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I wanna revive
Switching the game
They know their name
I wanna know I need it
Come on, come on, come on
You can't take me to the right
You wanna stay here tonight
It's time to turn it into city life
Let's give it life
Let's give it life
Let's give it life
Welcome to week two of the North American League. Everyone's so glad to have you with us. I'm Jonas
Villinger alongside laxing and mint guys already on playday four, but between playday three and now
it's been what five days off. You're here in Copenhagen. You guys get up to get up to anything
fun that people should know about to go to the gym yesterday. So that was kind of two days ago.
My legs are kind of feeling it usually sets in the second day, but I've caught up on some
video games. So that was kind of fun classic and watching your streams about the ring. So
That's been a ton of fun. Definitely tuned in to that.
That was a ton of fun.
I took down what, the Crucible Knight last night?
Crucible Knight last night.
It looked like two hours chat was cheering for me.
The dopamine hit when you finally killed a boss.
Well, I also played some ranked games.
This guy was paying me for some placement games.
Did play some ranked.
You boosted him?
I want some guesses in the chat
what his rank was after placement games.
We won four out of five games.
And what were you like?
E-Lo was like Emerald Diamond five.
I thought you were like base flat, right?
Back in the day.
Okay.
Back in the day.
I haven't played like consistently for a while. Let's say gold. You know what? That's a great guess. Let's leave it at that
Bronze three no no, I don't I don't get it four wins in diamond five elo and they throw me bronze three
They're like you haven't played in a while nuts stay on this top would be fire tune into your stream
I can't remember was a 1v1 with him and your face was just perplexed out the decision
I mean granted he clutched around he's a clutch player, but maybe some decisions that were made before it doesn't have to look pretty
I just get the job done.
Well in case you missed the week 1 action or you just see a little bit of a refresher, here's Jesse with a week 1 recap.
Siege is back for stage 2. In the first week we've already seen player debuts, max overtime games and about 400 rounds of villa.
This is everything that you miss in week 1 of the NA.
DarkZero kicked off the stage against Wildcard, or at least four of them did.
Gooder Internet issues, where J9O couldn't play in a match, and VZ Academy player Koshy stood in its place.
They lost the match, but J9O returned in their next game to drop the combined 26 frags,
to the M80 and the 100thies, giving DarkZero a sweet six points on the week.
Iconic returned to the NAL after more than two years away,
and immediately put up an MVP performance to give it outlast their first win of the season.
Unfortunately, that 7-5 win over 5-3 would be the high watermark for both teams as neither
5-3 nor Outlast were able to win their next couple of games, and 5-3 are now sitting in
dead last with no point for the Power Taunt.
Shop and Fire Rebellion opened day 2 by speedrunning for Fun Esports in a 7-1 victory for their
second win of the stage.
They now sit in third place after also taking down M80 back in Play Day 1.
And giving up 3 points was unfortunately common for M80 this week, after falling to Shop
Fire Rebellion lost 7-5 to VZ and 7-5 to SSG.
That means they still don't have a point and are tied for the dead last of the bottom of the standings.
Speaking of 7-5s, 100 Beams walked away with 3 full points and wild card on World 2,
after Captain Hot and Cold clutched up massively with 15, giving 100 Beams their first win on the stage.
But on Day 3, Wild Card bounced back, winning the best game on the stage so far,
a 15-round banger versus shot by Rebellion that vaulted Wildcard up to 5th place with 5 points.
Once bought below, you'll find 4 fun esports who found their first one of the stage on Playday 3
when they matched up against Outlast in 1-7 rounds in a row for a 7-2 victory.
That means that only two teams remain undefeated, SSG and Cloud9.
Space Station's offseason improvements were on full display last week as they sailed past
4 fun, 5 fears and an 80 who couldn't get their attacks going on the 80 labs.
Meanwhile, Cloud9 was saying easy for Uzi as the rookie pushed it back to back to back MVP performances
and sent a loan atop the NA L stat sheets to the Katie of 31 and 7.
Week 1 was insane, but some important questions remain for Week 2.
Will the perfect stage break first for Cloud9 or for Space Station Gaming?
Does anyone have an answer for how to beat Wildcard on Villa?
And will M80 ever win a game again?
Find out all of that and more right here on the NA L.
that's a great breakdown of the
first week of action. But guys,
now that we've seen one week of
play, I figured why not let's
get a little crazy and make some
predictions about what we might
see next. We're calling this
segment call your shot. We're
going to bring out some bold
predictions, maybe some
controversial ones. I want to
see what do you guys think is
a crazy take about what could
happen at the end of this
end of this stage looking back and say, all right, here is what we knew was going to happen
from week one. Kyle, give me your check.
Well, I don't look, I don't think this is that crazy. But I know in our previous segment,
I upset a lot of fans of a certain C tier team and you had to make a tweet and you had
to get the love on your side. But you know what? I don't need the love on my side.
I'm gonna continue with my hate watch. Oh boy
SSG yes, they're three and now
They're not gonna make playoffs. I already I already hear the chat going absolutely crazy now
Real ball knowers know why I'm saying this but they're not going to make playoffs
And I don't think this is that crazy to think if you look at who they played
Yes, they beat a struggling and maybe but the other two teams were teams that arguably they were favored it over and should have
Should have won they got their nine points. That's great
But we look at the rest of their schedule the strength of schedule coming up. They still have to play wild card
They still have to play DZ. They still have to play hundred thieves, right?
We look at all these teams and almost every and in cloud nine as well almost all of these games
They are considered the underdogs
Yeah, I don't think it's crazy to say that we could see these guys going a four five game losing streak
And we might have to see them play the only game. That's not pictured there is versus outlasts
That is the last game of the the stage that could be the game to decide if they make playoffs
Honestly with everything that you've written out and just read word for word off your script
I mean you make this sound like a hot take you're just stating facts at this point
I think I think you really do genuinely believe this. I mean that was that was hard hitting
But I also have to question
I mean I felt like you were probably even battling your own self having to choose between a hundred thieves or SSD for your hot take
Because on one end you have dreamed the other you have hot and cold or hot and sexy as you refer to my
intelligent. So I'm honestly proud that you did decide to go with SSG and not your fan favorite of 100
thieves. We'll talk about them later. So Alex, do you agree with the take or do you? Oh, absolutely
agree. You do. Honestly, I don't agree. SSG has really shown. They gave me code. They gave me
skin codes. Give me some more. But they did really show a good resurgence from the previous stage
and what we're seeing now. And even starting out the league or starting out the Super Week
we were talking about, we need to see individuals step it up. That was one of the big things
We need to see the comms change and everything that we highlighted and needed to see changes and regardless of it being weaker opponents a weaker
M80 they have stepped up in each and every single one of those categories
We've highlighted almost every single player if not every single player throughout the three-play day
So I got to give them a little grace and disagree with you
Well, I'm on the board back here. You may be convincing
So I want to jump in with a prediction of my own when we get back to your SSG predictions
You may be a little bit. Hey. I mean, yeah, look at that
Not good. No. No. My take of this, Panba, our very own Panbazoo on Cloud9 is going to be the MVP of the stage.
Now I'm not going to say he's going to be the number one rated player of the stage. Right now, Uzi is running away with that title.
But I think when everything is said and done, when the dust settles in Cloud9, maybe go to Osaka, maybe finish at least in the top six,
then we're going to sit back and say Panba was the most valuable player out here.
He led this team to the success they had the IGLing improved it a ton
I want to know what you guys think though agree or disagree. Is that a bronze three takers?
I feel that's a little bit of a bronze three-take
I'm I don't disagree with Pamba getting a lot of praise coming on to this team and making making a good shift
For the dynamic of this roster, but when we're talking about IGLs we're talking about players specific MVPs
It's gonna have to be oozy for me
He's been phenomenal, he has like a point, he has like a 4 point something KD so far.
And you think he's going to keep it up?
And I do believe he's going to keep it up.
Whether that's on attack, whether that's on defense.
But that's why I'm not specifically focusing on Pamba as a whole.
Because a lot of their success has rode on the fact that it's come off of their defenses.
And when you think about it Kyle, defense IGL don't really exist.
I know we hear SR talk about it with Pamba.
But for the most part across all regions, you aren't focusing on IGL and defense.
It's solely off players own intuition off their own individual prowess and that alone Uzi has been
Performing phenomenally. I mean Pamba isn't playing those one v fours that Uzi is able to pull off and getting those MVPs three times in a row
So if there's gonna be any single player walking away with the MVP status
It is gonna be a cloud nine player and it's a hundred percent going to be okay, so I disagree
Yeah, I mean see I think it was he's been I think he's been fantastic
I just don't think he can keep it up. But what can they keep up is Pamba Zoo?
I agree with that take I think it's a really good take in the fact that like where do their defense get them last stage right?
It's their attack right now that's so impressive, and I can't wait to tell us straight for you guys later
Stay tuned a great cloud not attack
It's their attacks that have been impressive and Pambazoo is one of those IGLs that also gets a lot of frags
Which I think is very impressive and very good for their system
So you know what I want to give you a bronze to take we'll rank you up a little bit
That might be a champion take right there. Whoa, that's a big go very quick. I'll take it. Thank you for that
What's your prediction here?
You've been giving us a good bit of flag here.
What is your bull tag?
Call your shot.
I mean, it's definitely going to be a bull tag.
And honestly, M80, you think it'd be any skin coats.
And I think it's easy to pick on these guys so far.
M80 is not going to make playoffs.
Yes, I said it.
They are not going to make playoffs.
They are 0-3.
And if you extend that even further, they are 0-5.
You look at their previous stage.
They dominate that previous stage.
They had Ashen.
They got Savage.
It was looking beautiful.
It was looking like a phenomenal start.
They went 8-1, only losing a wild card.
only losing a wild card they go to playoff they again only lose a wild card
gets second place in the NAL to head into EWC but that's when the obstacles
that's when the problem started to arise they immediately get knocked out of EWC
they take a little bit of time off that was like a three-week break month break
they come back into the stage you we all put them at the top I mean we rated
them what a tier we believe that they were going to show a dominant
performance similar to what we've seen in the previous stage and we just
haven't seen that level of play yet.
Now the games have relatively been close.
And again, it really is just easy to pick on these guys
only because when you look at where they were
in the previous stage and where they are now,
they are dead last tied with five years.
That is just not something that you would have imagined
coming into this stage.
It's definitely the fun take.
So I appreciate that on your side.
I just think this team has two talent, right?
We got a disadvantage.
Hold on, give me your first reason
so I can shut this down real quick.
They have too much talent?
Yeah.
Diffuser, Gunner, Gavini, Ashin and Diffuser are the lowest 30th and 40th rated players in
the league currently coming into play there for hours.
They're not trying yet.
Guys, they're not trying.
I'm totally coping here, but they got such a free week.
Watch them.
I rock it to the top in stats.
That's the important thing.
It is a free week.
It is definitely a free week in terms of any of the other previous, I mean from
the previous week and then going forward. This should be the time that they get points,
but if they don't, if they lose this week, I'll look like the smartest man in the world.
Right, their free week starts with Outlast at the end of the day today, which again should be
an opportunity for M80 to get some points on the board, but we've got plenty of exciting
action leading up to that point. Cloud9 and Space Station, the other two teams we just talked
about, they have a lot to prove as well. SSG against Wildcard, Cloud9 against DarkZero,
two matchups that these teams want badly to maintain their position at the top. Kyle,
game of the day here, if you had to pick one, which match are you definitely tuning in?
I mean, I just love the fact that we have a lot of teams that are 3-0 that get to prove themselves against Juggernauts.
The one I'm going to pull out though is that Cloud9 DZ one, because I am so high on Cloud9.
I think they and Bizzou is the truth, and I want to see them against DZ.
And Bizzou is the true truth.
I like that.
I am Cloud9. I mean, it was just all planned words.
Honestly, I got to say the SSG vs. Wildcard for similar reasons.
Obviously, it's a big opponent for Wildcard.
It's a... Sorry. It's a big opponent for SSG.
Yes, it is.
That should be good. It's good to see these teams actually go against the upper echelon
and see what they actually can muster against them.
However, we'll pan that way.
Who knows?
Alright, well, we start the day with four fun and five fears.
These guys may be not in the position on the standings they wanted to be.
after the super week five fears what they find themselves on the bottom for fun in sixth place right now
Yeah, it's not looking good for really either of these teams
The only saving grace is the fact that for fun did get the win previous win sources outlast right?
So they already got themselves three points on the board as we take a look at the standings
They're actually still in that six seed spot
Which is where they normally find themselves and look at who they're playing today
They are playing against 5 Fears, who's 0-3, and we've talked on and on about the struggles of 5 Fears,
and that they don't look good at all on the attacking side, the defensive side, and 4-5, yes, they have struggled, but again, they have those 3 points.
This is a good opportunity for them to get another 3 points on the board, and to take out the trash, so to speak,
Because it is five years, right?
Because it is five years and the fact that if we are looking back later in the
if we're going back and looking at the matches, that's I don't know what I'm trying to say here.
But basically, if they don't win this game,
they're going to be looking back on this game specifically,
because this is really the easy game, like everyone needs to get free points.
It's like when we looked at last stage, when you're playing against
Outlast, you needed those three points. That's how I see five years.
Unfortunately, I know there's five fierce fans out there that don't agree with me on that.
But this is where you have to kind of beat up the team to get those three points.
And that's that's what we need to do.
Yeah, well, for for fun, like what was the one thing that got them through that win against Outlast?
Did they do anything differently than they had the previous two games?
Well, I'm glad you asked.
I mean, of course, they went back to basics, which is something that we kept talking about over and over again.
Right. We wanted to see them go into the step by step attack.
They went down 0-2, what did Cirque tell us?
He hit the bot review.
Mid-gaming.
And what did they do after that?
They started bringing the shields,
and they started working zones together,
which is something we highlighted in the previous games.
They haven't been doing it.
It's very all over the place.
It's very independent.
It's operator roulette, basically, in a sense, right?
Now we're starting to bring some more meta operators
and we're working zones very specifically.
This was a beautiful cache take
that I highlighted in the timeout
in the previous playday, right?
It was a step-by-step.
Take the Raptors, open the Raptor wall, then this one.
We're bringing the shields again.
And what does that allow Pino to do?
It allows him to call what's in front of him.
It keeps him alive.
He's the IGL.
It gets him inside of the map,
and it gets him the ability to call targets
who are right in front of him.
And those are the issues that we were also seeing
even in the border game previous to this one
is they had the right idea in some of the situations
after the first two rounds.
They decided to bring the shields,
but nobody was in sync with one another.
They weren't playing off each other,
but that's why I love it when you say
that they did go back to basics.
And yes, we know Clubhouse is a very basic map.
It forces you to play basic, but everyone still has to believe in that everyone still has to follow the call
Listen to the strat and that's where we're seeing and that was the big difference and it was the big game changer
They won seven rounds straight now
It's just a matter of consistency for the scene now
Are we gonna see that same light that same light bulb spark or are we just gonna see the exact same thing that we've been
Seen throughout the two previous days where it looks a little lackluster
Well the team in need of a game changer right now really feels like it is five fears
We're seeing problems after problems after problems and their own three as a result. Yeah
I mean it's it's a lot of five years in that regard
There's a lot of points of contention for this five years Rosser and now I'm not going to mention with their glory days back during kickoff
We need to see something you've had now three stages
You have to get some points on the board
But when you look at their pedigree so far it does not look great
They're the lowest rated attacking team of the second lowest rated on defense at the lowest rate on entry
And they have no fragging power currently and that is a big issue for me because even in their previous stage
Yes, they didn't look that pretty but they had players performing exceptionally well on the side of snake on the side more
So specifically of Benz and they have not been able to find their stride
None of these players we've really been able to highlight in a moment. Wow
That was a really great round those were great frags going into their favor great opening kills
We need to see something and for me if we can get the frags rolling
We can get the shot calling being made that is going to be the game changer
However, the big saving grace when you think of five fears, they are fearless
They don't matter if they're 0 and 3 when you think of their mentality you think of JJ blasts
He is going to look at this series
Regardless of it being a 2-1 record that he is going to own
Packer in the boys on for fun that they are going to go into this with their heads held up high and
and disregard everything that happened in that last week
and focus on their opponent today.
That's a good first of all, that's a great picture.
Absolutely.
But why is it, why is it that JJ?
He always seems to power up in the games
that are just important to him.
It always seems to be against for fun.
They make it close and against wild card and spiker.
I think that's your answer.
It's because it's important to him.
Well, can he make all the other games important lacks
because they're falling behind?
Like at what point, right?
I said it last week, I'll say it again at what point?
or do we stop saying the NAO kickoff champions, right?
Was that just, that had to have been the outlier
at this point?
I was gonna say, we haven't really seen him
getting too animated as we've seen in previous stages.
So him already out the gate flexing and doing all that.
I think we're off to a good start,
but as the rounds continue,
are we gonna see that same sort of level of animation?
Right, that energy has been down
and it's been noticeable on the five-fear side,
especially on the attacking side, right?
We used to praise them for their attacks.
It's what made them such a good team.
It stood them out from the rest of the pack.
Now they are the worst attacking team in the league right now.
Something that they will need to remedy
if they want to get this win.
Again, you're going to be looking at the shot call.
You're going to be looking at JJ.
You're going to be looking at Forrest.
And that's where they were really in sync back in the day
on their attacks is they had two different shield players
playing two different play styles.
You had Forrest that was being reckless,
taking that space, that was catching teams off guard.
But then you had JJ that was kind of more slowing it
down, being a little more methodical with the rest
kind of following up, being able to take space.
But again, they just aren't connecting those dots.
They're looking all over the place.
They're looking so much what we're seeing with 4 Fun.
Not so much with operator roulette,
but more so as they just aren't playing these operators
efficiently and taking the space that they need to in order
to go for these late round executes and swing these rounds
into their favor.
Well, Kyle, let's talk maps here.
The only win that either of these two teams had.
It came on Clubhouse for 4 Fun Esports.
Now we go to bank the map of choice here.
What do you make of this?
Well, what I make of it as a rematch is happening here because with stage one,
I believe it was for fun, right?
That got some better of five years here.
I believe it was 86.
OK, so this is just a rematch from stage one.
I mean, at this point, we're JJ is trying to prove something.
Yeah, I got to say for five years again, fearless going into a big map
where you're struggling even on smaller maps.
Now it's going to be even more of an issue on a bigger map in some areas
that can maybe favor your play style being a little more sporadic.
But at the same time, you're also going to have to reel in the boys
and make sure everyone is on the same page
because bank is by far one of our biggest maps
since each unit also requires the most coordination
making sure you're doing the A's to B's to C's.
So more so specifically on those attacks,
like we highlighted, that's where we're going
to be looking at.
Yeah, and one thing that I really want to see,
I was watching a couple of the other regions, right?
I was watching a couple of the other regions,
and yeah, I know, I pay attention a little bit around.
And SAO, I was watching a phase game.
And something that I'm starting to see come
A little bit meta is with the Nohr for the actual CCTV hatch.
And that is what I want to see transition over to the NAL.
And I'm sure everyone is paying attention to FaZe Clan
because they're the best team in the world.
But what I am hoping to see is a little bit of Nohr
on this default hatch.
You can use that to waste 50 seconds.
You have a two brow to waste another 30 seconds.
You can put a Goylefire on the hatch
to waste another 20 seconds.
It seems like the absolute meta that teams are slowly
starting to figure out with Nohr.
And again, I really hope these teams have done their homework
and we're going to see that.
Another good use of the Nor'e action scene in the EML.
Stomp it, using it on the E3 wall
because you can deny Monty walking up red stairs.
A lot of cool plays happening, guys.
We're not watching a lot of Rainbow Six Siege out there.
I'd love to highlight them.
And maybe we will.
If we get to see them here, we'll pull them up for you.
It almost feels like a somewhat of a return
to that utility-focused meta for a little bit,
where you have to burn so much utility
and the attackers really have to work hard
to like get through every single inch of that.
Exactly. I mean, it's just burning a lot of time.
Bank is inheriting an attacker-sided map.
It's very easy. You don't need much map control.
You just walk in, Monty makes it a lot easier as well.
So the defense really only has one option,
and that's to stall. That's why for open area,
you don't hold top floor, you give it up.
That's why bank basement,
you don't really see that many roams.
You kind of give up and play late round.
Like that's kind of your only opportunity.
And also banning those hard breaches,
because that's where Nor is really going to come
into play there and really slow things down even more.
Yeah.
Well, the individuals that we talk a lot about of this team,
we, of course, have mentioned Sirks,
like the new young gunner coming in and making his impact.
But if you look at the standings and where Packer falls overall
in the NAL leaderboard of players,
he is well above everyone else on his team right now.
He has been.
I mean, you talk about JJ beating him
in terms of the mental.
He has been the number one contributor on this team.
And is that the recipe for success for Forfun?
or do they typically need to rely on somebody else?
I mean, it's been the recipe in certain situations by far.
I mean, we've highlighted him throughout the previous stage
where we get those tack timeouts.
He makes it very clear to the boys,
they need to step it up, what they need to focus on,
they end up winning these games.
But he is not the sole proprietor
that is going to win the game,
win the series for this team.
And to be completely honest,
we were highlighting Serk's being that key piece
for this team.
I'm still not convinced yet,
even after the first three play days.
I think I need to see a lot more initiative out of him
to be able to take those aggressive roles,
Take on that entry and be able to get that space and open up these rounds because so far
I don't really believe he's been opening up a lot of these rounds as we thought he was going to on that entry
Well, yeah, and you know what's been enabling though is the shields locks
Man, I just want them to like it just look at DZ a little bit, right?
Just use the shield get Sirks activated packers that X factor on that lurk and that's what I would really love to see
For these guys so Monty is up. I would love to see for fun kind of run it
But we're gonna check out the mapians regardless because they are going to be on the defensive half
We should probably see a little bit of hard breach bands probably that ace probably the Habana right for the attack
Which is very default. Well, my it's gonna come out here
To taken away off the board for for fun
And well my after the buff is the best operator the message operator to play inside of janitor's right
And that's going to be good for the top floor. That's gonna be good for open area tellers
Janitor's is one of those rooms that you need to clear
So that's why I can see what my off the board quite a lot
I'm very curious whether we're gonna get the mirror or the azami
It's actually be the kaid cool. Guess what? Well, we're gonna answer your question if we see the new are exactly right caves off the board
Now's the time to pull it out. All right
Almost guaranteed it feels like to see that operator, but joining us for the first time this stage
We'll throw things down to in tarot and Jesse you have the call
Well, thank you very much
It's been a long time since we saw these two teams do battle 75 days ago
They squared off on this exact same map that was mentioned Jesse by the desk
There's been some changes with the way that we talk about these teams since stage one.
