In Case You Missed It: This Week in Siege

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• Pro League Season 10
• DreamHack Valencia 2019
• Spain Nationals 2019
• Brasileirão 2019
• 6 French League
• Elsewhere in R6

Pro League Week 3 - G2 Struggling

Due to the DreamHack Minor last weekend Monday’s games were delayed and instead we saw playday five take place across the three main regions and playday six in just Latin America. There were a number of upsets across the games including G2 losing to Team Vitality in their third defeat in five games while Team oNe were crushed by a revitalised Black Dragons roster.

You can check out highlights of this week’s games below or in the write up here with the APAC roundup coming later this week.

 

DreamHack Valencia 2019 - NA Takes the Title

The DreamHack Valencia Minor took place last weekend which saw Rogue book their place at the Raleigh Major in NA’s fourth ever international title since the game came out. 

The tournament saw a number of close games by some of the outsiders as the Spanish BYOC teams of Giants and x6tence both took Pro League teams of LFO and FaZe Clan to three maps while Trust Gaming defeated Team oNe and ZephiR and RaFaLe’s new team of MCES defeated the Japanese hopefuls of Father’s back.

The best games, however, came from Looking For Org as they aimed to make a show of their appearance. Firstly, they defeated Natus Vincere in a marathon of a decider match that stretched 41 rounds and was called one of the best games of the year before almost being defeated in the quarter-finals by TSM before coming back to take a victory. Ultimately the team fell in the finals to Rogue in their second runners-up finish in a row following their grand-finals loss to Team Secret in Las Vegas last month. Nevertheless, the event both showed themselves as an actual contender in a LAN environment and showed the growing power of the NA teams of TSM, Rogue and Reciprocity who will be eagre to repeat performances like this at future finals.

Check out our full news coverage of the event here or our highlights of every streamed game below:

 

Spain Nationals - Team Heretics' debut ends with a win

After DreamHack's Valencia conclusion, the Spanish competitive scene had no plans to give a break to anybody. The eleventh game week of the Spain Nationals began this Tuesday with a new team in the league, Team Heretics, who faced Cream Esports in their debut under the organization.

Both rosters presented changes in their line ups. For Team Heretics, Iluzjonist joined the team in place of ScRpN. Meanwhile, the Hispanic-American organization played with two new faces, Dhubleidd and the same ScRpN. The match, which was played on Border, was a very tight one as both teams finished 3-3 at the first half of the match. Nevertheless, Team Heretics showed the difference between both teams and they won the following four attacking rounds (7-3). Iluzjonist was the MVP of the match in their first game under Team Heretics, ending the match with 12 kills and a 0.7 KOST.

The following match of the day encountered Efficiency and Movistar Riders. This match featured two organizations that, looking at the standings, have played in a similar level -- before this match Efficiency was sixth with 12 points, while Riders was fifth with 15. However, the recent roster changes made by Efficiency after M4dman’s and SETzz’s departures seem to have weakened the team.

The ban phase helped Movistar Riders, who began defending in Kafé: Thermite and Montagne bans really favoured the defender side. After the first six rounds, the Riders were 5-1 up. Yami, sakke and chOi were the best players of their side as after the first half they collected 9, 7 and 7 kills respectively. After the role swap Efficiency looked better than expected, winning three of the following four rounds. However, three kills from chOi with Capitao in the decisive round in the first half of the round gave the three points to Movistar Riders.

The day ended with x6tence demolishing Arctic Gaming 7-1. The Aliens were one of the two Spanish sides that competed in the DreamHack Valencia, where they faced two of the biggest organizations of the scene, FaZe Clan and Cloud9. Although both matches ended with a loss, x6tence showed that they are one of the main teams to get into the next Challenger League season. Their best match in the tournament was their clash against the Brazilian side, where they even won one of the three maps.

After losing the leadership of the Spain Nationals following the previous Team Heretics win, x6tence got back to the top of the standings after destroying Arctic at Coastline. Five of their attacks were successful and they concluded the win with two victorious defences, the last one with a clutch by Wispy.

On Wednesday we saw two matches being played, Wizards vs Team Queso and Giants Gaming vs Ramboot Club respectively. The wizards came to the match after drawing against x6tence on Clubhouse, while Team Queso played the week before in the DreamHack Valencia BYOC tournament. After getting a point against x6tence, Wizards won against Team Queso (7-3) showing to the audience that they really have improved after the new signings. Their new player, Jot4, finished the match with 14 kills, being crucial during the attacking rounds -- they won five out of the six rounds they played as attackers. Team Queso had a very bad day and they finally lost their second match against Wizards, as they also lost to them in the first leg on Border (7-5).

The last match of the day was played on Kafé, and it was a controversial one. The match featured Giants Gaming and Ramboot Club, teams with very different objectives: while Giants needed the win to stay near the Top 2 of  the league, x6tence and Heretics, Ramboot needed the three points to get out of the relegation zone.

The clash between both sides was an exact copy of their match during the first leg. The Giants repeated the result (7-5) after a tough fight with Ramboot. The match was defined for a hundredth of a second, literally, as the fifth round of the match ended with DriD without the defuser looking for the last Ramboot player, finding him when the time was already at 0:00.

However, the match will be remembered for being played during the ban wave. One of the bans was for Aquiles, who was playing the match for Ramboot, and forced him to play the rest of the match with his smurf, which is against the rules.

