone have the link?

Switched to PC from console. Emerald all roles right now. I never played Winston on console but I have started to now on PC.

This character is literally hitler. Like you can just do whatever you want. His bubble uptime is outrageous now. If you ban bastion there's nothing that can really stop you. Like yeah w chain Mizuki the shield I just plopped in your face is gonna HATE that lil bro.

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - Korea Stage 3 - Regular Season

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - Korea Stage 3 - Regular Season

I've enjoyed Vendetta, just reached level 50 with her, and wanted to try something else. I figured Anran might be fun since at a glance she plays a bit like Vendetta. As someone who has less than 2 games on her, what tips can you give? Both for play style, common mistakes, dos and dont. And perhaps players to watch play and pick up on?

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - EMEA Stage 3 - Regular Season

Streams
https://www.twitch.tv/ow_esports
https://www.youtube.com/@ow_esports

Reddit-stream

Schedule

This thread pulls match data from this liquipedia page. If it's out of date, you can help by updating that page. If something is wrong or missing please ping u/Watchful1 in the comments.

Theres been a lot of talk about this for years, but if ever there was a time it would be now. They have lost two of their star players in Proper and Stalk3r, a third star player in Hanbin has essentially vanished off of the map similar to how Proper and Stalk3r did when they first started becoming disgruntled even though the current meta would likely be more effective with Hanbin over Someone. There have also been posts from Falcons players joking about how they will "come back in stage 4" which may very well indicate a lack of interest and resignation, possibly due to a known region swap.

Right now EMEA has only three partner teams compared to the four of NA and KR. Even with an expansion for next year (likely Geekay receiving a partner spot) Falcons could still slot into EMEA easily for a total of five partner teams in the region, though this depends on any expansions the scene has in the next season. I think this is the likely plan, because there just doesn't seem to a future for Falcons in Korea. Many of the top stars of the region already have bad experiences with them, and their current team looks like the completely lack any motivation. A region swap may be the best outcome for the team, and allow for a new team/teams to join the Korean region and take up a partner spot (I know people want GenG but I do not trust Arnold at all after the mess he made in EMEA).

Overall, thoughts? Do we think its finally happening, or do Falcons double down. I doubt they leave OW, though I suppose it is a possibility. OW has been a central to their esports operation, literally carrying them in 2025 to the number one spot in the EWC club championship, and with it being one of their most successful esport brands until this year I highly doubt they drop it entirely. That said, they have spent a decent amount on it and in 2026 did not receive the return they were likely hoping for. Maybe they do shutter the entire esport? I doubt it.

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - China Stage 3 - Regular Season

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - NA Stage 3 - Regular Season

Streams
https://www.twitch.tv/ow_esports
https://www.youtube.com/@ow_esports

Reddit-stream

Schedule

This thread pulls match data from this liquipedia page. If it's out of date, you can help by updating that page. If something is wrong or missing please ping u/Watchful1 in the comments.

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - China Stage 3 - Regular Season

Hi all - might be a dumb question but I honestly don't know where to start looking. Are there any tournaments for Emerald players? Where can I look to find a group or try outs? I'm a support main and would love to find a solid team to practice with. I play PC only, I'm open to role queue or open queue (if there's tournements for that). Thanks!