So what are your expectations based on the first three play days?
Do we think we're going to see the same score line or do we think we might see some small changes here on bank?
Yeah, Parker and me mentioned it, the desk mentioned it, 8-6 on bank back during stage one.
These teams have a little bit of history between the two of them, but I'm expecting a bit of a different game here.
I think it is safe to say that both of these teams
Greatly disappointed in week one. Yeah, I know for fun got a victory against outlast sure
But both of these teams I think could have looked a lot better even in their losses
They were struggling against some of the mid-level teams here in the league
And I think they're both gonna kind of take these last couple days this last week to say to themselves
Okay, we desperately need to improve what we have to work on and the team that can kind of make those
improvements better the team that's put in more work over the last week or so I
think is going to be the team that pulls ahead in this matchup but there's no
telling who that'll be. It was said ad nauseum last week it was talked about
during stage one as well how this five fierce team emerges the best team out
of North America for the Salt Lake City Major back in May of this year and
expectations were quite high and since then it has been a steady fall for
this team for those that have been following along and again not to
bang the same drum that's probably been banged for the last couple months. This five fierce team
is steadily worsening and not being able to keep pace with the remainder here in the region. They
enter in dead last there but a single regulation victory in the last half year and it came against
outlast in week one of stage one since Salt Lake City. It's been that and then of course the
victory against Wildcard in week eight of stage one. So not a lot to show for when it comes
this five fears team and they've stuck with this roster so you can't be bailed out by a new addition
but you know Four Fun made a change they brought in Sirks onto this roster it doesn't look like it's
made an immediate improvement on the team but for five fears you've just you've got to figure it
out with the five guys that you've got. Yeah I'm not that about it five fears in the bit of
a slums but potential to bounce back this would be their biggest opportunity yet going up against
against a four-fund team who've had their own struggles so far.
Early here on Bankpark, we've got a hard five-man anchor
coming down for four-fund.
They didn't even really hold open area.
They had a very little pressure
that's really driving us early, of course.
Valsperr is on the elevators,
but I imagine he will drop the hatch pretty quickly here.
He's about to get droned out,
so that should be his signal to fall off.
He's been dropped twice.
There's no, surely they throw a candela in he drops,
Parker.
Surely, there we go.
You heard it, the telltale scream
of the Candela Forest in rather JJ Blast.
It was led astray by those player camps.
JJ Blast in hot pursuit, unable to do too much.
JJ having statistically one of the better seasons so far,
stages so far on this team.
A far cry from his bottom five performance
that I know he acknowledged and joked about numerous times.
35 seconds to go and while they flushed this four-fund team
out of the main portions of the first floor now,
the rhythm of attacking the site
Directly rival will send off one of those smokes blown up immediately by fenders taking too much damage from the flames
Packer and sirks on the board though. Fends is the first one to draw blood
15 seconds burned
Five fears reduced to now just to snake and rival it looks like rivals found his way in the midst of the site
He's got the diffuse get pounced upon by be no and be no will pick up both final kills to give for fun round one
Nice little defense to come through here. Parker on the bottom floor of bank. Very traditional, right?
Where you're playing with all the stall that you can. The name of the game is Wasting That Time.
And while they had a couple of Candelas to try to make that push work on the side of Five Fears,
it felt like they just used a lot of it kind of in the early game.
I mean, they had to use two Candelas on the roam clear for a roam that almost didn't exist.
I mean, Vols for again in Elevator was there fighting, but they felt like they just didn't have a ton of utility to make this plant go down.
They instantly lose JJ's is trying to get that plant down might have been search
I think with the nitro cell to get that frag so
Credit to the newest player in the league will to stop that plant as it goes down
It's so important that you can keep your eye on the ball and for fun
They do everything right on that first defense
Managing the time is tough
Especially on a big map like this it's gonna take some time for you to flush out these defenders you even noted how many times
Five fears had flushed out that elevator position on the main floor, but were a little bit sluggish on their follow-up.
Right before we got into the game, the desk referenced the numbers for this five-fears team.
The lowest-rated attack and lowest-rated entry scores mean that...
Well, you're not going to be drawing first blood all that often.
Though technically fenced in in the previous round, it was traded out immediately,
but still did strike first with 30 seconds left on the clock.
left on the clock. That's one of those stats that will be a bit misleading I feel because you
didn't really gain anything from it and the first blood there doesn't really matter as much as say
if JJ had capitalized on that elevator player earlier in round one. So already some struggles
that seem to be repeating themselves. If you struggle on entry and you struggle to draw
first blood and you're struggling on attack, bank is not going to be a map that suits you.
That style of play very well. Yeah. Parker, I'm really excited to see the Cali coming out
Of course newly buffed if you watch in seizure the last couple of weeks. You'll know that this operator is
Everywhere pro players are loving playing Cali after her buff and shoot a lot faster than you used to the scope is a lot
Less zoomed in than it used to be so you got some really good options
She's also maybe the best counter to clash in the game
So seeing balt's bridge up on this operator likely trying to hold down that janitor hall
He's gonna have to be really careful
He doesn't expose himself to force on these windows because that could be devastating for the round
Callie, Zofia. It's nice to see some of these operators play together. I also saw some chatter
about Zofia and her three impacts being used almost as if those grenades from underneath
to down people rather than opening up lines of sight. Is that a flank through the basement by
Packer? If nobody's watching this in the side of five years, this can be quite a surprise
and Packer's being allowed to just get ever closer. It looked like Fens was the one watching
the spot but he's looking for the cross. I think his focus is over towards tellers.
Longer bomb is going to go out. There's no way Phems doesn't watch for this flank.
He doesn't know exactly where Packer is at. He's actually just gone back to the bomb site
top floor. I think the right call from Packer. They had a hundred percent
intel on him but now JJ goes down and we're in the site. They are in the site.
Five fears. One body, last two body, three bodies. Some drowning pool at the
bodies at the floor. Jesse Sirks finds a two piece and in five fears we're
down to just two in the previous round. They had possession of the defuse kit. This time
they will have two bodies up but nobody holding onto the case. They've done some serious damage
to Serks but are yet to find a kill. Forty-five seconds suggests that there's time for them
to get a couple, but dramatically outnumbered this way does not bode well for a team that
already has these pronounced struggles on attack and for fun being very aggressive
trying to establish a crossfire. It succeeds. Serks will pick up yet another kill. It
It ultimately cost the Bullsperr his life, but I mean the class shield was down, you had
the sidearm out, why not?
It's all up to Fens, who will take down Sirks.
First death for the rookie, and the logic bomb will go out.
Replayers still live, 15 seconds.
It is winnable, but a lot will need to go right here, 4 or 5 fears, and I don't think
that 4 fun's gonna give much to 5 fears at all.
So Fens will circle around, everybody 4 or 4 fun hiding at this point in time,
I'm a little bit of a peekaboo from Packer,
and Bino will get the final kill, but that round
was as good as over, two in a row, for four fun.
Yeah, Parker, and as Serks makes himself known
in the text chat, he's also made himself known
in the server.
I think no doubt about it, the best start to a game
Serks has had in his pro career,
very short career so far, but played very well,
I think on this defensive side,
Parker, back to back rounds.
Now, he has been the one to deny the plant.
First, it was the nitro cell
coming through on that bottom floor bomb site.
Then he was swinging out of janitor
to make sure he could stop the plant from rival right here.
It was so well played.
Also slammed forest on the Cali.
Circus was having a really good time
and it's a stark difference from what we saw back
in week number one.
He had the worst KDR of any player on the defense
back in our first three play days.
He had just two kills through three games
on the defensive side here in the league
and now he's like four in one after just two rounds.
It's a massive night and day difference.
And this is exactly what we want to see
from the 18 year old rookie
that just got picked up by for fun.
Yeah, I mean, if you just look at the three days
that were played last week,
you're wondering what Sirks and Mike W
were doing in the basement of this team,
but the basement of the league,
45th of 50 players for Sirks,
46th of 50 players for Mike W.
That's a far cry for Mike W,
who during kickoff had pretty adequate numbers,
something particularly special,
but still decent numbers for his role on a new team.
On stage one, Mike W's numbers significantly improved.
It's been quite a fall from grace for him.
And again, if Mike W is not fragging well
for this four-fond team, historically,
that means the team will struggle.
And I mean, they're in sixth place,
so it's not a full-on struggle.
They are on the current cutoff for the playoffs,
where they just start today,
but we're very early into the season.
Mike W will need to turn those numbers around
if four-fond wants to remain
in the playoff conversation.
I think it was just a matter of time, Jesse, you know, you're coming into Tier 1.
It's going to be a new experience for you, and you're coming onto a roster that has been a perennial 6th, 7th place team.
So, you know, you're not exactly stepping into a DZ or an M80, so to speak, with tons of veteran leadership to guide you.
There will be some growing pains.
Serks is showing those off, but a great start for him here in the first match of play number four.
Well, Parker, Mint wanted to see a Noor here to hold the basement, and it's not quite the same site, but here we are on open area, and Volsper has just jumped on Siege's newest operator.
A lot of people have been talking about Noor and how he kind of fits into the meta.
The consensus seems to be that he's pretty niche, but sometimes we need to keep patches closed.
He can be an effective option, and we saw that from Cloud9 last week in the NAL on Villa when they faced up against Five Fears.
Mid mentioned FaZe Clan running a similar strat as well, so I'm going to show you what
Valsper wants to do with this. He's obviously not playing below the hatch, and actually the
stock hatch was opened up, so he can use it as a rotate back. But for now, he's sitting
pretty in the hallway, and Mike W is hitting the one-taps.
That's a devastating loss. Snake has been the top fragger on this Five Fears team,
basically, since its inception. So if he's not having much of an impact from the kills
department, as we said, their attack and entry stats, not the best. Without Snake,
It's your hard press to imagine them improving though Fens and rival have stepped up quite a bit so far through stage two admittedly again a small sample size
I think what's also devastating you've lost the ram here
Yeah, exactly the Rams gonna make the stop reach really really difficult
You basically have no other way to do this except for maybe the bailiff on forest
We see the gadget coming through from ballspray now. He's trying to keep this elevator wall closed behind him
I kind of like that as a strategy
You can also use it in front of him to try to stall some of these players out.
They're not pushing him with the shield, instead it's the glass.
That's not going to work so well with the gadget, but he can hide behind his deployable shield.
And it almost looks like five years. They're kind of giving up on this top floor, Parker.
Losing your ram means it's a lot less effective to take it anyways,
but they're just going to have to make this push work with square control.
This is not ideal for five years.
And Beano yet to die.
He and Mike W immortal so far through all of these rounds.
Mike W having a pretty terrific start here.
in round number three. Both kills on the side of Forfun are his.
Bino is searching for a third and he's in a really hard spot.
He gets one, he gets two and an opportunity for a third as the
dig is out and Bino takes them all down.
A flawless third round by Forfun and they remain
undefeated here on bank. Well shaken ahead for the Los Angeles captain of
Forfun Esports. Perfectly played close on the
breach, those Keeba Bears not needed, he finds those angles, some massive kills
coming out late and the chat just continues. Now 3-0 up against Five Fears
yet to put an attack on the board and Parker, this is looking worryingly close
to week one for Five Fears. There were so many games last week that started
like this where it just felt like Five Fears couldn't get a handle on the
game. You're seeing Bino going and styling on these guys. You saw Mike W
starting to pop off with that TCSG.
Many pro players are running that as kind of the long range
replacements after the DMR nerfs,
but it just feels like it's a little lost from five fears
on all aspects.
They're not ready for these opening picks.
They're not really able to trade each other
when they go for these close combat,
close range engagements.
It just feels like at all moments,
they're getting outplayed.
And I didn't want to say it, but kinda.
Yeah, these have been rough three rounds for five fears.
10 doors!
They're being devastating.
As five fears, we're looking for a bounce back, the schedule for both of these teams tomorrow.
On paper is pretty tough, but standings-wise doesn't actually seem that bad.
Four fun will play up against Wildcard. Wildcard currently find themselves in fifth one position ahead of this four fun team.
And five fears if you just look at the numbers would think oh well tomorrow is a very winnable game for them because it's m80
You currently find themselves
puzzlingly in the ninth place
Oh, we all know that m80
Shouldn't be the ninth place team in this league
There's I mean obviously they could stay in that position Jesse
But it doesn't get really easier for either of these teams both of those matches will be dogfights and no guaranteed victory here
So you got to pick up every single point possible in five years is slowly bleeding themselves out of this match
A bit of a confidence inspiring start here though Jesse as they take down Mike W
The smoke that was roaming upstairs in open area with no support and five years will immediately push towards the site with that pick
It's lucky hit two nice shots last round Parker because that's a that's a head-straps your moment for Mike W
I feel like they're feeling themselves. There's three a lot, but they cannot play on disciplines
They have to continue to watch after these opening picks the first time five years have really had an advantage in this game
And now this is their opportunity to show how they want to use it
It really fast clear of this top floor. They can now start making the way to the basement this boy
Oh, we'll slow them down a little bit
There are gonna be those chonka fires inside the site and the tube route will keep these hatches close for a minute
To but the fact that you get an early pick onto Mike W
Who's playing the smoke who shouldn't have died in that position? That is a massive advantage now going to five years
they have to be able to take advantage of this when they go for the push.
There's lots of redundancy here though, so even if you do lose the smoke, you've got the Tachanka fire,
you've got the Goyo fire, you've got so much stall potential, so not all hope is lost, and I
was actually the Tachanka who was able to hold them at bay if you recall back in round number one,
that Sarger take that came in by five fears was stopped in its tracks on the main doorway,
in large part because of the fire from the Shumiko launcher, 20 Molotovs still there for
Packer with just under half of the round to go all the rest of the utility now has been deployed one nitro cell in pocket for
Cirx there goes Bino there goes Volsper Snake has found an opportunity
Cirx the rescue now as he will make his way to the top floor
Forest is in the bomb site getting confused get down JJ blast is there for coverage for us shaken off of his position
Nobody able to stop this fire and look at that Packer
Exploding the blind spot,
Circs on the flank will find one as well.
The round turned on its head,
and Packer shuts down JJ to keep themselves unbeaten.
4-0 for Fun.
Oh, that is unbelievable that they lost in that fashion, Parker.
It felt like they had everything going their way.
Obviously, the opening pick. Amazing.
Onto Mike W.
For Fun were feeling the pressure in that round.
They said we have to throw three bodies at this main stairs
because otherwise we think we just can't hold onto it.
And I think it was the right call for 4-fun.
They go for Broke, they rush down main,
but they lose so many bodies,
they put themselves in a 2v4 for the last final moments of that push.
But credit to Packer, he uses his fire to force Forest
into a really bad plant spot,
gets the freebie, two beautiful shot here,
a third to end out the round with the SMG.
I mean, it is just gorgeous.
The most experienced player on 4-fun.
That's gotta be a backbreaker of a round, right?
It has to be, Jesse.
It absolutely has to be.
I will say that the numbers for this team are slightly better on defense.
They are the lowest rated team on attack.
They are the second lowest rated team on defense.
So some small improvement will emerge for five years when they swap sides.
I think the greater adversary at this point is going to be what's going on inside
the heads of those five players.
Forest, 0 and 4 through four rounds.
Rival, 0 and 4 through these four rounds.
JJ, 0 and 4.
You've got six kills across four rounds.
And I will say, they've not all been completely fruitless,
but it has not really been a good look
for this five-fierce team.
I would say, and I don't know if you'd agree,
that there hasn't been a single round where I've said,
okay, five fears are in control.
This should be winnable.
So far, it's been mostly a coin toss
Or skewed towards four fun
For a scoreline in my eyes goes to show the level of domination that's been had through the 12 ish minutes of action
We've watched yeah, I would agree through the first three rounds Parker
But I genuinely think that last round was so strong for five years and then it just all goes backwards as packers
Steals it back from under them forest as an unfortunate death on the plants
I mean it all goes wrong and that for me as a mental breaker for sure they lose JJ
That's the sense that is a brutal operator lose if you skid hits the ground to
Hacker and tellers wants more Parker the ego needs to be fed and rightfully so with the way he's been playing
watched out of his position, but
For real follow-up there from Fens as he was the one doing all the work himself his naid rolls on by the lose
Circs to Fens so it wasn't the target that they wanted but still a target they will get and I'm sure they'll be happy for that
And that, the Zofia is also a great counter for the clash if Kali is not available, so
Snake has one concussion left, they have to time this appropriately, they will do, and
Volsper gets away with just a tiny piece of HP, another frustrating engagement that 5
years is not able to capitalize on.
That's a nice little gift though, they do find Packer who is lurking around on that
bottom floor, he's been such an annoying player to deal with here on the top floor
of the defense as he just rotates around that basement, you know, falls as well
and this is that opportunity coming back for 5 Fears and a 3v2.
Fens, doing all this work himself, showing the strength of this FAMAS and Snake will do it with the explosives.
All right, you take every victory that comes your way.
5 Fears worked mighty hard for that one, and it was a bad start that looked like it could get worse,
but Fens and Co, and he didn't do it all himself.
There was some coordination there from the rest of the team to enable those kills.
stuck the landing in round number five.
Still a really tall hill for this team to climb
to get back to good footing.
We'll see what happens when we get to the second half
if they just perform better.
Maybe this is the defender sided bank.
But right now the goal for five years
is take the momentum, potential momentum in your head
and translate it to a successful sixth round
because a five one half for four fun.
It seems like a death knell in bank.
Yeah, for sure. And it's nice as he fends getting so active in this round.
Of course, they got that. The opening frag came through in the vert.
I believe it was to take down Sirks.
That was Fends on that vertical down below, who was able to take down Sirks through the floorboards.
That gave them a 4v4 to work with.
Then he mushes up with his teammates, trying to get a couple more of those kills.
That's important, right? To punish the aggression when a 4-funner making these plays.
Sirks challenge you to invert angles.
Packers running around in the basement.
You know, Bino's giving you some swings. You have to be able to punish this.
It's more fun, I think, we're just playing with a lot of confidence.
They've taken a lot of risks.
And if Five Fears aren't able to punish things like that,
then, I mean, frankly, this game is already going to be over.
JJ Blast now, the only one on the side of Five Fears without a kill,
which makes him the only person on the entire server
without a kill at this point in time.
Snake leading the team.
In terms of kills and raiding,
It's quite a fall down for the rest of this five fears team.
But again, when you're in 10th and windless at the current point in time and
windless without going to overtime as well, zero points at this current point in
time for five fears, the numbers aren't going to look particularly good.
Still, they're not terrible.
They don't have any players in the bottom 10.
So this team, I need to see.
Very average to slightly below average, but very equal.
Jesse, it's actually somewhat encouraging because if the team can bounce back,
It would suggest that everybody's numbers will rise here, but I mean when your top player is four and four
It's rough. It's rough for you to be able to find the other four players getting kills
For fun not gonna let one bat around shake their confidence Mike W in a very aggressive spot here up around banana
He had gone mistrown for a little bit
But after being spotted out now they seem to have good information on where Mike wants to play with again with the
TCSG he's been hitting some nice shots today, but Snake starts to walk his way in through the lobby doesn't expose himself to the angle just yet
Here's the vault and slams him nice shot to come through from Snake. That's another man advantage for five fierce Parker
There's a third time in a row getting this opening pass. Sorry third time in two rounds
So as f2s
Mike W giving up his life too early
early. What's happened a few times? Does not bode well for four fun. Good news is that
he's not on the snake this time, so it's not a active gadget. It's one that will persist
on the Goyo. Volsper back on the newer will take down Forest. Forest as your problem means
any of those mischief drones are as good as God. Feds will be shut down by Packers,
so this is really all going to fall on the shoulders of Snake, at least of the previous
five rounds. Are any indication here at all? Still got logic bombs though for
with the doka bean, you still got the bees for JJ blast.
45 seconds to go and some decent utility.
This is far from over for five years.
Yeah, 45 seconds is very doable.
If they can get some pings with the grim,
if they can get some calls with the doka bean,
this push can be good,
but it needs to be coordinated together.
They've got full top floor control.
So when they drop that hatch,
they have to have pressure horizontal.
And your rival's still holding this position down below.
A lot of damage done to four fun,
but Packer is there lined up and ready.
He's been leading by example,
top ten rated player coming into today's match and he'll find three kills for his
trouble. He'll bleed out for the remaining 15 seconds and that will put
the three players of Thor Fun on Snake Watch. He will charm the player of Five
Fears still remaining if any. Again great patience from this Thor Fun team
not bothering to give an inch to Snake in this position and Snake will
survive but the chances for Five Fears will not a five one half for
No better way for a 4-1 to start this off than with a 5-1-1-1-1-1 half-lacks, I mean talk to me, what's going wrong with 5 beers right now?
I mean we know what's going wrong. I highlighted in the early bits saying that they are the lowest rated attacking team and the second round really showcases why they are the lowest rated attacking team.
And the Capsars did a great job of understanding. Their fraggers need to be fragging as well, but when you already look at this setup on defense, now I mean on their attack.
I want to highlight they did a good job. They cleared archives. They have control of open great
You understand no one's gonna be able to stop you from below to go for this plant
However, you don't need two players below what needs to happen is snake needs to rotate up open and to be able to put pressure
I mean rotate up skylight and put pressure on the clash inside janitor hall or they need to rotate the
Cali over to the window to dig in open up this shield to not allow them to have any sight control and put any pressure on to
JJ Blast, but what you see happens from here is the second JJ tries to squeak through what you're going to see is they have that clash
They have that information. They pushed that Janor Hall Mike W has the cross
You're going to see the warden then essentially put pressure onto the players inside the windows and then it's all for not JJ gets through
dies to the clash and then they all just fall apart and the two players below from snake and fence are doing nothing
They aren't putting any pressure.
