I still see plenty of players digging into Overwatch's old Lunar New Year challenges, especially the one that handed out the Xiake McCree skin. Since it was a weekly reward and not something you could just grab from the hero gallery without earning wins, the details matter. I'm going to break down exactly how the Week 2 Year of the Ox reward track worked, what you needed to unlock at each step, and what rotated out at the same time.

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The McCree Reward Track

This was the penultimate week of the event, so the developers went pretty hard with the rewards. The good news is that you didn't need to grind one specific playlist or climb competitive ranks. Any wins in quick play, arcade, or competitive play counted toward the same total.

Here is the full unlock path:

  • 3 wins – Wanderer McCree player icon

  • 6 wins – Gunsmoke Spray

  • 9 wins – Xiake McCree epic skin

That Xiake skin was the centerpiece, and the player icon and spray were clearly built around the same wanderer theme. If you wanted the complete look, you were really aiming for all nine wins before the weekly reset.

What Rotated Out This Week

The second week also meant the previous week's rewards disappeared. The Terracotta Medic Baptiste skin, player icon, and spray were no longer available once McCree's set took over. If you missed those, your only option was to wait for the next Lunar New Year event and hope the loot box RNG finally smiled on you.

There was another way, though. If you had credits saved up, you could buy the skins directly. Legendaries typically sold for 1,000 credits, which is exactly the kind of spending I like to hold back for event exclusives. It was also a decent moment to grab classics like the Baihu Genji skin or Reinhardt's Wujing outfit if you'd been sitting on credits.

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What Else Was in the Loot Pool

While you were grinding those nine wins, you would naturally pick up arcade or quick play loot boxes. Those boxes could contain any of the prior Lunar New Year cosmetics on top of the new additions, which made the event feel a lot more generous than a single weekly challenge.

Level-up loot boxes were still in play too, so you had multiple sources feeding into the same cosmetic pool. The new additions that year were spread across several heroes:

Rarity Heroes with New Cosmetics
Legendary Orisa, Bastion, Echo, Widowmaker, Ashe
Epic Reaper, Baptiste, McCree

That lineup gave players a good mix of tank, damage, and support options. If you weren't a McCree main, there was still a reason to log in and chase loot boxes for someone like Orisa or Echo.

A One-Week Window

The most important thing to remember is that McCree's cosmetics were only available for one week. Starting on the reset, you had seven days to get those nine wins. After that, the rewards were locked away and Reaper's new gear rotated into the same slot.

For me, that kind of short window is a mixed bag. On one hand, it creates a fun reason to play every day. On the other, missing it meant waiting for another Lunar New Year cycle or burning credits. If the Xiake McCree look was your style, the smart play was to jump into your favorite mode and grind out the wins early rather than leaving it to the final night. Nine wins over seven days isn't brutal, but it also isn't something you want to leave until the last two hours before reset.

So if you were after that wanderer swordfighter energy, the formula was simple: three wins for the icon, six for the spray, nine for the skin, and then hope your loot boxes filled in the rest of the Lunar New Year collection.