 

Brasileirão 2019 - ReD DevilS Relegated

As well as DreamHack Valencia, last Sunday also saw the finale of the BR6 Brazilian national league as the regular season came to an end. We had already learnt which four teams would be attending the LAN Finals later this month so this week was to determine which team would be leaving the league for the 2020 season - paiN Gaming or ReD DevilS.

To put it simply, ReD DevilS could only survive if paiN loses both their maps against Immortals and RDS wins both against INTZ in the final game of the season. For the first game paiN’s defeat was never really in any doubt, in the very first round Bullet1 achieved a 4k which set the mood for the rest of the map as paiN’s lone victories on Border both came while attacking the downstairs sites of Tellers/Bathroom and Ventilation/Workshop thanks to 3ks from fk1 and Revo1TZ. The second map went marginally better with paiN taking an initial lead on Coastline, however, IMT responded with victories in six of the next seven rounds including an ace on round 5 to close out the series 2-0.

And so this left ReD DevilS with their fate in their hands and just one win needed to stay afloat at least for now within the biggest national tournament in the R6 world. As they needed the full three points they couldn’t afford a draw in either map meaning their hopes ended on round 11 of map one as Mity failed to pull off the 1v4 clutch pulling the scoreline to 6-5 to INTZ and locking out the chance to rise from the automatic relegation spot for the DevilS. The two maps both eventually ended 7-5, 7-5 to INTZ as their newest pickup of Vinicius "Vnx" Mello achieved a remarkable 27-14 kill-death spread matched only by RDS’s new player of Pedro “cypriSs” Araújo’s 28-17 spread.

This result means that RDS will spend the 2020 league in the Series B league and be replaced by Team oNe in the top flight while the Challenger League team of paiN Gaming will remain in the BR6 league at least for the time being. Later this month the fifth, sixth and seventh-seeded teams of Immortals, INTZ and paiN will face off with the loser facing the second-seeded Series B team (Guidance Gaming, WP Gaming or Keyd Stars) for a spot in the top flight of the Brazilian nationals also which could signal which team to look out for in LATAM’s Season 10 of the Challenger League.

 

6 French League 2019 - Vitality Held to a Draw

This week’s French League games saw what should have been fairly straight forward games for each of the favourites however saw a number of hickups.

While LFO demolished their opponents 7-0, PENTA had a much more difficult time against their opponents, Team MCES. While PENTA was playing with their substitute, Benjamin "Krunch" Ploton, he excelled this game achieving over a 2KD and it was in fact due to RaFaLe that PENTA was struggling. The ex-Vitality player achieved 18 kills to just 8 deaths as well as the only 4k of the match and two of four of the triple kills as he pretty much carried the team forward. Despite this, MCES fell eventually in a close 7-5 scoreline as, while MCES initially went up 5-2. PENTA won the following five rounds on Coastline’s defense to take the game.

The remaining two games saw Vitality and Supremacy be both held to a draw against GameWard Team and Bastille Legacy against most people’s expectations. Both these games were defined by standout individual plays by Chaoxys on Bastille who, as well as being the only player on his team with a positive k/d spread, achieved a pivotal 1v3 clutch on Lesion in the space of a few seconds while fRYKY on GameWard may not have got many kills but performed when it really mattered achieving a 4k to put themselves on map point and lock in the draw.

These standings are as many expected them to be with the Pro League teams at the top, however, the fact Supremacy has yet to get a win despite finishing last season’s Challenger League in fifth place certainly stands out as does GameWard’s standing in the top four. Next week will see GameWard’s first game with their new player of Gaël "Liven" Gruyere who comes in to replace the BDS Esports-bound player of Thomas "SETzz" Perona against their fellow league challengers of Bastille Legacy. Meanwhile, most people’s eyes will be focussed on the Pro League calibre matchup between Team Vitality and PENTA as the league heats up

 

Elsewhere in R6 - APAC LAN Details Confirmed

Elsewhere saw the end of the ESL Premiership as, following a highly contested admin decision, T3H Esports and MnM Gaming made it through the playoffs to meet Natus Vincere and Team Secret at the LAN Finals at De Montfort University in Leicester in two weeks time. You can get tickets to the event, which will likely be the largest standalone national LAN in European R6 history, below:

This week also saw the Six major Closed qualifiers kick-off as the Pro and Challenger League teams met the top teams from the open qualifiers to compete for a spot at Raleigh next month. So far in Europe, we saw a surprise loss by PENTA against eWorld In Progress while GiFu eSports fell against BDS Esport, the new lineup of the previously banned player of Stéphane "Shaiiko" Lebleu. In North America, Team SoloMid and Luminosity Gaming defeated the favourites of Team Reciprocity and Spacestation Gaming to make it to the winner’s final while in Latin America Team oNe was defeated by Black Dragons and INTZ defeated ReD DevilS to set up the semi-final matches of Liquid vs INTZ and NiP vs BD early next week.

Finally, next week will see the Six Major APAC LAN as 0RGL3SS, Aerowolf, Cloud9 and CYCLOPS athlete gaming travel to Sydney to fight for a spot at the Major. Full coverage of all these games will come later in the week as we get closer to the end of the qualifiers and we reach the crucial matches.

 

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And so, there’s a roundup of everything that happened in R6 over the last week. Check back here next week for more coverage of R6 action at all levels of play!