They aren't trying to go for a flank.
The players on top just are able to sit there,
essentially, for free, not have to do really anything.
It's more so on the side of five fears,
forcing their own hand when the play is right in front of them
of what they need to do.
Thankfully, when they did revisit CEO,
they went for aggressive takes.
They used the sense efficiently,
and they made that round far more convincing.
Now, it was a 5-1 split for them.
It wasn't pretty at all.
They can do the exact same thing on defense,
But if for fun plays exactly what we were seeing back on their clubhouse in the previous week
This is gonna be a close case shut
Yeah, I mean you're you're who's the fraggers that we need to see on five years snake fence
Why was JJ the one swinging in going for an entry fry because this guy is a advice
I couldn't I don't think this guy's the entry for row and six or now this guy can't even buy himself kill
So I don't know why he's being enabled as the entry fragger also tell you what's kind of going on too
I mean we listen into the comms. They completely look lost like they're not even go
They're asking to go step by step. They're not going step by step at all
Everyone has different ideas some people want to play aggressive some people don't want to play aggressive
And they have three rounds that they easily could have won they got to the execute phase and their execute was awful
So good job for for fun. I want to highlight that
And let them execute right when you're playing against the worst team in the league
That is what you should be doing as far as the bands coming out though
I mean this is the exact thing it's the exact same bands right hard breach coming out
Against the attack and Rossi in the cave and we're seeing but will mine so again
I'd love to see some more on the lower we got to see it on the open area
which I was very hyped of seeing, and it did seem like it gave 4fun some problems every time they seen the nor there.
They were like, okay, let's get off the shields, let's do something else. It made them uncomfortable.
But for the side of 4fun, obviously, they are not adverse into playing shields. However, we got Bino on the Blitz.
Let's keep him on there. Let's do it.
I like it already, Sturks.
Alright, lots of possibilities here. 4fun though, just two rounds away from closing this one out.
Thank you very much gentlemen. Yes, it has been a rough first half for five fears, but
now moving off their weaker side going to the defense, you have to hope there's an ability
to bounce back in this game. Fens and Snake have been the only real lifebloods getting
active for five years. Parker, they've been the only ones who've been able to find any
sort of success in the server so far. My eyes are on rival. The only guy not on
support who's also not fragging had a 20 second birthday yesterday. He would love
to get a couple more kills and have more impact in this game to bring them back from this
deficit.
Yeah, great point.
Things will probably get easier for this team, at least fragging on Bank, it tends to.
Teams can maneuver more effectively and if you're going up against a team whose comms
are maybe not the best or who aren't the sharpest at their drone work, Bank's a huge
map.
It takes them serious time to be able to figure everything out.
So if you're five fears and you're expecting this four fun team to be a little bit
sluggish on their comms in their entry which is something we have seen on the
side of the spore fun roster through their three play days then you can
capitalize off of that you don't even really need to work too too hard to pick
up a round or two still with that said if you're an odds guy you gotta be
expecting for fun to be in the better position moving forward just based
solely on the numbers all eyes on snake but it's fends for the opening
frag it's been a pretty aggressive hot floor hold actually Parker they had
JJ and Snake working together on the Goyo and Clash combo.
JJ can just stay up here for quite a long time
until he does eventually get forced out.
And Fence swings really aggro as well.
At the top of those server stairs,
he finds Packer, a massive win against the two Michigan players
where Fence comes out on top.
That gets the team a man advantage now, here in the 5v4.
And it starts to tilt things back your way.
You lose that really important execute operator in the Grim.
You've still got some good options,
lots of smokes on the side of 4-fine.
He's got these Senzwalls from Mike W as well to help with the execute, but you can see just how afraid or fond of R
having to use one of those Senzwalls just to protect themselves from another swing up top server.
Packer's seventh rated player in the league as of the start of today.
He's doing a pretty sensational job with 26 kills, still quite a ways away from us being able to talk about players hitting specific numbers.
He's picked up 8 today to help and he will be back in action next round as for the rest
of this team just under a minute to go.
I mean, Bino will probably be the one tasked with getting these kills.
Once he's in the post plant as the Blitz, until then, you've got Volsper and Sirks holding
those F2s in very advantageous positions.
Some trepidation here for the 4-fun team.
They are worried about this drop and I don't blame them whatsoever.
JJ is still learning from Bob.
This is a free pick onto Mike W, who is lost in the sauce.
Serks is the defuse kid in his hands,
and they are torching Dino.
Serks might be able to get away with this,
but it's a Piric victory.
He's all alone in a 1v5.
Beautiful execute from Five Fears to retake this site
and box out the four fun players.
Serks will have his hands full,
especially with a clash on the board.
They're gonna double up,
quidruple up on him in this position.
On the ground, in the air, it does not matter.
Snake gets the kill.
They'll get the counter-disable as well, and we got ourselves a ballgame.
Only JJ, man! Only JJ goes for a flank up the main stairs, playing on clash,
one of the slowest and loudest operators that you can go for a flank on.
But he actually got kind of fortunate with the interaction with the snake scan.
We saw it from Balsper's POV, and it looks like he disappeared down those main stairs
into the basement bomb site, but he was on the wrong side of the staircase.
He disappeared upstairs onto the second floor.
That's why he disappeared from the stake scanner.
So that probably was not called by Forefond.
It didn't seem like they had any information to clash up here.
Even Mike, I mean, he's hearing the clash shield
for certain in this position, but he assumes it's below him.
You wouldn't expect JJ to come all the way up top.
Finally gets his last killer.
It helps get it onto Serks as well, so.
Disrespectful, of course.
But hey, I guess you can do that when you go for a flank like that and help your team win their own.
I mean, I will say at least they seem to be in pretty good spirits, all things considered.
Like we said, the numbers should be more positive for five years, whether that's enough for them to close this.
In this gap, that was a bit more of a chasm between these two teams at the start of the second half.
Five-one obviously, a dreadful position for you to be the one in that equation,
but then can absolutely skew towards the defenders.
Five Fears are statistically a much better defending team,
maybe much doing some heavy lifting in that sentence there,
but if they can lock in and allow some misplays
and poor communication from this four-fund team,
which there very clearly was on the previous round,
Packer getting blindsided in that opening duel,
Mike W. not being aware of the realm of a clash above,
those are things that happened to everybody
but really should have been figured out before they came to a head.
Allowed Five Fears a golden opportunity to take that round,
round and they did the rest of the job dutifully so it's around 30 seconds and now
Collie being brought you mentioned how strong she is and in Packers hands this
could be a very formidable weapon yeah for fun running the same push they ran
back on July 3rd the last time that they played against five fears when they
attacked this top floor site Packers still on the Cali Beano still on the
Capitao Mike W still on the sends this strategy five fears have played
against before but they did lose it last time they played this setup so very similar situation to what
we saw back in stage number one of course a little different with search during their roster he's now
playing on this Ash which is exciting kind of change of pace but with the Cali bus I mean
Packer was playing this operator before she even got those buffs and allows him to instantly take
care of the mirror windows the castle barricades JJ's out the building gets two massive kills
Parker and that might be exactly what they needed to counter this push from for fun
Good Lord talk about high value picks
Capitao is gone the ash and the explosions gone as well still plenty of soft destruction on the side of for fun
But losing Sirks losing be know that is not an ideal position to be in a great gamble for JJ and
Really just a play that makes you scratch your head, but when it works out boy. Oh boy
He's a genius just a little bit over a minute to go now in five years with the numbers advantage now
It's really awkward. How do you make this plan to happen without the capital?
You've got a couple smokes from Packer, but it's gonna be awkward
They pull off the windows and decide we just have to push the square hallway if rival smart
He will not swing this but I don't expect him to
Just a creep up from Volsper they're anticipating rival swing and it's a correct read for Packer
He'll have to test his reflexes. He knows he's there
I've got shot and down goes rival even numbers for both of these teams forest says note the lead goes back to us a
Major impediment on the side of him snake goes down at the hands of Mike W
As he's pressing from a completely different angle and along with Packer on very limited HP
They can make some noise by fears getting distracted Packer with the sidearm out. It's him and for us in a 1v1
Packer wins it. Oh
my word
match point for for fun
Sometimes Packer just does things that do not look human in the moment.
He showcases just how strong this new Cali is.
Usually he'd really be forced to stay outside the building Parker, but because that scope
has really been limited, because you can fire a lot faster, he actually pushes in to square
with his team.
And it's a great little play from JJ, but Packer just plays this so perfectly, finding
this frag here on survival, helping his team take Janitor.
in this 2v2, it was really close.
I think this was a pure 50-50.
Neither of them knew that,
if Parker didn't know he was in the room,
they were both one HP.
And it just feels like it's Parker's day today, Parker.
It doesn't seem like anybody on five fears
is shutting this guy down.
11 kills to add to his tally,
creeping ever closer to 40 kills.
Far and away, ahead of everybody else,
but I suspect we're gonna see those numbers
continue to get close to that number.
Somebody drops a 20 bomb today, they'll get close to 50,
but we are still very early into stage number two.
Packer's always been a terrific player
and I mean, he does it while leading.
There's always that discussion
about what an IGL brings to the table.
Are they more valuable as a communicator?
Are they more valuable as a leader
and a visionary on the team?
Are they more valuable as a fragger?
And we've got quite a mix of them here in North America.
If you think about it, a lot of different styles
about how these people can lead the team.
Packer and Bino, both with leadership experience
on this squad, I'm certain allows Packer
to be a little bit more forward in the way that he frags.
I'll swap out Sniper for Sniper,
and it's a rush now into the midst of the site
looking to end this one in a hurry.
Cirque's gunning down Fens,
they've got a golden opportunity.
Bino at the halfway point now with the Fuser in hand,
blocking out these five feared players
from returning to the bomb site.
Rival will join in the afterlife.
Packer finds one, a nitrous cell from JJ will go unanswered as Volsper shuts him down,
sirks out dueling for us and it's all up to Snake who's miles away guarding the front entrance.
But it was a backtake Volsper will drive the Dagger deeper and it will be for fun taking the fixture.
Exactly what the doctor ordered for fun back here at an even 2-2 record in the North America League
and it all comes off a packer breaking his record for highest EPS in a single map, a masterful performance
to come through that gets for fun over the line in the style Five Fears struggling in this league.
Well, that one was a quick way to start the second week of the NAL.
It is four fun eSports who take down five fears, seven to two, just like that.
The man with 12 kills over the course of that one, Packer.
We have him joining us now after the win.
Well?
Packer, congrats on another win here.
guys now get six points overall here in stage two. Talk to me about your performances individually
because I mean we see this from time to time but you have been well above everyone else
on your entire team. 12 kills today like I said. Double, double digit kills most of
the games it feels like you're playing so far. What's working well for you personally?
I feel like the longer I stay with the team the better I get with the team because
more chemistry with the players and it's easy to enable each other. And also the addition
with Sirks, he has a really big voice on like taking space and taking map control which is
going to make my life easier because I'm a lurker. So I just think with both things like
we've been teaming now for almost a year and with some of my players like some of the teammates
and with the addition of Sirks I think it's just a match we're in heaven right now and I'm
just kind of in flow state I guess. Nice. In the flow state, I like that. Congrats on the
win. I wanted to talk to you about Sirks actually just because you mentioned him. We got to
to talk to him last week, but hearing from you, one of the leaders on the team, what kind
of led to the decision of picking up Serks and, yeah, I mean, why Serks?
Where did he come from?
How was he on your guys' radar, that kind of thing?
I actually played Serks a very long time ago and ranked, and he beat me on Nate.
So then because of that, we were always kind of chatting up with him for a long time
because we were really annoyed when he beat us and ranked.
So we were talking to him for a long time and after the last two stages, we've been really close but not close enough
and we just kind of felt like we needed more talent and we believe that he is one of the missing pieces.
We think he's just calm, definitely helps us improve and take map control.
That's why, unfortunately, the first two games was really bad for us on the attacking half,
but I really do think our attacks are moving in the right shape.
We've improved on a lot of aspects, especially in scrims against all the teams,
having much better results.
So I really do think that we're gonna start
building confidence and the rest of the stage
could be ours.
We just have to show up in the game days.
Well, just on your response, obviously, congratulations.
I do like to hear the insight on Circs
because I haven't been fully convinced yet.
I feel like we haven't seen the full package
of what he really brings to the table.
But just hearing your insight just really makes
my vision change on that.
But I got two questions for you, Packer.
One, I got to show you this picture
and how you feel about this picture
that I got created for you, let me know how you're feeling about this.
I mean, it's been basically, I've owned it for years, I mean, listen, he might have got a few dubs in the middle,
might have got a few dubs in the middle, but I've owned it for years.
Alright, and then the follow-up question is, I want to talk about the clutches,
whether it was from your clutches or from Beano's clutches.
Obviously, we were hearing in the back that comms were electric throughout this series.
I mean, what were these clutches just kind of helping throughout the rest of the series?
I mean, we know those guys stink so we just know we're gonna win any rounds in the final situation so
But yeah, I mean it was a good game. I mean I had a blast
They let me clutch like three rounds so I really nothing those guys are stink
I mean outside of obviously just coming from the clutches
Was it were these big proponents for you guys just in terms of the mental aspect making the comms even more electric
Just making sure you guys were actually having fun
Yeah, I mean, of course like for any team doesn't really have to help more
But I will say like I really just think the first few games you came in a little bit with too much pressure on ourselves
It's something that we've been dealing with as a team since we've like
Word like since we first started so when we put too much pressure on ourselves
We play really bad
But when we play like with a lot of energy and we play every single round
Just don't even think about the night like think about the last we usually win
So we just have to really just focus on ourselves and those clutches obviously helped that because I mean you're winning so
You're not going to think of anything else
Love it back and thanks so much for your insight and your time congrats on the win six points now here in stage two
We'll talk to you later
Well for fun they get the win here a much needed one as we talked about as they try to solidify themselves up in the
The standings, five fears on the other hand,
lacks it's just not, it's just not happening for them.
It's certainly not happening and their attacks
really are the big issue here.
I mean, on a, on a map like bank,
I already said I was worried about this map
just from where you're seeing on smaller maps.
They weren't able to connect the dots.
The attacks didn't look very well
and then right out the gates.
I mean, I already did, you saw the illustration.
There was a lot of question marks.
Why we're, why we're here?
Why we're going for this takes?
We also heard in the comms it was very chaotic.
You couldn't understand where they were going for.
I couldn't understand what they were going for.
I mean, they clearly have a lot of issues
that they need to figure out.
On the positive side for 4 Fun though, right?
Like we were seeing Packer pop off,
but the player you talked about, Circs,
newest addition to this team,
felt like between him and Bino,
this 4 Fun team just, they could not be stopped.
Yeah, I mean, they were doing a better job
of naveling Circs, I think today in the lobby.
But honestly, they were kind of getting
gifted kills a lot of the time.
I mean, 4 Fun just kind of botching,
excuse me, excuse me, this is the one
that you kind of highlighted there.
No one's even doing any covering.
They just kind of made for fun, go for executes
and just kind of set them up into the win cons.
And I mean, Circus was doing a lot better job.
And I like what Packer was saying there in the interview too,
like they're going to get more confident.
They just need to get a couple wins under the belt.
They did a really good job of taking out the trash,
which is what they needed to be done.
And what was that trash?
I mean, it was JJ and it was Forrest
not really contributing at all into the lobby.
I mean, you highlighted the fact
that we need to see the fragger step up,
but it's really hard to carry two players
kind of in some dead weight a little bit,
But there is Bino, there is Cirque, there's that 8-4, 7-5 that you were talking about,
Jota and Bino, I mean he started out hot, I think, believe me, it was 6-0, so he cooled
down just, you know, a little bit, but it doesn't matter, the rest of his team was kind of heating
up and the more Cirque kind of has games like this, like, he's going to start to just
get really confident and get into that flow state.
I was going to say, I mean sure he might have cooled down, but even that big cluster,
that big 3K, I mean that does help with the next round, leading into the next round,
just keeping that mental state, keeping everyone focused and in a good mood, just like
Packer was talking about.
was we arrived at our second matchup of the day here.
We did not expect we'd be here at the start of this stage.
When you're looking at M80 and SSG,
we did not think we'd be looking rather at wild card
and SSG, sorry, that we would be looking at a team in SSG
at the top of the standings and wild card
with a loss under their belt.
This feels like the first big test.
I mean, M80 was a test, but this is really the moment
for SSG to prove that M80 game wasn't a fluke,
that they are here to stay and that they can beat Wildcard.
I think that's the biggest thing that he said.
That M80 game wasn't just a fluke.
And even for a team like Wildcard, yes,
you have to look at their opponents right here.
7-4 versus 5 Fears, 7-2 versus 4 Fun, that's 7-5 versus 7.
M80 that is struggling.
This is going to be the opponent
that they need to really get over that hurdle
to make it even more convincing
than what they've already done.
And I absolutely believe that they can.
I mean, the proof has absolutely
been in the pudding for this team.
Everything that we've highlighted in that Super
What we want to see from game 1 to game 2 to game 3 has come to fruition when you look at their stats from their previous stage
Into this next stage
Complete difference a night and day difference for this team. They're currently the second-rate as high as team on their defense
They're tied for first in opening conversions trade percentages opening kill conversions
I mean they have chitch they've shifted these margins
So if you are in SSG stocks, you are a smiling happy person because these guys are meeting
all expectations and exactly what we want to see once that stage ended last year.
Well not last year, the previous stage in a couple months ago.
We said we want to see all these changes with the time up
and this is exactly what we've been getting.
So even to further back into your point, I am fully backing SSG,
making playoffs and you thinking they won't.
Had to double down.
You're able to double down.
He had to throw it back out there that I don't think they won't look.
Where they have impressed me though and the biggest point on there is their defensive side.
I mean to be top two right on the defense side. Normally they've been a very good attacking team
And we've highlighted the fact that their comms could sometimes you know throw away some of their attacks
So that's where you need to be really good on the defense side
So you kind of have some of those rounds on attack you can have problems you can make mistakes
You can lose rounds, but you're still in the game that win over M80 though
It sounded like they won the Super Bowl right that it really did once I were up six three the comms
They started getting very very hectic. I want them to act like they've been here before
Here's another game versus a dominant opponent in wildcard. You got to act like you're the best players in the lobby
And that's what I want to see from them and hopefully we hear that in the concert
Well wildcard as we talked about this is the first test for SSG a real big one because wildcard are just that good
They were the winning team in stage one. They were the second best team at EWC from the NA representation
They also have been a team that we've talked about a lot and one man on this team that maybe
maybe deserves a little more spotlight is Kansan.
Yeah, I mean, I keep giving Baynick names, right?
We keep going to, we got the 94, we got the weapon,
we got the magic man last week.
But Kansan, I'm gonna call him Mr. 3K
because last week was huge.
He doesn't get talked enough or talked about enough, right?
But I wanna look back to stage one.
He was actually their highest rated player in stage one
if you were to go look back, right?
the 108 EPS, 153, 119 KD, I mean, right now he's also the top rated player for the team
because he's coming off a 22 kill game against Shop 5 Rebellion where he dropped three 3Ks
in a single match. And by the way, the reason I'm calling him is because he also had 11
in the previous stage, which was third best in the league. Right now he's the highest
player with the 3Ks currently. But yeah, Kansan has been incredible for this team.
I mean, he was the eighth overall rated player
in the entire league as well.
And he, I mean, look what he did.
Like he just contributes over and over again.
I was going to say, you have to argue.
I mean, yes, that SR game was probably
the game of the stage so far, but a lot of it
really came off the back of Kansan.
He had big clutch moments.
He had big 3Ks.
Even in that, what, round 14, I believe,
Kansan ends up clutching that round.
I mean, again, he is the sole proponent
for wild card success so far.
Yep.
Wildcat have also like we've also talked about how this team has so many weapons up and down the lineup
Right some players stepping up when others are maybe slipping down a little bit like what's working well for them as a team
Well, what's working right? Well right now is their backline and it's so funny because this is just like DZ
Whenever me and locks highlight
I mean I feel like we did a baby shark and Bay highlight with them
We did a Nadrian highlight then we did a cans and highlight and for the next DZ game
I got one for you right then we did a spiker highlight
But right now, what is working for this,
what's working for them is their back line.
It is Adrian, it is Kansan.
Right now, those are the players that stepped up big time in Stage 1 for playoffs,
stepped up at EWC.
They are the blue piece of the team,
and it's Baby Shark and Bay that were highlighted right there.
They are actually the players that are negative.
It's Baby Shark who's negative 13,
Bay who's negative 8.
And look, I don't want to stat watch,
but for them to only have lost one game right now,
when their star players,
So, you know, Mr. USA hasn't shown up yet.
There he is, Mr. USA hasn't even quite shown up yet.
It's actually pretty impressive.
I mean, it just goes to show how many weapons they do have on the team.
Well, as you see this team getting ready, eyes closed, locking in.
Let's take a look at where we're going to end up for our second best of one of the night.
Cafe is our destination as SSG.
Choose between cafe and labs and we will end up in this winter wonderland.
Lax, what do you make of this one?
I mean, I like this for the side of SSG.
It's where they really showcase the change
and the new dynamic of this team.
And where they really excelled in their series against four
funds was their defense.
They were able to keel back into those layers.
They were able to force four funds hand,
but that's a completely different opponent.
You are going against Wildcard.
This is where Wildcard was beating the likes of SSG,
beating the likes of M80.
And something that Wildcard does extremely well,
and I highlight it every single time,
is they control the ebb and flow of any single series.
They do a great job at pushing and pulling the defense around,
and they need to be better than the side of SSG
when it comes to that attacking side.
I mean, I'm sorry, they need to be better than Wildcard
when it comes to that SSG of not allowing Wildcard
to control that tempo.
They need to play their own series.
And look, Lax, what I'm worried about
is this is Wildcard's map where they were C4 maxing.
So I want to hear Parker.
I want to hear Jesse talking about it
because Wildcard's on the defensive side.
We're going to see a lot of C4s on board,
but Valkyrie was the main van
that I wanted to see against Wildcard that enables them to do this gameplay with the information.
I expect them to replace it. There it is, the mazzi, the pulse.
We're going to still see so much information from Wildcard.
A lot of C4s on the board.
These SSG attacks, it's going to be tough.
But you can't C4 max quite as hard without the intel of the Valkyrie.
You can't, but you can still make up for it with the mirror, with the pulse, right?
There's still some other ways.
You can make C4s happen. No problem.
Exactly. They also have, yeah, they have really good gaming headsets.
It's what Blacksig is kind of getting off of and you can kind of predict the the game flow, right?
I think attacks they are going to have to use the gridlock
They're going to get the top floor control
They're gonna have to push across the top floor very similar to when we seen SSG play this map versus for fun
It's always interesting seeing this sort of cafe in today's day and age because mazzi just really wasn't a thing
But how crucial mazzi can be on the defender side to just slow down all of the intel and cafe is a very hard
Map for that top floor if a lot of your intel from those drones is being removed
You really have to walk into a lot of crossfires.
You have to be prepared.
You have to be ready to go for those trades.
So it's always interesting to see how
Mazis being implemented in today's day and age,
then back when we were playing.
Yeah, I mean, it also hurts, too, to lose the Monty
and lose the Nacre.
Those are the operators that are going to enable them
to walk top floor quickly.
So if SSG isn't going to walk top floor quickly,
they're going to lose a lot of time.
And then step two, step three, going toward the execute
is going to be a big problem.
So what I would like to see them do
is a lot more middle floor fast hits,
Maybe some lurks in the middle floor because again getting top floor against this wild card stack is going to be tough
I was gonna say but that's what wild card likes
They want you to get aggressive they want to take those opening games
It's not gonna be a for fun
That's gonna be a little more slower try to figure out what's going on while the card is gonna be right at that front door
Right when you enter the building they want those early engagement swinging into their very because that is where they thrive and SSG
They want these points right here
Can they prove that they belong on the top of the standings?
We go to cafe to find out
Well, it's gonna be an interesting one here Jesse. I don't think really there's anything that wild card is happy about with how this stage has gone
So far SSG obviously I think meeting a lot of expectations that people had but I am gonna be a naysayer instead
Expectations here for us my personal belief
Maybe space station has benefited from a relatively easy start to stage two and wild cards
It's just been caught a bit flat, flitted against some tougher opponents in a different
stylistic matchup.
I don't know if you'd agree, but I think all things considered, despite where these teams
stand in the standings, that's going to be a pretty evenly match game.
You admit with this SSG slander, oh, you know, there's still a young experienced team with
only beaten bad opponents, you know, they're struggling sometimes with their comms.
This team's got Hark, Parker.
That's the thing about space station gaming that's going to carry them for me.
It's a young team for sure, but it's a squad who really want to find these successes.
They were really disappointed with themselves after stage 1 to bounce back and get 3 victories
in the first week.
It's going to hype them up.
It's going to allow them to play aggressive and feel themselves moving forward into
these tougher matches like against Wog Card.
There was no doubt about it.
Wog Card and our amazing team in their own right.
The Desk was hoping for some C4 maxing.
I think we're likely to see a lot of that on both sides.
Already Spiker prepped and ready to go with his inside of mining.
It's to me gonna come down to who can find a couple of these attacks
I'm expecting a very defender side a game here on cafe just with the C4s
So if SSG can work maybe three attacks in this first half even two attacks
They might be in a strong enough position to close things out in the second
Jesse I believe it was Min two said he wanted to hear me talk about C4 maxing
I don't think he said he needed to hear you speak and frankly I
Like what Min is saying about you
I think his insults are terrific and really speak to you broader audience here
Sink a drone from giddy as they've now established kanzin's position kanzin highest rated player on wild card
He will need to have a good day if this wild card team wants to beat
The insurgent SSG second best team so far Adrian spotted out by raid and now kanzin will drop
Very similar to where his teammate had just died
This is a great entry from SSG a minute and a half in and they've already got wild card on the run really good drone work from space station as well
Yeah, you've dealt with the pulse
That's gonna be two C4s off the board now only baby sharks still holding on to his you're over towards white stairs
So a lot of good space taken from space station early
They don't have a dedicated soft breacher, but loads of breaching charges being brought by giddy raid will have a secondary shotgun
Rivals got breaching charges, too
They can definitely deal with these floorboards especially with the time that they've been afforded
So just take your time here space stations set up a good push
They're likely going to try to plant that pillar position by jumping over the balcony planting under the cover of some of these grim
Bees will they try pushing through the site?
I really want to look for players on a wildcard to get aggressive plank up to the staw floor and apply pressure when this plant goes down
Final 30 seconds not a lot of urgency if you're just listening to the sounds of cafe
Spiker will take down Rey in moments before we began talking, so that puts us back into
even footing, but yet again, in almost 10 seconds gone. Very limited action right now, as she
cannot stall out here. Aiden takes Karrick Hansen, he was a target that had been acquired
much earlier in the round. Diffuse kid in the hands of Dream as he and Aiden now assert
themselves. Spiker slaughtering players as they run on IN! A reload and Dream capitalized
with a knife kill. Wildcard's lost control of the bomb site until Bay decides to
win the round out of nowhere the weapon showing up and giving wild card round number one
The weapon agent 94
I kind of just want to call a mr. Nick names with how the deaths has been talking about Bay, but they're all deserved after that
A little round came through he comes down and stops that plant Parker and what I like about wild card defense there
They're making things chaotic. They're not allowing space station. Just go for these executes
They're flanking up the white stairs. They're challenged them on the balcony
They're having these really aggressive plays come through which get them those equal man towns raid opens things up nicely on the Adrian
But then he gets traded on that same balcony when the spikers just walks up the brown stairs for a good angle
Then when they come for this plant, they don't have enough players to hold on to space
They don't have enough of that man count to be able to make that execute look perfect
Finish shenanigans the end with a melee kill on the spiker
But he got us two peas before that and that's all that really matters for it
a wild card, a good start, and a good bounce back for Bay, who really did not have the start to the week that he really wanted.
No, Bay with a KD that is worse than anything we've seen of him through the calendar year here in the North America League.
Entering the day of all 50 players in the league, Bay owns the 40th worst EPS with a minus 8 KD.
Now, if you go back to his kickoff and his Stage 1 stats, you might think that he's actually been possessed by a demon who's very bad at this game.
I don't know really what's going on and I mean three games on a super week are a bit too early to tell if this is going to be a
Permanent issue, but I mean round number one's been a pretty good start
If you can keep that up and get back to a top 10 player
Which he consistently is at events and regional leagues and wild cards numbers are going to continue to take out boards
Even with all this said wild cards still finds themselves in a playoff spot at the beginning of today
But there are some competitive games with some of the lower-ranked teams, so if Wildcard fails to win this match
They might find themselves on the outside looking into the playoff spot
Just based on how the other teams do. We're midway through stage number two
So it's not the end of the world
You've still got plenty of time to recover
But as we say in the earlier days of these stages Jesse failing to run up the score in your early games
Can come back to haunt you when you've only got a game or two left
and your fate is no longer in your hands.
Bay's gonna continue his hot hand as he jumps out,
takes care of Adrian, and Noreedin,
now the tricky part is gonna be to get back in
and see if somebody is watching from this angle.
He does so miraculously and that's over a minute now burned
with Wildcard holding a number's advantage.
Yeah, that's a brilliant jump out.
Enabled by Kansan on this pulse, don't forget,
they've got really good information
on the side of Wildcard,
which allows them to make these aggressive plays.
That's a nice little combo that takes down the brava
that's gonna leave your evil eyes much safer.
Maestro being brought out by Adrien,
a very rare operator that we don't usually see
because Brava is such a hard counter,
but now that she's gone,
assuming that she didn't already hack those cans,
Adrien will have some really good opportunities
to use these evil eyes late into the round
once they start to go for a plant.
Holding stairs.
Great was itching for somebody on the side of wild card
to maybe overstep, but nobody will give him what he wants.
So now upstairs he'll go with the Super Shorty in hand
to begin some soft destruction,
maybe making life miserable for these wildcard players.
Down below, rival on Flank Watch,
but if he's fighting shadows, that's bad
because that leaves three players from SSG
to contend with the five of wildcard.
I might be playing close to the site.
There are razor blooms, there's a solace to account for,
there's those evil eyecams that you talked about,
and a pulse, tons of information here for wildcard
to know the next steps of space station.
All the same, Raid takes down Baby Shark.
That's Wildcard's worst performing player so far.
And it's a 4v4 with 30 seconds to go.
And any moment, Jesse,
Hal is gonna break loose.
There's Bay with yet another.
They line up so well.
He gets out of his position.
The side arm will not do him well.
Giddy with two picks.
It's a 2v2, Raid outduld by Kansas,
who's tucked away inside of the laundry,
folding Raid up like a pair of clean sheets.
Giddy will find his third,
Running out of time with the Fuse Kit.
He's gonna be all alone, all vulnerable, all afraid,
and Spiker will catch him from below with an impact.
Wildcard off to a 2-0 start.
Spiker continuing to find good success in the late round
playing below the bomb site.
Gets that final frag in the 1v1,
not a whole lot that they could've done
on the side of Spacestation in that 1v1 position.
But Parker, it just feels like it's a similar story
through rounds one and two.
Spacestation get that top floor control.
It's maybe a little bit costly for them
in terms of time and certainly this time in terms of man counts,
but then they stall out a little bit.
They're not bringing a buck.
They're not bringing a ram.
They're not bringing dedicated soft breaches,
and so they aren't being able to work a ton of divert pressure
that they might have wanted to before they go
for this push against Wildcard.
They're given a bit of a freebie,
as Baby Shark walks his way off white,
doesn't find anything, just goes down,
equalizes the numbers down to a four on four.
Thank God for Bay though.
Continuously having massive impact in this game.
There were two players mentioned by the desk
We've been struggling for wildcard. It was Bay and baby shark at least one of them seems fired up in the server today
the 10th worst
KD in all of the North America League was owned by Bay before a single match had been played today. That is
That's earth shattering for a player who again is usually in the top 10 of all players whether it be domestic or
International he and Kansan when they are fired up and ready to win are almost unstoppable from a fragging perspective
I think what that really should show to people is that Wildcard are the real deal.
We've tripped over ourselves to praise them over the last year and a half, feels like.
Basically, since Munich, we've been talking about how consistent they are internationally
and domestically that success has started to come.
It's going to have to come a little faster here in stage two if Wildcard wants to remain
a top team.
Coming here for the bottom floor on cafe now, Parker, rival jumping on this nook
is going to give them an interesting opportunity.
An early fight here on the wedding window, but Aiden doesn't hit the shot and he
likely won't get a second opportunity at it.
They actually ran a nook on this bomb site last week, he has 4 fun, and they did get away with the victory with it, but that time it was Giddy playing on the nook.
This time it's going to be Rival instead, who's trying to avoid some of those cameras, maybe as he lurks his way through the map.
Of course, all of these players on wildcard are just going to play it passive, they're down inside the bottom floor, we don't expect any early kills to come through, just giving the setup wildcard are playing with.
It's also worth noting, Bay here on the Goya would typically be on the Wamai, but after
the buffs to Wamai that we saw this season, and of course the operator band coming through
from the Space Station Gaming, he's going to have to change his tune a little bit and
try something new on the bottom floor site.
Can Dell in hand for the best-rated player so far on Space Station?
dream has been terrific and he'll suffer through the fire and it's a all
form from grace for dream right on his face rival with one to take care of cans
and things can be gone worse for dream in that position you've got Adrian on the
run in his spot he'll have to take either a nade or the gun and he takes both at
the same time raid eventually is securing that kill baby shark will
trade out aid and so neither of these teams really gaining a significant
advantage all of this action breaking on the span of 20 seconds a little
but over a minute to go in the round, there goes Rival.
The flames from Bay finding yet another kill.
But a sensational start for three rounds for Bay.
Well, my band might have helped him out.
Already on the go-yo finding really good value
for his team.
Now in a 2v3 SSG, he'll desperately try
to put some work together,
but they aren't finding players on the vert.
Raid recovers his defuse, Kate Parker.
They will expect this push to come in
through the whiskey side.
That's exactly where it's coming.
Good luck and tank up a bit more bullets than you'd imagine. Same with Ram.
So you've got some saving grace there on the side of Space Station, but Wildcard have these angles.
They have the Reeds, Baby Shark out and dueled by Giddy. Raid goes down.
And for the second round in a row, it's Giddy against the World. This time, odds.
Much better for Wildcard. Bay will save the day, and it's a 3-0 start for the gestures.
So that's 7-1 now for Bay. 8-1 even. He's playing absolutely out of his mind, Parker, exactly the turnaround that we were hoping to see.
I also want to give Baby Shark some credit in that round. His kill from Coach Check was really important to be able to equalize those numbers, trade out the team.
It was a cool push from Space Station to use some interesting ideas with the nook jumping in the restaurant window, with dreams sprinting through the Goyo fire.
You could say maybe it was a bad call by dream, but they did eventually get the man advantage after that place
So it all worked out in the end for space station
Of course the round still not going in their favor
And that'll be three straight where the underdogs aren't able to find any sort of success the tactima will be called because of it
This will be
Coma talking with his team now the youngest head coach that we have in North America League just 21 years old
Hoping to get them back on track after a 0-3 start
Things have been steadily worsening for Space Station as this stage has gone on.
They started off with a 7-2 victory against four fun, then a 7-4 victory over five fears,
and it took all 12 rounds for them to put M80 away just on our third and most recent playday,
so that it's been tightening, right?
They've dropped three rounds to Wildcard at this point.
If they managed to pull off seven in a row, it still won't be their most dominant victory so far this stage.
So as teams figure you out and as maybe you face off against tougher opposition, I know you groaned a little bit at both Mint and I saying it,
but I do think it is something worth noting.
I mean, take a look at, take a look at what team was it?
It was, I think it was E1 that you and I talked about for the Manchester Major.
The stat was as they beat the bottom four teams and that was it and they managed to finish six.
them through that they ended up getting a playoff berth if you can beat the quote
unquote bad teams and if there's enough bad teams easily make a playoff run and
then get hot for a single best of three and that might be all it takes for you
to secure your spot and I do think we need to look at strength of schedule a
bit more after kickoff and dominance that five fears went through being the
best team to represent North America at Salt Lake City Major they are really
strong start last year if you recall as envy where it looked like they
We were going to make the playoffs under that old organization, Jesse, but it turns out they just had a really easy schedule to start and went into sort of a free fall after that.
So I do think it is worth noting with Space Station here. Still, passing the eye test, SSG have definitely improved as a roster. Wildcard though, testing their medal.
Yeah, I agree 100%. I think Space Station are playing well here on Cafe. It was a 1v1 on round two. It was a 1v2 that they ended up losing on rounds one and three.
They've come close, but they haven't been able to hit that final shot, make that final play.
And when Bay is playing as well as he is, I'm just not sure that that's possible.
You have to really put in the work to shut down a player like Bay when he's on his game,
when the weapon is firing.
That needs to be the game plan over these next three rounds.
Focus on Bay, find out his position, and force him out of the map early,
because consistently, it seems like when he's alive late,
he's making the play that ruins the Bay for Space Station.
so I need to see him shutting down Bay at some point in this game.
Eight kills for Bay, six kills for everybody else on Wildcard,
not named Bay, and I mean, he's making it look very, very easy.
On the inverse, Wildcard had a very tough start to this stage.
Oh, dream, that's got to hurt.
Wandering it up top, all in his lonesome, tracking a target down below,
but not anticipating that there would still be top-floor control from Wildcard,
and a small misstep like that can become much bigger.
Baby Shark picking up his second kill, Blackbeard down dream,
again the highest rated player from Space Station before the start of today,
and he is having a rough go of it.
Down goes Kansan, but Wildcard on the board.
Baby Shark, a second bay finds two as well.
Mr. Multi-Kill showing up in Space.
The timeout taken from Space Station, showing no signs of improvement for this team as Aiden's in a 1v4.
He'll shut down Spiker. Aiden has shown some heroics before, Jesse, so don't count him just out.
But there's still utility in the way, and of course, there's all ten kills of Bay still searching for this final player on Space Station.
Bay and Baby Shark have not given up their position, by the way.
They're still top floor, which Aiden might not expect.
He is still checking these angles, pre-firing a little bit because he knows the danger.
Baby Shark up here though and behind the clash shield at that.
It's going to make recovering that a few skits so difficult.
I think the only question is who gets that final kill? Baby Shark, well it's a full house.
Two kills from Bay three from Baby Shark. All that action breaking out earlier than we
anticipated. I'll get back to my point that I was making Jesse, which is that
inverse of Space Station Wildcard has had a very tough start based on historical standings
2 Stage 2. Dark Zero is your first opponent. They're the Salt Lake City Jams. They are an
incredible team and I don't think anybody would remove them from the top 2 here in North America.
You have to go up against 100 thieves. 100 thieves! An insurgent team that can have some really
good days but still battling some consistency issues. And then going up against Shopify
Rebellion who have consistently been a top 4 team in North America, finishing second in
Salt Lake City despite a disappointing early exit at the Esports World Cup. Those are three
Tough teams for wildcard to begin their run through but I mean if you want to be a top-2 team Jesse
You need to beat those teams to prove it
Tomorrow wildcard faces off against outlast currently sitting in eighth place and space station will be squaring off against a hundred thieves
Currently sitting in seventh place
Wildcard through four rounds now. I've clearly shown that they took last week very serious
I think it'd be easy for a team to get two wins in the first week and say all right
You know what? We've done well.
Sit on our hands a little bit and calm down.
But there were weaknesses in Wildcard's game back last week.
Their entry duel of Bay and Baby Shark
were combined to negative 21.
The fact that both of these players are now stepping up
and making the difference,
I think is the story of the game so far, Parker.
It has just been all Wildcard
and all those two players
who have been turning things back for this team
and Space Station.
You know, we knew they would struggle on the attack.
We talked about Cafe being a C4 focused map.
We've got five nitro cells being brought by Wildcard for this mind and dining defense.
So expect people to get blown up in the next two and a half minutes, but still I think
the goal is two.
If you can get a couple rounds of your space station, close things out.
They're still in this match up, but they're getting to that point now where it starts
to become very do or die.
Nitro maxing, C4 maxing.
other words that go along with that that I probably shouldn't say on a broadcast.
Pretty one nitrocell's gone out, didn't find any of the intended targets.
Big deficiencies that SSG has encountered over the last two rounds, Jesse, was the
early drone work.
That's where a nitrocell can really flourish as well if you drone in and they've got
intel and you don't.
It's very easy for you to get blown sky high.
Only one mirror window now in this setup that looks eerily similar but not the
same to what we saw just a couple of rounds ago.
Speaking of droning things out, so am I.
Raid probably shouldn't have walked away with that one,
but he does all the same.
Baby Shark's going to want those bullets back.
They leave the vector in a hurry.
Raid with one kill, but SSG now losing Dream and Aiden Dream.
Again, failing on all of these entries,
a significant hurt being done.
And Nitro's cell from below as we anticipated.
Spiker blows up her Eiffel.
And only two remain for space station as a 5-0 start
looks increasingly likely for wildcard
base before still pre-placed to don't forget about an officer where it's at
but
he's still finding frags he for or not the tcsg finds a head of great and all my
god gets thrown by baby shark might have been watching the grave
gitty you would get one of the age in parker but with sixty seconds of one
htp it feels like it is a period victory
do his best
to try to get this diffuse can go back to site but this is
all but likely a 5-0.
Only a single death so far for Bay.
As you put those two ones together for 11 kills,
you'll find lucky number 12, a dozen for the weapon,
a 5-0 start, as we had wondered,
does end up coming to pass.
Two wins in a row for Wild Card
since Space Station called their timeout
no successful conversion whatsoever.
At this point, I'm not even sure what you can do of your space station to try to recover.
It certainly seems like you are plummeting to Earth.
Barbara, these are the hardest games to cast as a color commentator because I've spent
the entire broadcast so far glazing Bay and talking about how well he's been doing and
then he has another great round.
I don't know what else to tell you about the 21-year-old from Quincy, Illinois.
He is just on fire today in a manner that I don't think we have seen from him in
quite a long time.
Again, I think the Nitro strategy from Wildcard, it's kind of their signature at this point.
Mint hyped it up before we got into game, but like, their C4s are so, so good.
Even if they toss one out and it doesn't find value, they've got four more to rely on.
Adrien's on a lot of these information operators, like the Pulse, now going to his signature Echo that he loves to run on this map.
So it really does feel like Wildcard are in full control.
The information is flowing.
They've got these nitros that they need.
Everybody is shooting back despite, you know, a small wave on that last round.
It feels like they're all on top of their game.
For Space Station, you have to stay in this mentally.
You have to, as Nick said, act like you've been here before.
But it's so difficult when you're in a situation that you're looking at.
This is G, though, despite being winless in any of these rounds.
aren't really suffering that badly from a kills perspective. I mean if you just look at how much
blood they're able to spill on the side of wildcard you'd think they picked up a single round or two.
You did mention this I think it was after round two or round three that it's closer than it looks but
I honestly feel like since the time out wildcards sharpen their spears a lot better than SSG has
which is usually opposite of what you're expecting. Any close for comfort victories
that wildcard experience through rounds one two and three have been absolute
blowouts since then Bay really coming online has helped baby shark as well
putting up much better numbers since that time out so for all the praise we're
giving wildcard we try to give some praise to space station as you noted
these are really tough matches to analyze because there isn't a lot of
good to say for space station you want to seem like you're trying to be a
little fair and balanced but to be fair this is wildcards match and
nothing is suggesting that they're gonna slow down.
I really don't talk about it yet Parker,
but I'm a little surprised that Sevisition wanted
to go to cafe given they played it last week
and it's one of Wildcard's best map.
They have a four in one record this season
just playing on cafe.
Definitely feels like they are the more proficient team
here on cafe.
They've got VODs on their opponents
from just a week ago.
So that gives them a bit of an edge as well.
They're bringing the Aruni despite
our nerfs at the DMR they will continue
to rock this weapon and try to find some kind
of the values, those track singers stopping a little bit of a flank from Spiker, but
the Util is all coming out from defense at the moment and it's just grinding this push
to a halt.
Spiker down below, the only natural cell to be had already expended, so restart contrast
what we saw before, Raid twisting and turning in this position, Kansan finds one, a second
is there as well, dream lines up perfectly.
This is not the ideal position.
As a third will now drop, you've got to be kidding me.
If Kansan had walked away with that one,
I'd have lost my mind.
He dies to the phone erupting, not even Aiden.
But the gadget instead, and Aiden will now walk wounded
for the remaining 40 seconds.
Kansan, quite a strong beach head here,
and it has knocked SSG out.
You've got two smokes.
You've got to try to get a plant down with this.
The biker is still down below.
He doesn't have a nitrous cell,
but this is going to be really tough
pushed into, Tracker, 22 seconds, very little HP, not enough numbers, and it just feels like
they need a miracle.
Shotgun in hand, the dunk could be creeping up, baby shark making it work.
Now out comes the UMP, Spiker with one on the board, they'll all hunt for the final kill
and of course, it's the storm, the weapon, Mr. 94, Mr. Multi-Kill, they the very final
kill and a perfect half for Wildcard here on Cafe.
Well, all smiles for Wildcard right now, 6-0, one of these halftime breaks that
feel a little bit more like the post game breakdown right now wild card I mean
they're floating Bay is popping off we saw him celebrating there with the team
SSU just are not showing up no that's exactly it and I fully agree with what
Jesse was talking about what else can we really talk about besides hyping up
the guy from Quincy Illinois huh the Bay Storm weapon now we got mr. multi kill
and he also steals nicknames because now he's mr. 3k also because he got
2-3 Ks in this match. I mean the man is 13-1.
He's getting to play my favorite operator right now, which is Sentry.
You get the TCSG, ACOG, I mean, 2-3.
We also put him on a Rooney DMR there because why not?
But he's just been very, very impressed.
And it's what we kind of talk about with Wildcard.
They just have so many weapons on this team.
I can highlight Kansan if you want it.
We can highlight Adrian another week if we want.
Someone else is going to pop off for the team.
Yeah, plain and simple.
I mean, this team across the board.
It's the reason why they're so consistent,
whether it's in the regional play,
whether it's in terms of international play.
They continue to show consistency day after day, game after game.
And this is what I was talking about with SSG's attack coming on to the Wild Card's defense.
You have to be ready to be met with aggression very early on.
Wild Card is not going to give you that space.
It's not going to be the same match where you played against four fun.
And I agree with what Jesse.
Why would you also take Wild Card to one of their best maps in the season?
Like you said, it's four in one.
This is the exact reason.
It's the exact play style that Wild Card shows time and time again,
is they are not going to let you be comfortable.
They are not going to give you space unless they feel like they can forfeit that space you even saw in that last round
They held those positions
Camden held cigar for two players peeking and back-to-back almost got a 3k if it wasn't for that don't be called finishing him off
I mean wild card is a strong team
You have to be quick at responding and understand the obstacles that are in front of you and it seems like for SSG
This is really the first time where they are struggling of trying to adapt and understand their correct approach
Well, that's just it, right? You said this was SSG's first real test, you know,
said they were going to go on a bit of a losing streak here and right now it's
I mean proven to be true, right? Wildcard, they are, this is one of the favorite maps
like you just said and they're very very good at preventing you from getting
free kills against them and that's why SSG without the Monty, without the Snake,
it was good bounce, it's great prep as always. I have to highlight Lagonas,
one of the greatest coaches I think in the NA L currently, it's such a good
game plan and making it tough on SSG. Exactly with what I was saying, they
They weren't able to get top floor control fast and they kept running out of time on their clears
Which is why cafe is such a defender sided map within the NFL
I don't know what the stats say, but it's definitely one of the harder maps to attack now as far as operator bands
I mean pretty classic again get rid of the snake against wild card
They're not known to be a shield team really but Monty is gonna be available
We heard spikers say last week that he didn't like the Monty
He's not good at Monty, but you know if they need a round I could easily see him pull that out
And that's exactly where they pull it out. It's when it is needed.
But again, those opening kills are going to be oh, so, so important
because that series for SSG or that half, they only got one opening kill out of those six rounds.
They need to start getting those opening picks.
Well, we're far from talking about a map win for SSG right now.
We're just looking for a round win, maybe on the defense.
They can make that happen.
That's the hope. That's the goal.
That's the mission for space station gaming.
Get a round win on the defense.
and then pray you can find five more SSG currently undefeated in the North American League Parker,
but up against the Stage 1 champions, it seems like that streak is about to be broken.
Yeah, certainly so. Space station showing that while they spend their time orbiting the Earth,
that they too are just mere mortals whose feet do end up coming back down to Earth.
And while Carter taking full advantage of it, they now go on to attack and have six
opportunities to put this one away.
I didn't know that every single match
since the beginning of playday number one
has gotten tighter for a space station
and now they are trending towards a loss.
The fewest rounds they've given up
for in their most recent matchup against M80.
It was a 7-5 victory for a space station.
At this point, Wildcard will push us to overtime
at absolute worst for their fans.
an overtime loss for Wildcard would be quite devastating.
I would say they managed to steal away an overtime victory
against Shopify Rebellion back in playday number three
in one of the handful of overtime games
that we've seen thus far.
But Wildcard must be pretty happy
with everything they're seeing up to this point.
Before a single round was played,
Bay entered to date with a minus 10 KV
if memory serves correctly.
We's 13 in one.
So those numbers are gonna increase quite dramatically.
Rive Raid in pixel spot gets gunned down by Baby Shark
who he himself is having a sensational day.
Right now it's six kills.
Again, Baby Shark was the lowest rated player
before the start of today.
I have to imagine those numbers will move
with 145 still on the clock.
Wildcard has taken one player from Space Station
out of action.
It's kind of bold to not ban Wamai in 2026,
but I suppose if you kill him as soon as the round starts,
he doesn't really get much value out of those magnets.
Let's get answer back. I told you both teams would be trying to C4 Max Parker.
Obviously we saw it from Wogcarb, but SSG as well.
They bounce back taking out Spiker with one of those nitros.
Another one on the roof barely misses it's mark.
And Gidey's got one more in the pocket to play with too.
When they won cafe last week, it was those C4s that brought them to the distance.
So they have to keep relying on them here against Wogcarb.
Demos being gone will obviously throw a spanner in the works.
Still got those calls from Baby Shark.
No longer called Logic Bombs, by the way.
Though I do think old habits die hard.
I still refer to them as Logic Bombs.
I'm sure many people do at this point in time.
But still four calls in pocket for the Doka B to target individual players.
Outside of that, you have to rely on the secondary gadgetry.
Explosives, smokes, still tools here for Wildcard to pull this one off.
40 seconds remaining in this round. Good coverage from Giddy down below to get information and he's found a couple members of Wildcard
He's gonna take the fight directly to them the first one over towards train
Surely he's making noise at this point in time
Sure seems like baby shark is a man walking on borrowed time that is absolutely the case now
I'll pivot back towards the bomb site cans and getting the diffuse kid down
They slipping out your cover of darkness in the post plant we go
Wildcard knows where some of these players of space station are but that's this
He's actually turned the numbers around into a point Jesse where a winnable round for space station has finally emerged
Canson taking a beating there goes a dream. It's all up to the usual dynamic duo of wild card
They will start the killing in the post plant for his team as Aiden goes down Canson cut off of the wire
Bay to save the round needs to get to the Azami. He won't do it in time
It's a stealth plant right under their noses and it's a disable under the others noses
SSG gets their very first round of the game
It's not traditional. It's not exactly who you want to win rounds
But Parker they will take anything they can get at this point a great disable deal to pull this one back
And I like how they were able to play together in that round as soon as they had information on baby shark
They sent it his direction
It wasn't just Giddy who was going on the pulse to take down a shark inside a train
He brought the whole team with them and yes
It opened a pretty big gap that wild card used to exploit a plant in onto this bottom floor to get that plant down inside a
Reading this is the push on a baby shark that plants because they push for this
But it's okay because they hit some really nice shots here in the post plants
They instantly get on that disabled with dream on the Azami and they play that post plans perfectly
So credit where it's due space station gaining a solid defense a little scary when you left some plans
But they knew what they were doing and they managed to pull it off anyways
I was kind of a little worried there just for the just for the
Yes integrity of this match when we saw four players of space station circling baby shark seems certainly like yeah
Overkill maybe they just don't have a favorable opinion of the French
I'm not really sure here, but you sure dispatch the entire
I'm all for trash talk, but saying that Bay is having a life game. We've seen Bay put up numbers like this throughout a fair portion of his career, maybe not to this level, but close to, I don't know, women aside with that one.
I think that's more, I think that's huffing some copium here, Jesse.
It would, if the game ended right now, be his first ever 200 EPS map,
map, but we'll see how these last couple of rounds go.
I suppose it's a life game.
I suppose it's a life game.
I suppose it's a life game.
Alright, maybe I judged too harshly, but when I hear life game, I don't think it's a literal
application of the best game they've ever played.
But when I hear life game, I think it's used as like a, hey, this is a really, really
good game for you.
Which it is, of course, for Bay, but we've seen Bay dominate games very often.
If you're being realistic too, usually players best games do not actually have the best stats because they're against better opponents
Yeah, that's neither here nor there regardless phase playing
Incredible throw far through this matchup and if you can manage to get one more round
That'll be the ball game lots of damage dealt to SSG early here in this round
But they haven't given up any positions Raid's early deaths in pixel spot was kind of the first
Blow that space station took in the previous round. He's done a good job staying alive Parker
Sorry, there goes Ray, baby shark with the killing.
Second round in a row where he opened things up.
It's actually Bay's kill by the way.
So baby shark credited with the completion, but it's Bay to get the ball rolling, 15 and
1.
It's a real life game.
I'm glad nobody's said it yet for Bay, Jesse.
Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up, Parker.
I would really best do like a life game.
I fancy myself an innovator, Jesse.
I innovate.
Well, they lost raid early in the last round
and they still managed to bounce back and win it.
See if they can do so one more time.
Full top floor control with plenty of time
to work with, Wildcard continue to bring the sledge.
This time it's on Adrian.
He can do really good work
and I like the way they're working these floorboards
because they're doing it without exposing themselves
to these nitrous cells.
They're always moving
because they know that there's going to be C4s
lurking down below.
It's gone from bad to worse, and now it's Dream being hunted.
Dream being relatively ineffective from a kill's department, but his leadership on this team and
his ability to get the Diffuse Kit planted and counter-disabled has been quite strong.
He'll pick up a single kill before Kansan shuts him down from above.
Any comeback potential that Dream was hoping to kick off with Space Station immediately
falters, and now the Diffuse Kit can be retrieved by the European player named Adrian
on Wildcard finds himself in the site right next to Aguayo canister shut down by a rival that's a
long range angle and Adrian did not see that one coming whatsoever now it's Bay being harassed
from a similar position and SSG will win just on time alone that round gone in the blink of an
eye a stall out from Wildcard some troubling signs from Wildcard over the last two rounds
Jesse but they are still very much in control struggling to get past the finish line the
And the 7th round is said to be the hardest, and Wildcarder certainly finding that out on
cafe.
Tough in the late round, you know they couldn't plant in most positions inside of mining because
there was a pulse down below, and Giddy, great restraint with that nitro-style.
He didn't use it the entire round.
So if they had tried to go for a traditional plant inside of mining, Giddy certainly would
have just blown them up.
Adrien had no choice really but to go for this plant on top of this mining machine.
He could have maybe gone to the marble floor next to him. That's awesome what people will do
But if there's a pulse down below with a shotgun
He's just gonna open the floorboards and arc the nitro onto you anyways
So I think that was the only potential way to plant in that site
They just didn't really have good information on pillar and huge credit to rival for holding that position and specifically watching the one place
They could plant inside of mining
SSG even when things get tough even when they get down to a low man camp situation
They're making sure they always have a win-con and that can sometimes be enough to bring you
Back into a game that you otherwise wouldn't be alive in
Could also just be looking at a very defender sided cafe all eight rounds won by the defenders
I know that it is statistically defender sided in this particular matchup
But it also might just lean that way to where the attackers have such a hard challenge here with the operator bands
With the way that these teams match up so on so forth
with Saucen issues with Miss Droning
and what I imagine were poor communication coming from that
on the side of Space Station in the first half.
Wildcard has committed similar mistakes,
though that previous round, the entry wasn't the problem.
It was the mid through late round
where it seemed like Wildcard kind of lost the plot
despite having an advantage in man count over Space Station.
So for the fans of Wildcard, hope springs eternal,
you still got your time out,
you can use it when you need it.
But for Wildcard, you've allowed Space Station
to get back into this matchup
And that is not an ideal spot for a team that you know as SSG has played so far this stage can punish you if you start to commit mistakes.
Baby Shark and Adrien can smell each other on the opposite sides of these windows, but neither of them wants to make the swing happen first.
Baby Shark needs to jump in eventually, but he's got more work to do with these charges down on the bottom floor.
The DMR rips through the Kiba barrier.
barrier. I'll remind you, Parker, SSG got five defense rounds on cafe when they
played it last week against 4-fun. That won't be enough universal wild card, but
it's proof that they're a good defense team on this map. We knew kind of
coming into this, that it would likely be a defender side at a fair, so I do
think that it's gonna be a defender side of map and space station gaming
have the potential to pull it back. It's just gonna have to be perfect. It's
always gonna be a difficult position.
Kansan currently trying out for extreme makeover home addition.
Every spreex per minute you think you can average here.
What do you think?
He's just, he needs to move as much as possible so he doesn't get blown up by a C4.
So he's just on the run slamming that hammer down. I like it.
Maybe he just is like a laminator of vinyl guy. Maybe he hates wood flooring.
Also a possibility there.
Of course, when you use almost 20 swings of your hammer at this point in time, you have removed most of the protection above the defenders, so that will cause some issues for these SSG defenders, playing down below. Look at that.
No real good opportunities for Space Station, and either of those parts connected to the bomb sites, Aiden seemed the closest to it. He's tucked away next to a door frame where he cannot be seen from that vertical angle.
SSG have spread out now to answer this 35 seconds wild card last round struggled with the clock
They've taken care of dream. He's down and bleeding out, but they cannot mismanage the timer yet again spiker and baby shark fine
Too bay dies. It's only a second death. You know, there's one inside of bakery
Spikers got his hands full with them hoping for a cross with cans and they cannot pinch this player at all
Oh my they're gonna have to get active in the Goyle making the job work
Rival takes care of one, Kansan gets him, but there's only 10 seconds left.
Yet again, Wildcard struggling here on the clock. They must retrieve the diffuser.
Five seconds to go, Kansan's picked back up, a bot C4 from Raid.
He's on borrowed time, atrium shuts him down, and by the skin of their country teeth, Wildcard takes the round and with it, the map.
Tick them three tries, but eventually they will take an advantage and run with it.
with it Parker a great push there on the bottom floor of cafe wildcard a great
recovery for their entries baby shark and bay coming alive after a disappointing
first week then make all the difference in this opening game versus
PlayStation gaming
They take down SSG, the challengers who were hoping to prove themselves, but not so much when you come up against this behemoth and another behemoth who dropped 15 kills in this lobby.
Bay, what a performance from you. With 15 kills, that means you nearly more than doubled your closest teammate.
I mean, I hate to be that guy, but like, what got into you today? What was going on?
To be honest, I was doing nothing special. I was just playing the game like it didn't really feel any different than any other day
I was just killing people more. Yes, the professional answer. That is a very professional answer
Yeah, babe, you are now being dubbed the mr. Nick name at this point
I don't know if you watch the games back and know some of your nicknames
I mean we got the 94 the weapon the storm
Magic man. We just said mr. Multi kill Nick name now mr. Nick name mr. USA. Do you have a man?
I've never heard magic mean we go we just threw a last game if you were making magic happen
My favorite's got to be the OG classic the the weapon the weapon. It's just it's a leak
Do you would do you have another nickname in mind that you give yourself if you can give yourself?
Um a lot of people just call me 94. Okay, spiker calls me 9 4
9 4 the 94. Okay, 94. Let me give you a real question like let's move past all these nicknames
Let's focus on a real question on wild card success.
Now, you guys notoriously dominate the opening kill department.
For whatever reason, that is, even in this series,
eight of those opening kills going into your guys' favor out of nine.
What allows you guys to consistently dominate opening kills,
whether that's on the attacking half or the defense half?
I mean, the answer is pretty simple.
We're just smarter than most of these other teams.
Like a lot of the times people are just kind of feeding into it, I don't even know how to explain it, I don't think we're doing like anything to purposely get opening kills, I think we're just like smarter than these teams and it just like happens so much more naturally.
That's the reason why I wanted to ask that question, was it more just your guys' playstyle, the aggressive nature that you guys have, or what do you genuinely feel that it's just the opponents kind of playing lacks of days that kind of falls into your guys' favor?
Because I'd argue on some areas you guys do more than often get aggressive and get that early aggression going to swing those picks into your favor
So I think it maybe it might be a little 50-50. I think I give yourself a little more credit there
I mean, it's not that the other team is dumb or anything. It's just like we put in so much work
We I think we understand the game at such a deeper level than a lot of these other teams
And I think that's the gap and why you see stuff like that
And I think that's mainly just what it is
I agree with that too. I mean it seems like you guys are kind of ahead of everyone else and we see a lot of teams trying to play
Hey, bro. Shout out Lagonas. Take the goat in this. Exactly. I think that is a big reason. You kind of answered this
But when you drop 15 like does it feel any different for you? Do you feel like you're ever in a flow state?
Like what does that feel like? I mean
Some games kills are definitely easier than others and like it just keeps falling like same thing happened against Falcons
WC I drift like 23 like you just kind of get into that flow in the game or feel in the game like really good
You're thinking super clear
So I'd say there's definitely a difference when things are working one more follow-up question when you have these series where you just
Absolutely destroy the other team how many times you go back and watch that vibe capture all those moments of you just dominating the opponent I
Don't watch anything back. I don't like don't you play to me watching
No sir, I can't, I can't believe it.
Thank you so much for your time, congrats on another strong performance from you.
We'll talk to you later.
Thank you guys.
You're telling me you've never gone back in any of your series when you smoked the other
team just to kind of give yourself a little bit of ego boost here the casters praise
you look at the chat type in oh my god he's phenomenal.
No Lux, I'm going back and I'm looking at all the shots.
I died.
It's time to learn from my mistakes.
I don't need to do that after a game.
Wildcard, those shut down space station.
And honestly, it felt like shut us up a little bit.
I mean, we were talking about SSG.
Were they the team that was going to jump out
and prove themselves?
Or are they the team that may slip and fall
and potentially miss the playoffs?
It was a shame that they ran into a Wildcard
playing their absolute best.
And they just could not match it whatsoever.
I mean, after three really good games
than one kind of decimation of another game.
I have to say they are not making playoffs at this point.
Wow.
This is why I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Going to be the big test for them, no, and all seriousness.
I mean, this is why I said this was going to be a big test
for space station.
They passed that test?
Due to their opponents.
No, they did not pass that test.
Unfortunately, they did flunk the test.
But it is a good testament to their own skill
and individual prowess.
I mean, you have to lose in order to learn.
And that's exactly what I expect them to be able to do,
just like they did throughout the regular season,
be able to have that time off to then come back from this loss and showcase everything
that they learned from this years because there definitely is a lot if you go back and re-watch
just where things went wrong for them. Yeah, there actually absolutely is and they have
a lot of games. Like if I'm being real for a second, there's still what five games available
to them. They did such a good job getting the points that they should get, right? And
they got those nine points in the super week, which is going to help them, right? All
they got to do is win another game or two. So they just got to take what they got
Obviously, I also think the map choice was a bad or choice. I think they got completely out prepped by the
Lagonas as always I think they're just a coach diff a little bit over there as well, but
Yeah, take take what you're gonna take these game learn bounce back
Scott just got a win one with that loss for SSG the win for wildcard both teams now moving to three and one
Which brings us to I suppose a guy that I know quite well had a few minutes to talk about some of the up-and-coming
incoming stars in the T2 theme.
Historically, in Rainbow Six,
there's been one pretty safe assumption.
If you want to be the best,
you play on Mouse and Keyboard.
Mingo, apparently, didn't get that memo.
Yo, it is the best time ever.
I'm James Mollinger,
and I'm back with another season of Stars of Tomorrow.
We're talking about who the next top talent is gonna be.
So naturally, we've had to start
with the man making history at every turn
and doing it all with a controller in his hands.
Now controller players switch over to PC all the time.
Sompin, Raid, Wizard, Gavini,
but when Mingo made the switch from console to PC,
he kept the controller.
Now Mingo had been playing FPS games on controller
all of his life since he was nine years old.
It's basically in his brain.
He picked up scenes during the beta,
returned to it in 20.3 and made the snap to PC official just five months ago.
And it has been a very eventful five months.
Another kill for the IGL and Blackjack win it!
In the lobby you can usually find him fragging out with an F2 or a TCSG in his hands.
And when I asked him how he would describe his comms, I was surprised to hear that
he said he's on the quieter side until later in the round.
Because when the time comes, Mingo is not quiet.
But no matter how loudly it happens or how intense the competition,
Mingo just seems to rise to the occasion.
When he made history by qualifying to element as a controller player,
he didn't stop there.
He and Team Blackjack would go on to win the entire game.
And in a field with seven former pros and top T2 talent,
Mingo, on controller, was the best player in the entire event.
So I guess the only thing left to do is try to make the NAL,
and he'll get a chance to do that in Challenger Series in just a few months.
Who should we feature next? Get in the comments.
I gotta say, that was actually really impressive,
because we were trying to hang out with you that day and set up dinner for you,
And he literally told us I have to bike around the city go to the park set this up
And I wasn't really sure how it was gonna look but that honestly came out very good
Yeah, you go to a couple different locations in the park barbecue, but it was very good. Well, we did have Korea barbecue after that
But if you want to compete with Mingo and team blackjack, they will be competing at Paul Meadow dunes in just a couple of weeks time
You can join them as signups are still open for the Paul Meadow Bay, Florida open cup land
That's something you're gonna want to miss either joining them there or tuning in after the fact
But that brings us to our next matchup of the day because we got to talk about the Thieves
We got to talk about Shopify rebellion two teams may be heading in opposite directions right now
Hundred thieves chasing a couple more wins Shopify rebellion hoping to hang onto it
But lax talked to me about this SR team coming off an oh so close game against wild card
We said it might have been the game of the stage just so close to making that win
Absolutely. And it was so hard to try to pick and choose what I wanted to talk about.
And so far, SR really has been meeting our expectations in terms of how well they've improved.
The comms have been really good.
The just the setups to go for these executes have been really good.
And, you know, I have a illustration to really showcase where things went wrong in round 15,
because I mean, not round 15, round 14, because that's really where, for me,
was kind of the biggest hurdle for them because they did everything right in the early to mid game.
They got the picks going into favor. They cleared the players below,
but it was their executing. We know that's where they've struggled before,
but it was just in this series. That's what threw the game off the beam for them.
They lose this series due to a Canton Big Clutch.
But if you look right here, you have one player over inside statue for wild card.
You have another player going to connector, and you have another player inside Astro.
And from there, they already have this map, essentially,
almost cut half once they go for this execute.
Now what continues to happen, you're going to see the Lion player rotate all the way
over to the Astro window to put the pressure onto the player inside Astro and get this control.
That is the next piece of the puzzle here to go for this later on XQ, and it was a great transition here.
You'll see the line get set up, go on this window and get this technique, fall into a 4v2.
Everything's going perfect, so you thought. But this is where everything falls apart.
Now, I love what Troy did here. He blocks off the line of sight from the player inside staff to you,
so they can't play off any information here. They have to swing off the door in order to go for this XQ.
But this is where the issue arises for SR. They were doing everything so perfect. They got the picks, they got the information.
The issue here is what you're going to see is Troy commits too early to take this engagement on to Kansan.
And then Ambie isn't in position to then follow up to then go for a trade.
You'll have this player pushing through bathroom while another player is jumping through the window to take all of Astro control.
But while this is happening, what you're going to see there is going to be a flame blocking off these players in Astro
that can no longer help the statue side players trying to go for this execute.
And that's exactly what happens.
Troy gets too overzealous here.
He pushes through, dies to Kansan.
Andy is not in position to be able to go for this trade.
And then from there, now the two players
are stuck inside Astro, not able to assist.
It now leaves the wildcard players in the winnable position.
They just have to wait on time.
They just have to wait for SR to fall into their hands.
And that's exactly what happens.
And allowed Kansan to pop off here
and clutch up this round.
And it's such a small mistake.
And I got to give praise for SR throughout
their entire three players.
Everything was looking concrete.
It was just that small detail in that round where if Andy plays a little closer, that play
that rotates about through maybe assist with Troy, they secure that win.
And it just really again, it really showcases Siege is a game of inches.
Yeah.
It was a high level game, right?
And that is around right there where if they win that game, they go on to win 8-6.
More points on the board.
It's those little small mistakes exactly that and you almost wish the only thing
I do kind of wish from them is that they would give a little bit more time on the
clocks.
like when they go for those executes sometimes the bottom of the case drops
and it starts to incite a little bit of panic and if they get themselves a little
bit more time they can make up and that's the biggest thing Siege is the
only game where you can run that clock down past zero if the diffuser is being
planned you really can make every second count seat which is why it's
even more important to pay attention to that clock well another team really
familiar with just these little mistakes that can get you into trouble
hundred thieves SR's opponents today it was the just some small missed
opportunities that really feel like held this team back last week.
It was. I mean, look, great bounce back for C9 where they got 7-0'd and then we beat Wildcard,
7-5, and then it was a very close game versus DZ, 5-7, but it was a defensive collapse. I mean,
there's three rounds I want to highlight, and this is one of them. We're going to get into a 4v3,
and then no one is going to hold the cross onto the piano player. Then Newer's going to get a
free kill because we panicked. Not a good crossfire from the Thieves on that last round. I mean,
I mean, here's Jack, who's just going to get the last kill.
And Jack was fantastic in that game.
He was having a life game.
Speaking of Jack, here's another round.
We're moving too much.
The Thieves, again, another man advantage,
or at least there's 4v4 with 50 seconds remaining.
The only thing they got to do is not move force VZ
to do something.
But again, they lose because they just kept moving.
They just wanted to do too much.
And this seems to be a Thieves problem.
And then we go to the very last round,
which is going to be on bar again.
A very low time.
It's a 3v3.
Just make them execute, please.
For the love of God, 100 Thieves, make them execute.
What happens?
One guy drops lobby, two people walk down blue stairs,
and they win the fight.
Thieves, again, they're having a really hard time
with just the fundamentals, just setting up those Trolls
fires.
Listen, I don't want to throw 100 Thieves a bone here,
because the way that DZ play shall end,
they're phenomenal at it, shall they?
Is they feel like you are being pressured when you aren't,
which is why we're seeing so much movement
from the side of 100 Thieves.
I mean, there were multiple rounds that you even highlighted,
where in just so many cases, they could just stay still.
They don't need to move.
They can just wait for DZ, but the way DZ plays,
and especially in those early games,
they take that early aggression, they get that control,
they just make you feel all of a sudden,
if you're sitting still, you are about to get collapse upon,
which is why you see them move,
which is why they were in so many unwinnable situations.
It's because of that kind of mental warfare
that DZ plays as well with their play style
that really makes you question your decision-making.
And time and time again,
they were just punishing 100 Thieves
due to really doing nothing, just stalling out.
Well, let's talk about the support a little bit from Shopify Rebellion.
Lex, you mentioned that, yes, we talk all about Ambi.
We talk all about SPOI, but the players that don't get enough credit
are actually playing out of their minds right now.
And rightfully so, you have to talk about Ambi and SPOI on this team.
However, it is nice to finally kind of reel it back in
and focus on the supporter step.
Because even in that series of Villa versus Wildcard,
I believe Serp dropped like 15 or 16 frags at the end of it.
I mean, he was doing a phenomenal job.
We highlighted Rexon in the previous days.
He wasn't having that much, you know, highlights in that series.
And we also talked to him in an interview.
Sometimes you have to play, you have to bite the bullet.
You have to play the role that no one wants to in order to let others shine.
And both of these players do this really well.
I still believe, and maybe this might be a hot take,
I think Surf is one of the best players in the entire league.
The way that he plays that supportive role,
you can always rely on him, whether it's on attack,
whether it's on defense.
And as someone who played a lurking role, a flexing role,
and an entry role in sometimes, there
is nothing more important than to have
a strong, supportive staff.
And we always highlight how strong everyone is on the side of SR.
It's nice to finally be able to give the praise
to these supportive players when Spoil and Ambiar necessarily
have the pop-off series.
I fully agree.
I don't even think it's much of a hot take, to be honest.
I think Serves been one of the highest-rated players
for this team for quite a while.
I actually think he's a top two anchor, probably next to NJR
if we're just talking about our own league for a second.
There's almost no one I trust more if they got a shutdown and execute or something from
happening, then surf.
But I also want to give Rex more flowers again.
I feel like that's what we're doing today.
We gave Kans in a bone.
Now we're going to give Rex in a bone because I see a lot of hate towards Rex.
He does play a role.
Like I said, he does play a role that no one else really wants to do.
He's played almost every role for the Sonics team.
He's been a main entry.
He's been a main roamer.
He's been put on hard brief before.
He's played supportive roles before.
That is the selflessness.
But that is the selflessness.
And he knows he has a lot of talented players on his team.
So he's gonna slot himself in where he's a lot of times on that thatcher where what's he doing during an execute?
He's sitting holding the thatcher gadget out stopping the C4 the pivotal C4 the pivotal smoke from
Blooming or blowing up and stopping the plant right so that's what he's doing. He's a very self-display. He's a key for this team
He's an enabler every team needs one and I think rexon's one of the best
All these two teams have shown us a couple of similar maps over the course of their first week rebellion
They've played Villa twice.
The Thieves, they've played Chalet twice.
And we are going to Villa for Shopify Rebellions
third time through four games.
Lacks, what do you make of it?
I mean, I like it for the side of Rebellion.
And the nice thing that we've been seeing so far
of all the different play styles,
SR has got to be one of my favorite
when they're on their defense.
Once they get rid of those hard breaches,
they really do a good job at Turtling.
It's something that I've really enjoyed watching
their style of play.
And I don't expect that's going to change
in this series at all.
However, we haven't seen 100 Thieves.
That's going to be a big question for me, because similar to Chalet,
you can be over-encumbered by the other team, a little overbeared,
if that pressure is being applied.
And what we know from the attacking side on SR, they can get scrappy.
They could definitely get scrappy.
I mean, I like this as well for the side of SR.
I mean, they should have won that game first while we just highlighted that moment.
But for the Hunter Thieves, again, this is a chance for they can do a little bit of prep work,
maybe counter some of SR's takes here.
And we also don't know what they are going to do.
It's going to be a surprise in the lobby for SR.
What I want to see them is I want to see a lot of shield play on the side of spirits.
called out that he is the engine. He's been activated in their last two games even on the
attacking side versus DZ. The only reason that even game was close was spirits. I just want to
mention who was the one team that counter DZ and kind of exposed spirits on those shields?
You're gonna say SR? It was SR. Okay. It was on that it was on that layer when they met way back
I think I don't know it was back when NAF and all them were on the roster they exposed DZ
they exposed the shield so I'm a little worried when those shields do come into play.
Well, I'm not worried at all because I know Zack is one of the best in the world as far as the bands exactly what we always see lacks on this map
We've seen a lot of villain. It's always a zombie
Well, my one of the the interior operators and they get so tough to take down power positions and then on the attacking side against the
Rebellion we called out that we really like the ace Havana band
Maybe we see that make the rebellion to be a pretty prominent band
But the snake is a good band for taking a lot of map control playing split. What's the thieves like to do?
All right, hot and cold looks ready to go.
Hundred thieves look to take down another top dog.
Can they do it? The Rebellion, look ready.
Well, it's definitely going to be an interesting matchup between teams that,
really, I don't think have had the success that either have wanted throughout this entire year, Jesse.
Shot by Rebellion obviously had more success, but I think their expectations are so high.
Hundred thieves have wanted this team to represent on land.
on-lanet has not come to pass. They had a really brutal kick off. They turned things around by
being a top four team in stage one, but ultimately couldn't get the job done. Here they're on the
outside looking in and it's time for 100 thieves to start putting their money where their mouth
is and making up the ground that they've lost over those first three play-dads. Indeed it is
Parker and I'm super excited this matchup is happening on Villa because as the desk said,
this will be Shopify Rebellion's third time playing Villa in four best of ones since the
the stage began. So they've got so much practice on this map.
Hundred Thieves though, banned it in every single matchup that they played last week.
They banned it three out of three times.
So the fact that they let it go through speaks to me like they probably have been
Counter-Stratting. They've probably been coming up with a strat specifically to take down
SR on this map pick. And I think they're going to need it because the Rebellion have been,
as you said, the better team so far throughout this season. They look red hot after going for some really big wins in week one.
one barely losing out to wildcard and 100 thieves will have their work cut out.
So I'm super anxious to see what their set up
should look like already getting active with the Kaid and a clash here on the
base and bombs that will show Shopify rebellion something that they haven't
really seen.
You and I casted the last match between these teams here domestically all the
way back in June 18th.
It was a 7 5 victory 400 thieves when Adam had an extraordinary game.
it was their first regulation win.
And it was also on play day number four
and was also the third match of the day.
Funny how these things work out.
Since then, I think it's fair to say
that Shopify Rebellion have shown
that they've been on a bit of a downward swing.
Now, that seems to no longer be the case
here in stage number two.
They will come to the Lowe's very early Canadian walking
in unguarded, no protection whatsoever
against the shotgun for spirits,
which also finds spoits.
A third to be had,
but Ambi has his number.
Spirit knows a thing or two about that weaponry in Ambi's hands.
He'll swap it out for the reaper, take care of Gomez.
And off to the races, Jesse, we go.
Still over a minute left, but these teams
very quick to the punch.
Hot and Cold needs to stay mobile here on the clash
to avoid these fireballs to run out by Rax.
And he's done just that, taking only a little bit of damage.
And now they don't have any more real good answers
for this clash.
They're just going to have to plant in his face
and hope that they can cover, get a second angle
on them so they can't get a free denial.
But this is why shopfirebellion are stalling out a little bit before parker. They don't have a great answer to this
So they might each try a different route, but I think they're just gonna send in the candela's and pray they can get a plant down
Ambi's numbers not where SR want them
But again this team very fluid with their roles the desk talked a lot about rex and the numbers that he has to play off of
They were a lie on him and surf now is the last two standing
Cirque attempting to get into the bomb site the bearing nine just a bit too much for him to handle it now rex
and finds himself all alone dealt with by Kacen.
Hundred thieves outscramble the rebellion in round one.
And Parker, you know, it's not going to be reflected on the stats sheet,
but I think Hot and Cold, the MVP of round number one,
playing on that clash, they just did not have a good response to them.
They brought plenty of counters.
They brought the Capitao. They brought the Zofia.
They brought some of the best anti-clash ops in the game,
but Rexon couldn't land those Capitao bolts in a way
that actually dealt with Hot and Cold's position,
and Spoyt died early to spirits playing on those stairs with the shotgun.
So a little bit unfortunate that SR couldn't get anything going,
and when you have played this map already twice, just in the last week,
it does make it kind of predictable how you want to play.
It allows Hot and Cold to kind of jump on one of these flex operators,
and despite how good it was, I think it's a start to clear up spirits.
They go two for two to trade him out.
They lost their shield in the midst of it.
Just wasn't quite enough to get it over the finish line.
And so, Cret the Spirits will be opening two kills,
and Cret the Hot and Cold to lock things down
to supports, really finding their value here
early front of these.
All of these teams having supports
that are struggling a little bit in their numbers
and in their respective positions.
I know a large spotlight has been shown on Canadian
and his deficiency to get kills,
but as he has said countless times,
win or lose the focus for him
is to funnel those kills to the other four lads on the Rebellion Surf and
Spoight are having very strong starts to this stage.
Spoight in particular has had struggles domestically. It's nice to see him bounce
back over on the side of 100 thieves while they find themselves in seventh.
Some players are obviously still going through the motions. They're highest
rate of player of spirits. At 19th of 50th players, Gomez at the
bottom just one rank ahead of Canadian. They're gonna rely a lot on Adam
traditionally but he's also at a very slow start to stage two and his early
death here in round number two is not gonna be the sign that hundred thieves
want. If you're watching our last game, you'll know that the pulse can be so
effective in enabling aggression and that's what they were trying to do with
Adam. He tosses out a Nitro, it deals damage, doesn't get a kill, then he
hops out praying to solidify the frag on a surf but Adam isn't able to get
anything so instead it's just gonna be a man-advantaged favoring shop fire
rebellion with split being on this ram and the fact that top floor is mostly
conceited now this is gonna put them in a really good spot to start working some
of this vert play interesting last week it was rexon on the ram so they've
changed roles around a little bit attacking on this kitchen site but still
the important tools are here hot and cold the spot that one has now moved
into the bathroom you start to wonder about pacing a little bit he's over
in the stats, he might be in a position to contest this tall floor.
You might throw his body towards the problem.
We'll take a beating through the window.
At this point in time, it might not
be a bad idea to just prolong the inevitable
and let your team talk through the issues.
But this round is over.
Spirits getting the job done with a side arm, SR.
Empty handed through these two rounds,
a triumphant beginning for 100 thieves.
Really good start, I think, particularly
from Spirits, Parker.
He got that big two piece for the shotgun in round number
one.
Then he stands up on the, he walks up those asteristers
for a triple here in round two. I think Spirits are having a really good game and I think he's
recognizing where his opportunities are to find these frags, right? Where he can make
a move and really disrupt things. We talked about Payson being on the top floor but Spirits
moving up those stairs to accompanying him was really, really big to help them out
and win this one. He's now... He's now two for two in the battle for Canada as
as well as just taking down the shopfire belly and captain twice in a row.
Battle for Canada, hey?
I think it makes sense. We've got two Canadian players in this league. They're facing off.
That's a fair point. We used to have more, right?
We did, and then Outlast dropped their whole team.
That would make sense.
Memory serves correctly.
Yes.
Silo Canadian as well, or fuck, am I misremembering?
I'm not even confusing them with solo.
I think I'm confusing them with solo.
Yeah, you are.
And it's not the only solo we've had play, either.
We've had multiple solos.
True.
And I think we have like seven players named Skies
that have also...
Memory serves correctly.
Oh.
A couple of rivals we've seen already today.
that is true. That is very true. An interesting conversation to be had about whether or not
your gamer handles have to be unique just from a branding perspective. I remember when
we had both Astros playing in the same game, that was a challenge, but we got through it
all the same. Back when you had a Brazilian Astro and a European Astro. Either way, there
is a portion of this map called Astro as well. So we'll tie it back in towards the reworked
villa in all of its darkened mood, light, and glory.
Two minutes left to go.
As you can see, drones being handled quite effectively
by 100 thieves.
Rebellion are down to very limited intel
from those drone gadgets.
Great transition, Parker.
Here on the top floor, for the first time
this game, 100 thieves choosing to defend aviator games.
We've seen all four sites get significant play
since Villa joins the map pool.
There's no real consensus yet on what the best three
sites are, but consensus for this first round
will go the way of 100 fees.
It's hot and cold, finds the pick on to surf.
That's through the vert as well.
You don't often see a Zofia losing that gunfight
from down below, but clearly wasn't able to get
any value out of the gadgets.
And for surf now, starting 0 and 3,
this was the man hyped up by laxing on the desk,
showing some of these support players
and the value that they've brought.
So far, through three rounds on Villa,
surf has yet to find the impact.
Iestrated player on the team.
Lowest impact so far is not a recipe for success for any team.
But again, Shopify Rebellion historically don't just live and die off of one player.
They have seen ambi solo carry games more than anybody else on this team over the last calendar year.
He's taken a bit of a backseat perfectly in the middle of the pack here in North America in terms of impact.
Down goes Adam at the hands of spoilt the Swede having a resurgence ever since Salt Lake City
Could also be the meta and roll swaps on SR working very effectively final 30 seconds now Jesse and SR knocking at the door of the bomb site
Lots of utility couple of smokes couple of flashes. They got good map control as well Parker
But there's still plenty of space around the bomb said they've got to get past some really strong ink positions and toxic babes still being tossed by spirits
Andy running in taking damage in the process Canadian as well and it's the
fray it's a team kill. Andy guns down Canadian. Outduld by Gomez. This is not
ideal. Hundred thieves with a huge advantage now and they will find the
remaining two kills. What a blunder from the rebellion. Hundred thieves
capitalizing on every misstep being committed by their opponents. Genuinely
don't think that could have gone much worse for the rebellion. They try to
pushed through the smoke, pushed through the toxic babes, I kind of like it as a mix-up, right?
Because when you throw those smokes inside of the 90 hallway, you're expecting them to run into
sight. But if you do that, then you're staring at the bar, you don't have a great plant spot,
like, it gets a little bit awkward from that position. Instead, they run through the smoke,
continuing through the hallway, find themselves at the top of main stairs, and just get
mowed down by Gomez. Ambi kills Canadian, Gomez kills Ambi, that's two dead players on the
the rebellion and you know maybe we'll call it a trade but in any case it is not looking
good for Shopify so they called attack time out down three over 100 thieves Parker and
this is why I was a little bit worried about Villa SR have shown this map twice already
and they've shown a wide variety of strats as well it's not like last week we saw SR
running the same thing over and over again they exposed a pretty deep strat book on
this map to now allow 100 thieves to bring you here to go up against them when they
They haven't shown it at all.
It was clearly a risk.
It was clearly a gamble.
And so far, it seems like it has absolutely not paid off.
Oh, I think that's absolutely correct.
I will give credit to SR, if they
are a team that has consistently wanted
to play the newer maps.
And of course, to varying levels of success,
whether it be Nighthaven Labs, whether it be Lair,
whether it be Fortress.
And now here on Villa, though,
I think it's a far cry to say Villa is a new map,
same with Fortress.
Vila's changes give it enough of a unique identity compared to where it was.
It's been fun watching Vila, and NA in particular has really enjoyed this map more so than the
other regions that we have covered.
So this bottom floor bomb site plays out so differently to where we used to see teams
take this map.
The bottom floor was often always ignored.
The only times you would really ever see anything on the bottom floor would be a
pulse or a vigil, a cavera, maybe even a valk or an alibi going for a deep lurk or flank
depending on the way that the defenders set up their strategies. Attackers could very quickly
attack through the barrels and then take that stairs control and transition that to putting
a presence in the kitchen. But again, it was mostly an avenue to get somewhere and was never
actually the scene for the round as we can now see in front of our very eyes and as we saw just a
couple rounds prior, the bottom floor bomb site heavily prioritized by the defenders.
Yeah again like we've seen this map across multiple different regions sometimes it's the
primary bomb site down in the basement sometimes teams don't play it at all like there's still
very little consensus but 100 thies clearly feeling like this is the site for them. The
The Mira gets banned out, but they don't choose to bring back that clash that was so effective for them in winning the previous round.
Instead, they're going to move hot and cold over to the tube route.
They've got Adam still here on the Kaid, and Kacin on a bit of a solo roam.
He's got Gomez with him down inside of the living room, but for the most part, these two players are pretty isolated on their own.
They can catch a couple of bodies here trying to clear them out.
It could be a massive swing one way or another.
Okay, what's being brought by this hundred thieves roster right if rebellion have already struggled with columns if rebellion have struggled with
information which seems to be the case to these three rounds Jesse you're going up
against operators that are gonna make you pay for it I have to wonder what was
discussed in that timeout by super as whether or not he was hoping that this
teams columns could steadily improve again it could go back to you said
Maybe 100 thieves just know this map better and have quite the advantage at this point in time
Obviously the numbers for villa are still far too early as to whether we can say with any
Defendant this whether it's an attack or a defender side of map
But villa historically was always very good for the defenders and so far for three rounds
That is absolutely the case here is hundred thieves have yet to drop a single round
Ambitioner on the glass interesting off to try to bring through they haven't just gone for the main wall
he might expect they are taking map control but without clearing out case and it makes things a
little bit difficult for them they know where he's at they're clearly aware that he's an aviator
they've been holding the angle but still he finds the shot onto canadian downs and finishes off
with the boss g they just blast a little bit parker in their in their coverage and now they're
in a mess because they don't have top floor control and they're still trying to look at this
bottom floor bomb site case and could be anywhere one of the big uh i guess one of the
One of the big source spots with this SR team is that Canadian doesn't usually get kills,
but he's got an escort most of the time.
That has not been the case the couple of times we've seen him die very early on.
I don't know what this SR team is doing to protect him, but it seemed to come as a surprise.
A very vocal surf, changing up his position, now getting closer to the engagement, but
Adam blows them both up with a nitro cell.
Hundred thieves increased their lead.
Rexon and Spoyr to the last two, standing, down goes Spoyr, down goes Rexon and down
go the chances for Shopify Rebellion, a flawless fourth round as an undefeated 100 thieves is
bullying their opponents.
I mean Parker it just feels like every trend that we saw in week one of the NAL has been
flipped on its head for week two.
I mean wildcards getting the win against Space Station Gaming, a previously undefeated
the team then lost their last game here on the stream.
100 Thieves and SR, I mean, the Rebellion,
they weren't undefeated last week,
but they came pretty damn close,
just losing an 8-7 game to Wildcard.
Now they've just been thrown for a loop.
It does not feel like they're playing
the same style of Siege that they're known for.
It feels like the coordination is very off,
and I mean, you can almost see it in their faces, right?
Canadian, that's likely a reaction after he goes down.
It's not even anger, it's not even frustration.
It's just like, okay, it's happened again.
We're losing another round.
4-0, they have to stop this bleeding.
How many rays of blue?
How many rays of blue?
That's your timeout, too.
How many rays of blue?
It didn't help space station in the previous map
as they weren't unsuccessful in their conversion
after their timeout.
Attackers objected to the field of bomb.
Rebellion suffering their worst defeat after that.
It was worth noting that 100 thieves
We're able to talk to their team as well.
Both teams get access to a timeout,
and there have been times in the past
where teams have said we did not call our timeout,
despite it looking like we should,
because we were afraid that it would also
give an opportunity for our opponents
to maybe come up with a pocket strap
or sort out something if we had established
in our previous round that there was a weakness
that we could exploit,
we wouldn't want them to have an opportunity to fix it.
So, under Dives, just cruising at the moment.
This is maybe the best opportunity for SR Parker because the first time we're seeing them repeat a strap
We're once again playing kitchen and dining and we're once again playing with this pulse in the nitro cells
The bottom four bombsite they played very differently in rounds one and four
So this might be the first opportunity SR have to adapt to learn from their previous mistakes and to try to
Swing some more kills together to get things back in their advantage last time did a good job
Take the top floor control, but it was a flank from spirits up the astro stairs
They really put this push to bed
He is once again playing up and around this aftereo position alongside case and so I mean this is good information on hot and cold
But you can't do a whole lot about it if you can't enter this top floor
Entry's been a big issue
Gomez who's been involved in very little
Successful first blood so far this stage will be the first culprit to get a kill hot and cold is traded out by rex and
moments later
Should surprise nobody that hundred thieves have been very good at running up the score early in the rounds and the French Canadian shows
Of his stuff
Ambience surf in the ground
Hundred thieves have blown this round wide open leaving just Canadian and rexon for SR make that just rexon
Now a man on an island a
Single point of HP the thorn of Adam within reach all of hundred thieves watching those door frames
and it's fierce to get the final kill.
Impeccable stuff from the thieves.
They're not even stealing these rounds.
They're just walking in and taking them
and nobody's trying to stop them.
Yeah, it really feels like Shopify or Bellion.
There's so many solo fights.
None of them are going their way.
They don't have great information on these player positions.
I mean, there are examples of good and tell.
They saw the pulse there.
Rexon was able to capitalize on it for a free kill.
Like that's great, but more often than not,
it's White walking in down below
and losing his 1v1 with nobody backing him up.
It's zero information on the position of spirits
as he's playing that four-window spot,
getting two picks, and then a third one later on as well.
I mean, it feels like the Rebellion
just aren't coordinating like we usually see from them.
They're not able to root out these player positions,
and I have to imagine maybe just the symptom of the map,
maybe the mental's not really there today.
I don't know exactly what it is,
but Hundred Thieves' game plan
just seems like it is completely
Uncounterable from Shopify Rebellion.
I'm floating, G.
That's my goal.
Spiritz is indeed floating.
Parker, he was the only player not to go negative for 100
thieves last week.
And now 11 and 1 is the clear MVP through five rounds.
Incredible stuff from one of the leaders on this team.
The highest rated player before a single round
was played today for the thieves.
And Spiritz really does tend to have these games.
The one match that I always like to reference
You talk about him was played ages ago. I think it was when he was on all tiora
Maybe it was accent honestly. It's been so long. It was one of those teams Jesse
I just remember in a best of three map number one. He was
Largely useless. I think he got a kill or two
terrible KD and then the very next game if memory serves correctly
It was on bank and he played Finca and he got something like two four Ks in a row and ended up putting up almost
20 kills in the very next map and this is the way it goes with spirits. He seems to be more often than not a very feast or
Famine style player in the way that he is deployed and today he is
feasting
Interesting lineup from SR here Parker and we've got the Stens and the Roura being brought out
They brought the Roura up against M80 and they brought the Stens versus Wildcard on this bomb site
They had yet to bring the two of them together
Canadian on the stems of course going to be trying to make some pressure happen here on the master side.
They want to take full top floor control. They were successfully able to do that back in round three.
It was the execute that tripped them up.
Nice opportunity on the Gomez but it's not enough.
Right now SR averaging just a little bit above one kill per round.
As we are in the final round of this first half,
Andy strikes first immediately thrown out of the building by Adam.
So he walks in, takes care of Gomez, and then he himself is vanquished.
Six deaths for Ambi, six deaths for Canadians, six deaths for Spoyt.
Surf almost suffering the same fate.
He finds his first frag and it comes with half of this first half to go.
Final opportunity here for them to deny 100 thieves a flawless first half.
Rexon and Surf are going to have to make some serious magic happen.
They are still outnumbered by 100 thieves, and they do not have control
of the clock that final minute is going to go by in the blink of an eye
I mean these fights are so frustrating for SR fans Parker because
they have a player isolated they have been a 1v2 or 1v3 but
they just can't string together a trade no matter what the timing is a little bit off
the information isn't quite there I feel like the snake fan is really hurting SR in this matchup
they just
feel like they can't get any intel on these roamers
now as you said 35 seconds a massive disadvantage Adam correctly watching this
Dronehole hoping to find a brief take on the player swinging in might just find it at surf
Taken so damn low and now 25 seconds to find a miracle
Hundred thieves were very patient just a few rounds ago when rebellion were closing in on them
It looks like the same thing will happen yet again one more gas canister for the final 15 seconds spirits waiting for that one to go
In hand it's out an explosion will claim rex's life surf is the last one standing
Everybody's still upright for Hundred Thieves and Adam will get the final two
The rebellion break apart and Hundred Thieves take the first half 6-0
Flawless for the thieves and the rebellion looked
Stunned so far through this first half another moment where we're wondering is this game gonna end in just one more round Kyle
It was last week you mentioned that when Hundred Thieves is playing well
spirits is the engine
And we're seeing that from him right now.
We are seeing that.
And we just called him kind of a feast or famine type of player.
But more accurately, he's a confidence player.
When he has confidence on his side,
he's one of the best players in the entire world.
And where did that confidence come from?
It came from their game two after the hot and cold clutch.
Matt, what did we hear in the time out?
Matt specifically called out spirits and said,
you need to be the leader, the engine on the team.
That's where I got the reference, right?
And ever since then, that's three straight games now
where he's dropped back-to-back double-digit kills.
And this is another game.
Like once he has his swagger back, his confidence back,
he is one of the best players that we have in the end of y'all.
We know that he's so good on the attack side.
But also on the defense side,
we're actually letting him run around on Vigil again,
which is what I love to see.
Bad, this is like a throwback to Beast Coast.
That's what I'm saying.
It's like an old experience.
The old experience.
Beast Coast, they used to have a strategy
where he, on Bing Basement,
he's roaming on the top floor,
running around with Vigil.
And he was so hard to clear.
Or DZ, where he's cavera
and getting to do whatever he wants.
So this is what I love to see from Hunter Thebes.
They're enabling their players.
Absolutely.
And on the other side for SR, I mean,
it's a gloomy day here in Copenhagen.
It's clearly a gloomy day for the SR guys.
I mean, this was not what I was highlighting
from their previous series in that Telestration,
where they were almost playing perfectly to a tee.
I mean, I really liked what Jesse was talking about,
is that they have these players isolated,
but they know in any scenario they
aren't able to play these trades effectively.
And they should be given what we've been seeing from them.
I mean, to be fair, we weren't listening to the comps
We were focusing on what the side of 100 thieves was doing.
But again, even looking at the opening picks,
I mean, they've lost the opening picks two times,
I mean, four times out of those six rounds.
It's just not the recipe that this Rebellion roster
that we've been talking about and highlighting
from game to game.
We just aren't seeing it displayed today.
We're seeing big players not being able to step up,
being outfriced by these opponents,
and again, to highlight spirits.
This is not a spirit that we've seen
on a defensive half in quite some time.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I also want to say, I do think they're kind
of being outpepping a little bit,
because we did hear Super in the timeout.
And he was talking about...
Throw out the blueprint.
Throw out the blueprint.
It seems like these guys scrimmed against each other,
which of course, pro teams are practicing against each other.
But it seems like they came in with a plan
of what attacks they wanted to run.
And Hunter Thieves, they threw everything out
that they weren't doing in scrims,
and they're running brand new strategies,
which was giving rebellion problems.
And Super also said,
hey, I want you guys to just problem solve.
Step by step.
Obviously though,
they weren't able to figure out what the thieves were doing.
And I think that's the bigger issue.
This is now your third time playing Villa,
which in some ways it's great.
You aren't showing a whole lot from your map pool,
but SR does have a strong map pool.
They don't have to consistently go to Villa,
so I think this is also going into
what you're talking about the prep
and then throwing out the bloopers.
This is an exact issue that it's causing right now.
And Jesse, like you were saying,
it seems like rebellion walked right into the thieves trap
here, a map that the thieves did not want to play.
They pull it out after seeing SR play it twice
and clearly it's working.
Yeah, clearly this has been a rough one for Shopify Rebellion, but I mean, Parker, a hundred
thieves, is there any hope that maybe this might go back against them?
We haven't seen them attack this map before, if nothing else.
It really does depend on the map, but I mean, I'd, not that I'm going to urge viewers
to tune out at this point in time, but the hill that Rebellion needs to climb is
one of the steepest we've seen, especially on this map, of all maps that have come
up against us.
I will say Rebellion have the defending side, so a couple rounds are possible, same as what we saw in the match that just came before this.
But if you go back to stage one, Jesse, SR started out really, really strong.
They finished second in Salt Lake City, stage one begins and they win their first three play days back to back to back.
Holy smokes, they're the real deal, we think.
And then they come up against 100 thieves and play day number four. They lose and they go on a four-game losing streak and their odds of
Making the playoffs begin to plummet
SR hasn't had as dominant a start here in stage two, but they've looked mighty good
They entered the day as the third-ranked team and for whatever reason 100 thieves seem to have their number yet again
Will this begin a losing streak for SR moving forward?
Only time will tell but it is abundantly clear that 100 thieves have their number
6-0 start here we go to the basements just to begin the half four Shopify rebellion Parker and this is the same defense setup
They ran against m80 with Rexon on the mirror stirrup on the kite
Canadian on the smoke they've got all the same operators to try to lock this down
Hundred thieves we've talked about it since this game began as the team who clearly did their homework who knew what to expect when going up
against a rebellion so I have to imagine they'll be ready for this hold coming
out from SR. It is a full anchor and almost an opening
Jeff and he's got to be really careful playing around with these Astro stairs
because sometimes the angles early map you were mapped can't be as familiar
with somebody does get away with his life and with the EMP it looks like
they'll open up the pantry hatch as well so really good start from Hundred
Thieves with this map control. Shopify rebellion again I like their
Uto beat inside the site, but we're always worried about this final execute.
Good tempo here by Hundred Thieves. They found their opening, the shield.
Start contrast to how it was employed by SR. Spirits with one, Gomez another.
Three remain for the rebellion with a minute to go. That's what they hang their hat on.
Hundred Thieves looking for a 7-0 knockout. Jesse, unprecedented that we see this. Not
I'm far cry from our first one.
Our first 7-0 of the season actually occurred with 100 thieves.
They were just on the wrong side of the 7-0.
Now their first opportunity to make sure that they win this one
without dropping around.
It comes down to what SR can muster,
serve with a desperation kill.
Rexon on the ground, Canadian 0 and 6.
He needs to ace clutch, but with his back turned to spirits.
Oh my goodness, his fellow countrymen
shuts him down, a dropping as 100 thieves demolish Shopify Rebellion 7-0.
What a bounce back. Week 1 might not have given them everything they wanted, Parker,
but 100 thieves, a massive statement to take down Shopify Rebellion.
They'll have to go back to the drawing board for Villa, because this map just doesn't seem like it's their forte.
I
Kill, kill, get the ashes!
Get the ashes!
They were on the receiving end of a 7-0, and now they deliver one to one of the best teams
in the league, which begs the question, are 100 thieves?
One of the best teams in the league.
We'll get to ask the man himself, Hot and Cold.
Welcome back in.
Congrats again on another win.
7-0 against SR.
And I've got to ask about the map pick
before we go any further.
We heard it from Jesse on the cast.
You guys banned this last week.
SR played it a lot.
Was there something you saw that you came in today
to exploit?
I mean, SR as a team, I feel like they're a team that
doesn't really change a lot going
into different matches.
And we've been working on our villa.
We didn't think it was ready for the last week,
but we worked on it this week.
And we were prepping for this villa for SR.
And obviously, it worked out.
Everything.
I mean, the defenses, we were just in flow state.
But attacks, like, we had our attacks ready
to go against them.
And our one round, I mean, it worked, I don't know.
But all I'm saying is, we got our fucking get back.
We got our get back.
No seven, you know, our round count
We're not looking at the cloud game cloud non-game no more Matt no or aka hot and sexy as you like to point out
Well, I said that by the way earlier. I said that he did say that you don't I want to know Matt
What have you done to spirits because this guy has been incredible ever since we I think game number two?
I mean, I haven't done anything. I yell at him all time. You know, I yell out
Well, gas him up.
What's he going to do?
I think just, I mean, he's always been such a hard worker.
I mean, you've worked with him, Kyle.
I think it's all just self-confidence, you know?
Like right now, he's feeling it,
and he's got confidence in himself.
He likes to say that we bully him all the time,
and sometimes in practice,
he plays the victim card too much,
but I don't know, whatever he's doing on game day,
eating his Wheaties or whatever,
I mean, it's working for him.
So, good, thank you, Zaga, my shield lord.
Well, obviously, Hancold, I wanna say congratulations.
I mean, that was a beautiful 7-0,
beautiful villa from you guys.
Kind of outside the scope of the game,
more talking about 100 Thieves,
we know throughout different league,
throughout different stages, different teams.
I'm kind of just the role that 100 Thieves
has been playing for you guys.
And what does that do for you guys as a team,
even throughout these series?
You're saying the org?
Yeah, the org.
I mean the orgs been great to us. Honestly no downsides to the org. You know I've been
on crappy orgs before and I've had a deal deal with you know problems coming from that.
I mean Kyle, Kyle knows, Kyle knows. But yeah, 100 Thieves. Honestly a great org. Shout
out to my man Corey, the GM for us. He's the goat. He gets us whatever we want. You
know we'll be going to LA again for the playoffs. If you know if we make playoffs
That's the plan. But yeah, I mean, they're great or I can't ask for much more to hear it.
Corey, talk to me a little bit more about the playoffs before we let you go.
I mean, you guys are looking good.
You're feeling good right now and clearly bounce back from that seven oh off the jump.
Do you guys feel like you're in a position where you want to be right now?
I mean, I would like to be in a better position, obviously.
But the goal is to just get top six.
It's looking kind of hard to do that because you know these teams like C9, SSG, starting off 3-0,
it makes it makes it a lot you know a lot more competitive I would say than last stage.
So it's it's going to be it's going to be a battle till the end.
I mean where does if we make playoffs I'm happy because I know that you know we first goal is
making playoffs. The second goal is not shitting bricks in the playoffs like last stage.
You know that's that's the most of the two goals mean but I mean yeah obviously but
You know I'm right now I'm just trying to get better and I think we're slowly on the right track
Yeah, the first the first game just not in my mind anymore
I was just I was just dead after you can sack it for a 7-0 today. You don't even got to think about it that way anymore
Like you said, yeah, even the playing defense is Matt. What about those very up and down? What's going on, man? No
I
Preach all week guys, let's stop moving like we just
And then the game just you know, you know running by
Those guys those guys are just incredible on the cuts like I don't know like they they need to stop
They need to stop taking like gaming rollies or whatever they're doing over there. It's just
Yeah, yeah
Thank you so much for your time big win for you guys. We'll get you they lit it on the road
Thank you guys. Have a good one.
Well, 100 Thieves, what a statement.
I mean, to take down Shopify Rebellion
and humiliate them in the process of 7-0.
That's the second one we've seen so far this day.
100 Thieves involved in both of them.
We heard it from Matt, a smart Villa pick,
and Kyle, it worked very well.
It did work very well.
And I mean, yes, Matt also said they would enter the flow state,
but I think it was also SR that kind of came into this game of sleep.
I still want to point out the fact that I think they came in
with a little bit too much of breath,
I think that kind of hurt them here their information gathering in this game
I think I mean obviously snake got banned and that's a very powerful offer
It's banned against SR Andy does so much work on that but just watching them just call
I was opening around and opening around like they just weren't kind of getting anything going it felt like
Even they're just their opening strategies were just not very I mean well played even though called in this game
Yeah, even in those myths away rounds. It kind of was more looking like a shot in the dark
We're going to try for this and it works if it doesn't.
Yeah, exactly.
Desperation.
I mean, there was that one basement round.
They get double C4 outside the door.
And then from there, they kind of no one's talking at that point.
They're just calling out where positions are.
No real strategy from that point on.
And like you said, yeah, definitely a little too much prep.
And hearing that time out from Super being able to just say,
we got to throw out the blueprint.
Clearly, what we were practicing is not being displayed here.
And that can be an issue in pro players.
When you over prep, you over study what you try to go for.
and then it ends up not being exactly what you think.
And that's the whole point of an attacking side
is you have to be able to adapt regardless
of what blueprint you have.
Well, in our earlier matchup, SSG,
we tasked them with proving that they deserve the spot at the top,
that they can get through their first big test.
We've got another team looking to do the exact same thing
right now.
Cloud9, take on DarkZero, a big match for an up-and-coming team.
Cloud9 is a team we've talked about.
I feel like the most out of anyone this stage,
because they've been surprising, pleasantly surprising.
They've shown us individual strength with Uzi at the top
and they've shown us organizational strength.
And when we spoke to Panba the other day after the victory,
we asked him, you know, what makes this team
so strong right now?
Kyle, his answer was simply, this is a team built on trust.
I mean, it is built on trust.
And I love that answer from Panba Zhu first off.
And he also said that when they get an opening idea,
They're not afraid to walk away from that opening idea and do something else. They're not scared
So I have a round that I want to show you guys real quick
Just follow me over to the Telestrator because this is my favorite part. I want to get off the couch
Let's get active and let's show you what is making cloud 9 so
Dominance I'm gonna show you exactly what I mean. This is gonna be them in their very last round versus five fears
This is gonna be the kitchen site and they're just going for a stock standard top clear
We're gonna see three players up top
They're going to open up the wall and we're just going to pressure top floor
They also have a cut player playing outside of the bore window and they're going to have a lurker on the other side of the map
He's going to be over here or bottom white stairs. So just a very default top clear
However, again, what did Pamba say? They're not afraid to change based off information and that's exactly what we're going to see
We're going to see a drone coming in from Uzi
He was going to spot the thorn playing up top and that's going to be combined information with that lion
Who's on the other side of the map?
He's going to hit the lion scan and that is going to give the information that mute is also top floor now
They know it's a top floor setup
So they're going to immediately drop everything up to doing and they're gonna call let's hit site
But that's gonna be with a fake so they're gonna ace open the wall and he's gonna throw a bunch of utility in their
Ram is gonna throw his ram drone to make noise. He's also going to flash top floor smoke
It's going to smoke out or it's going to shoot through the board window
This is all giving the illusion that they are going for that top floor execute
But now what are we going to see they're going to all drop off the top floor?
Pamba is going to walk through pantry lion got his way inside of mud
And we're also going to see a player entering into laundry and most importantly
There's going to be a backstab coming through clock and this is going to catch the five fears members off guard because where are they?
They're now falling for that fake. They're falling back to site. There's one player dropped over red
There's another player in site and there's another player that just dropped down the blue hatch and most importantly again
Look where the line is. He's already there waiting for them
This was a beautiful play by C9 which was enabled by the trust that
Tamba Zoo was talking about and they are also not afraid to play scared
And this is what I mean by playing scared. They're walking through the malusi
Banshee and he's going to get to kill on the players again falling back to site
So this is exactly what I want to see from the bottom line, right?
This is this is what we have been wanting to see from them their attacks
We finally get the we finally get a couple rounds showcase
Yeah, the showcase to see what they can do and it's honestly been very impressive
Yeah, and that's where the biggest contention point
It's always gonna be for a newer team is the trust factor the ability to be able to listen to a call
understand the call and trust one on that everyone is going to deliver in their
own position and that's exactly what we're seeing time and time again from
this cloud and roster even on their defenses respectfully so they will all
get together and focus a player and then fall back once that pick goes into
their favor I mean everyone is playing together and that's the exact
trust that this team needs in order to flourish. Well talk to me about their
opponents today dark zero because yeah we talk about the cloud nine attack
but dark zero attacking it's one of the most impressive things to
the winners in the league.
Yeah, when you look at the stats right now,
they aren't the prettiest, but that doesn't paint
the entire picture for this team as they hold
throughout many different stages,
throughout many different turners,
they have a strong attacking prowess
due to their IGL-ing from fulls and due to their players.
And we just even heard from what Hot Cold was talking about.
They played those cuts extremely well
and Jack specifically in this series
was playing those cuts perfectly,
forcing these players into unwinnable positions,
Cutting them up and not just being able to do that,
but something that Dizzy does really well,
and I did touch up on it a little bit
when you were breaking down that series,
is they make you feel like you're being constricted,
that you have to move.
And that's where they were always
catching 100 thieves off guard.
And then they were pulling the defense around
and then able to take control of the site
and then play their game.
And then even in round four, it was so good.
They put a lot of top floor pressure,
making it seem like they were gonna hit the top floor,
then players flood through Trophy,
players flood through West Main.
They still have players up top on big window,
coming through Canaan and then pinching the players on the top floor.
You really can't put a clamp on the DZ attack because you really can't
understand what their attack is going to end up.
Once it's all said and done, you really have to pay attention to your
rotates because that is where they punish you time and time again.
Well, we saw those clips showcase on Chalet for the most part.
Although both of these teams, they've given, well, they've shown us
that Villa is also a comfort pick for both of them.
Let's find out where we're going to end up today in this matchup.
Cloud9, DarkZero will be heading back to Chalet in the matchup where we're asking Cloud9 to prove themselves.
Lax, is this the place to do it?
I mean, similar to the SSG side, I think going to a map like Chalet is a bit of a gamble for Cloud9.
It's not a strong map for them by any means.
And on the other side for DarkZero, a very strong map.
currently 7-0 throughout the season.
And again, just how we watch them play their attacks
versus 100 Thieves just recently,
I mean, it's going to be even more important for Cloud9
starting on that defense, not to get overzealous,
not to feel pressured to play the game that they've been playing
because that is where they have thrived and excelled at
so far throughout their first three matches,
is their defense.
I agree with you, Lax, the only thing I would say
is I do think that DZ could have lost 100 Thieves,
a little copium for the Thieves there,
But regardless, we're going to see if cloud nine have what it takes the interior bands. As always, we're going to see that
Well, my most likely in a zombie here snake is great for taking the other or just space in general
Denying the information from dark zero, but at this end of the day, we might just see NJR go complete
Content creator mode and hop it on the thing cuz so I don't know if operators are really what you want to be
Banning against easy regardless. I gotta say I'm a little worried too because we heard in the comms jumping in this here
They will listen to titanium.
I mean, they're bulletproof.
And that's exactly how DZ has been so far.
DarkZero, they're always keeping the vibes high
when they get into these matchups.
But right now, Cloud9, a team that trusts each other
incredibly well, are looking to pass their biggest test yet.
I'm really excited for this one.
And, oh boy, we couldn't have asked for a better map.
Because could you imagine the statement?
Jesse if cloud nine topples dark zero on shall a of all places
Yeah, I mean that being insane matchup and the same result for cloud nine able to win shall a laxing set it
I'll repeat him seven and oh for dark zero, and you know sometimes you got to have an oh
You know what sometimes it is but sometimes it's like ah well, they beat, you know five years three times and they beat like
Oh, that's twice, but tell me Parker. I'm not super involved in Siege your other teams
Tell me if these are good teams at dark zero if they beat um, they face clan are they good
They're fun, okay. Okay. Okay. They beat wild card twice. Is that a good team a
Little bit better than face clan. Yeah, I'd say so chopfire ballion. Are they good GK? Is that a good team?
I would say those are probably two of the better teams. Yeah
So the point is Dark Zero beaten, frankly the best teams in the world on Chalet and
now they play Cloud9, a team who has only played this map once this season.
It was a 7-4 loss to Space Station on stage.
So we go to the snow covered caps.
Chalet here is C9 looks to hang on to the run that they have been on.
They started the day off as the best team in North America.
Of course, there will be some spoilers here, so cover your ears, lest you be upset.
There have been some, there's been some motion in the standings over the last couple games.
Space Station in particular had an opportunity to vault over Cloud9, it did not come to pass.
So C9 is looking to continue their hot run with their victories all being in regulation.
DarkZero finds themselves in the middle of the pack, which is a far cry from the potential we know they have.
He goes back to site but he leaves Monk alone up in Barbar.
Now Monk will join his teammates, that's going to be everybody back to the basements and the
The basement is a weird site. You don't see many teams still running the bottom floor
on Chalet. Most professional organizations can tell you that this site is just kind
of terrible. With the full top floor now, this is going to give them an opportunity
to open up this main wall successfully. A lot of teams will go for a mask or a wine
push I should say. We aren't seeing that straight from Dark Zero, but instead they
take this top floor control. They pay for it a little bit. Ham is with the opening
frying with a nitro up on a Kino swapping bags or of the top five highest rated
players currently in this match Uzi Monk and Pambazoo one two and three Jane I
know sits in fifth Eddie is in ninth place the fourth worst rated player on
cloud nine in ninth place that's crazy stuff Pambazoo and NJR come into blows
Pambazoo ends up dying after taking care of folks a good gamble by C9 and
They will continue to make DZ pay for this, J9L on the board.
A single kill is all he'll be able to accomplish as newer as the player, not the new operator.
Guns down the number one rated player in the league.
He's got a contend against Eddie and the shield of the clash.
Cedric playing this so well with limited time left.
There's no hope for newers whatsoever.
Can't even grab the diffuser in time. C9 whittling down that clock and they take round one.
I really like that from Cloud9. Again, I'd put them as the underdogs. They're going up against the former major champions
They're going up against a team who dominate on this map
But they go to an unorthodox site to start things off and they really kind of forced easy into their trap
One thing that laxing said before this game is that Dark Zero are really good at playing cut
They're really good at applying this pressure and forcing you to move
The only real Rome presence they have in the Cloud9 though was deported by this clash
So in the early rounds Dark Zero didn't get to do what they do best
They didn't get to apply pressure on roamers forced them to move around the map hold these cutoffs and get themselves into a man advantage
That meant what they started looking at the site
It was 5v5 and Pambazoo took full advantage of that situation getting an opening to kill that two-piece with the
Nitro style down below and the push up those snow stairs
Pamba playing really really well there
But that's got to be the game plan for cloud nine on shall a do not let dark zero do what they want to do play cuts
road clear you get the early man advantage force them to execute late so
far that strategy working well for cloud nine
this team is just flourished under the leadership of Pambazu I know that there
was some curiosity maybe some criticism or early critique of Pambazu
taking over this team is he'd never really led a squad before I mean he
played on that infamous DZ roster winning the Charlotte Major many, many years ago.
It was a career high for Pambazoo and he was terrific in the process.
But I mean he's been one of the supporting cast members of teams with bigger leaders before him
and now he finds himself leading this C9 squad and doing a magnificent job.
Of course it's not just him but the value that's been had from some of these players.
and Oozzy and Monk, oh my.
They've been terrific.
They had a good read on Foltz out by Librarian.
They just used two nitro cells to take care of him,
one of which Foltz shot out of the air,
the other getting it a bit too early.
Third nitro cell now in hand for Eddie.
How many of these explosives are they gonna use in vain?
Foltz's explosive proof, it would seem,
as he survived that onslaught in left cloud nine
with no C4s remaining.
We've seen so much good pulse play today, Parker,
and we're seeing it once again
center guiding all of those C4s. It would have been a kill on default had he not had that great flick
to take down the C4. Seconds away from taking out the DZ captain, but instead fast reaction time
keeps him alive. The opening still goes the way of C9 though. J9O, the opening player at a fall.
He was phenomenal on Chalet holding the cuts that Des complemented him before the game began,
but an early death now to Monk, one of the newest players in North America League and a
very good one at that. And the mayor outside of the window, Anash, an operator who's seen
some niche but steady play. She does have a current presence in the meta, explosives,
both long range and closer range, a pretty decent gun. That R4C is one that is old reliable
for so many. Monk continuing C9's reign of terror now with one minute to go. As
down goes Newer's last member standing of DZ in the previous round will not have
much of an impact this point forward. All of those calls also dropped by the
Doka base. Kino eliminates Monk. There's another player there. Does he know it?
A mate will go out and he manages to get Uzi who's looking elsewhere. What are the
cons like Jesse for Cloud9? To not know where Kino stands. Might be a little bit
flustered at the moment Parker with 35 seconds and a man advantage. Cloud9 is
still very much favored to win this round. They're all in this site.
Pambas down below inside a basement might want to go for a flank kitchen
He's gonna be really late to this push. It's 2v2 on site for now
Razor bloom goes off but that'll give information and a debuff now applied to Foltz
So limp his way along for the final 15 seconds
C9 hugging these corners Pambazu in particular who catch them off guard down goes center
Foltz wins the engagement DZ winning all their fights and now Eddie will need to clutch
He's taking care of keynote Foltz on limited time
The G-Buff is off, but there's no way for the world champion to make the clock stretch any longer.
Another round for Cloud9.
A tough one to win. Only a great team like DarkZero could bring it as close as they did.
But ultimately, I think the man advantage that they got so early in the round from Monks Heroics
was enough to propel them into the victory position, Parker.
It was a 5v3 almost at one point.
It was certainly a 4v2 for a good chunk of that round for a split moment.
They had his position, uh, you know, tagged down eventually,
but alternately, Monk just did so much good work to get those opening couple of frags.
The information from the Pulse of Center I think was so important to help Monk get those kills,
to help the team play aggressively around him, and it just made DarkZero instantly on the
backfoot. They had still yet to really be able to get these kills outside the building,
hold their cuts cloud nine playing their game and playing it well so far
the tech pause here not a timeout so team should not be able to discuss much
I don't know if you have any intel as to why this tech pause has been called but
I am I'm in the dark when we get information we will let you know
I think it was supposed to be a timeout, but it was not quite called in time.
It's my understanding.
There's a delay.
There can be a delay here.
Alright, that is confirmed by our wonderful Observer Easy, who has told me that this was supposed to be a tax timeout from DarkZero.
Sorry, he's just corrected me. He is the in-game director, not an observer.
My apologies.
It's important we get that right here on the North America League broadcast, but Dark Zero wanted to call attack time out
I think they did but we didn't quite catch it in time. So we're gonna re-host
Take a quick tech pause so that Dark Zero can then take a tactical pause instead
Make a lot of sense
Like the aesthetic that we see from these players, you know, Jesse if you're ever looking for
If you ever want to design the wall behind your camera, you should take some notes from Fultz's design
You know I wouldn't I just I feel like I wouldn't want you to just kind of throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what
Sticks, I think you have a golden opportunity
You know when you do eventually decide to decorate the wall behind you
I think there's some there's some good inspiration you could draw from these players here in this lobby
You can just say you're jealous of my space station gaming skateboard
You can say that that's the cases and it's like we all know that's what you're thinking
You know, I also have to hide it. It's not up on your wall. Is it?
I was more so making fun of everything else that's going on behind you.
It's a masterpiece.
It's a mosaic.
Some would call this.
There's a lot of jokes that could be made that I choose not to make on an official broadcast,
but were we at co-streaming and the stakes lower and sponsors not involved?
Mostly ways to insult you, I would say.
I haven't seen you go live in a co-stream in many moons. All right, don't act like this is a possibility. I
Think the last time I co-streamed was with you
It's been a minute then it's been a minute. I think it was when I think it's when we co-streamed
Reload
Here. Yeah
That was a year and a half ago now
It's quite a while. I don't typically co-stream
For those that are wondering how today has gone. We are in our fourth of fifth matches
No matter the outcome here, we have one more game to be played today, and it's against
two of the basement dwelling teams at the moment.
One of them more of a surprise than the other.
First and foremost, Outlast secured their very first win in North American League history
up against Five Fears on the very first playday.
That new look of the Outlast roster has had some ebbs, it has had some flows.
Unfortunately, their last two games have not been the result. They've wanted both regulation losses. They go up against M80.
Yes, that's right. M80 finds themselves in ninth place.
M80 tied without last for the second worst round differential of any team right now.
After the bounce back, picking up Savage, dropping Hot and Cold, and the way that that team achieved such heights back in Stage 1,
one. It is a shock to see M80 down in ninth place through three play days. That is really
quite a stunner. I think most people expect M80 to not stay down there, but we are a third
of the way through the regular stage at this point. You are running out of time to start
to put up those points. And with the dominance that we've seen from both cloud nine and
space station, there's a lot of work to be done. The top six has suffered through
some serious upheaval. And of course, cloud nine undefeated best round differential
by a country mile, and they are so far undefeated here
on Chalet, timeout now been called dark zero calling it
after a disappointing start.
Yeah, we finally have DZ's opportunity
to talk to their head coach,
call out to get the team back on track,
often talked about as the single best coach
in North America, call out has often been hyped up.
He is a major champion with this team,
not that long ago, so they clearly know
what it takes to battle back
from tougher situations than this,
But you have to give credit to cloud nine.
I think a lot of people looked at that first week and they said, yeah, okay.
Cloud nine went three and oh, but they beat hundred thieves who didn't look
very good on playday one to be outlasts who haven't looked great all season.
They beat five fears who've been really quite bad since the stage began.
But now you're going up against the major champs.
You're going against probably the best team in North America.
And you start off to O strong.
It's clear this cloud 19 is more than just a squad that can beat up
on the bottom feeders.
They can hang with the best teams in the region and now Dark Zero while it's going to be their
task in this next four rounds to try to tilt the narrative a little bit back in their favor.
Shelly has always been a pretty attacker side of maps, so if you don't start getting some
rounds on the board soon, Parker, I do worry about their chances in this game.
GZ has looked very mortal so far in their run here in Stage 2.
They started off the Super Week last week with a loss against Wildcard.
They eked out a victory over that 9th place team of M87-5 and then had the same scoreline
against 100 thieves who up until their match against SR just about 30 minutes ago did not
look like a top team either.
So DZ struggling with some matches that probably should be more tilted in their favor.
But again, we're a third of the way through.
There is still time to figure this out.
Darksera will play up against Shopify Rebellion tomorrow.
This Cloud9 team has the final match of the day.
Late games today and tomorrow for Cloud9,
they play up against four fun who themselves
have shown some struggles through the start of stage two.
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves,
Chalet needs to be concluded.
And while Cloud9 has the advantage,
there is still plenty to play.
You know, Uzi is looking to get active here in this game.
was MVP in all three victories that Cloud9 had last week. He is by far the best player
here in the North America League, at least from a statistical standpoint. So two and two
through this first two rounds. He will be looking to get a little bit more, but it's
Monk that might be the first one to engage, playing just inside of libraries. Got a lot
of pressure going on against him here outside the windows, but the Selmas have been
used. They've got some drones so that they can work in on him, but I would
be a little bit worried about the information from Dark Zero.
They have to be able to close guy cleanly. They've already done most of the damage.
Library being the main focus point. There you go. Flush out Monk Fultz with an easy cut.
And he gets him. And we'll wait for a second. There he would go to all chat to type, but I
mean right now DZ should keep their words to themselves as it's C9 still in control.
J9 will add to the DZ tally before being traded out by Uzi.
Yeah, now you start to ask yourself, what is this push going to look like for Dark Zero?
Because they don't have it if you use it.
I'm not sure if Jane I know did drop it down below in kitchen.
That would be quite a journey to go get it.
If so, there is still a rumor here on the south side of the map, and that's going to be
center who might not be long for this world.
They are hunting him down Parker and they've got a good position with flashes and smokes.
center with the drop he was trying to style on him but Fultz reads him like a
book. Uzi on the board the only one with a pulse right now on cloud nine Eddie
will need to step up and do something as he finds himself empty-handed through
these rounds. Uzi gunned down by Kino and Darcy are surely have their first
round here. A missed opportunity for him Kino. NJR rather on the window
once again those player cams. The Kali with four bullets remaining before a
reload. Eddie with six. Very limited munitions. Eddie can easily win this. Out comes the revolver.
This isn't the gun you really want in your hand at this range. No way! Eddie breaks the
backs of Dark Zero and JR's reaction says it all and it's three in a row for Cloud
Nine. Oh, it's like Saturday morning cartoons watching Ed Ed and Eddie. That's a 1v3 clutch
coming out for cloud nine. What a performance and Parker it all comes down to what I mentioned
halfway through the diffuse kit. They had to take those 1v1 fights with Eddie because
they could not plant and I went back through the VOD. I took a look at what happened to
it when false went into games. He actually dropped it outside the building for his
team. Nobody ever picked up that diffuser that really limited the options that
Dark Zero had in that late round and just based on their player positions
obviously NJR and Faults were quite separate in the 1v2 it might have been
difficult to get a plant down anyways but the fact that they didn't have it right
before that kill Faults dropped it outside it really limited their choices and it
set Eddie up to be able to take three separate 1v1s he played so well with the
TCSG didn't trust himself to hit it with those last two bullets so he pulls
up the revolver and it's been a while since we've seen a revolver kill Parker
I'm not sure that I even remember one of them, but Eddie will gladly take it there in the 1v3
If there ever were a time just seize on the momentum that a team would have after you call your time out that long-waiting process to get us
back in then the time out then of course
Watching DZ pick apart cloud nine and have any of all people step up
And I say all people because he has not been called upon through those first two rounds in large part because of the role that he plays
But I mean he's also just he's not the main standout on this team again
It's easy monk and Pambazir as one two three in the entire league
But Eddie can frag when called upon it's just so seldom that it happens and boy oh boy
It's a combination of Eddie playing that correctly, but also
Dark zero letting him take these isolated fights. Nobody swinging in on the window
I believe that was NJR being fast enough to get there to deal with Eddie getting aggressive on that double-dorby piano
So just a bit of sluggishness by Darkseer and it ultimately costs them. Yeah
I mean Eddie fourth highest rate of player on this team, but also
21 and 13 for the first week. Don't play it incredibly well
Much better than most players that can say in the league now we go back towards this fourth site
We're actually gonna go kitchen. This could be a full world tour from cloud nine
as they play all four bomb sites and are now 3-0 up,
which is presenting new challenges to Dark Zero.
And despite the good tools being brought, the Blackbeard,
the Grim, even the thinker from NJR,
it's going to be challenging to take this top floor control
and then convert to an execute.
Ready to knock up.
First toxic babes already been used by Uzi,
likely to slow down the advance of these players on DZ
with a shield in hand and a thinker on the board.
A quick bit of action can occur at any point in time, and I have to imagine Dark Zero will want a quicker than usual execute because of it.
They've managed to pick apart some of that office hold upstairs.
But Uzi in a precarious position now where he might chase Kino and get shut down by Folt. That seems to be the case.
He has to go out, but the smoke is in a whirl to herd, and Uzi just has nothing going for him there.
Pambazoo dies as well. Finkaboost goes out, Monk, the only one on the board for C9.
Dark Zero just as they did in the previous round. Very good in the opening moments, but it's everything after that. They need to worry about
Center last month standing on C9. Dark Zero let the numbers advantage slip through their fingers back in round three
Jesse, what do you think the odds are that history repeats itself?
They have defused kit and there's a little bit more time on the side of Dark Zero now Center's in the bomb site
He's got the same weapon the TCSG
But I definitely think this one looks more winnable for Dark Zero than the previous round
They just got a good drone on center too, so we'll know where he's at
Center turns and he's shredded by that f2 could be 2-2 for DZ, but that one round may come back to haunt them
They'll settle for one round C9 still in good control
But it definitely appears like DZ has learned from that time out and are making steady improvements
Particularly to crack the beginning moments of this round open
It was a quad kill from J9O Parker, a massive performance here with the F2 after this opening pick from Kino.
It was all Jack playing, I think, entirely outside the building.
I don't believe he ever entered the actual map, but, okay, for piano he did briefly, but most of the time he was outside having a good time finding these frags on players outside the building,
holding the cuts just like what Loxing showed in the Telestration right before we opened up into this game.
So nice to see some of that coming back through again
Jane I know only played two games last week because of internet issues
He was not able to play the opening match despite that
He entered this game as the highest fragging player on dark zero dropping 26 kills in just two games
It's consistently been one of the highest rated players in his region Jane
I know has stepped up huge ever since this team was acquired and assembled after
earlier this year I remember seeing the lineup and at the time one of the main
complaints was who's gonna entry you've got a lot of mailbox and passive players
who's gonna be the person to get in the building as fearless as ever and really
it's been mirrors in J9o kind of tag-teaming that role and they've
been doing a mighty fine job J9o went from being a relatively rock-steady
support and peripheral player to being the lead point of a spear that has
proven itself to be mighty sharp and of course they've won the Salt Lake City
Major just a couple months after being acquired by Dark Zero and J9O was a
massive part of that so he is continuing to improve and right now he's the only
player that's been able to stand up to this Cloud9 offense that itself has
made steady improvements so far through stage two. So after banning the clash
Dark Zero feel comfortable enough to bring out this shield for the bottom
for attack but the main wall has proven to be a bit of a doozy. They can't really find a way to get it
opened up. They've got of course the Kaede and Tubera which makes it very strong to hold this wall
closed just like they did back in round number one. These roamers are now rotating mostly back
to site as well. You still got Monk up there and Pampa is out of the building. That'll be a free
D going the way of Dark Zero even if it takes them a while to collect it. But Parker this
It's just wasted more time off the clock.
It's going to continue to delay this bush.
And he's actually worried about another player using this as bait.
It will be free, but then, Mitt, 30 still on the clock,
and they have really not been able to attack this bomb site much.
Down goes Foltz, center traded out.
Pambazoo had died earlier as well.
NJR on board of time.
Lots of damage is being done, but Kino's found himself
in the middle of the bomb site.
Unable to hit much though, I mean,
with a pistol against a weapon, a little bit better
and a pistol that's gonna be a tough one to go.
J9 knows found an opening though,
but these might end up being largely impactless kills
as the final two players from C9 are called to action.
These, these two forces are on opposite sides of the map.
Newers almost gets both of them,
but they'll settle for Monk Eddie on the run.
Isolated and Newers will finally get him too.
DZ coming out of nowhere, stealing these rounds.
That's the type of experience you cannot teach.
The gap between these two teams is reduced to just a single round and that round is the last in this first half
That's a dark zero special, isn't it? You can never count this team out of a round
It doesn't matter how bad things look they never actually ended up getting the snowmobile wall
Back in around one when they attacked in the basement faults brought the Thatcher
Which is the perfect counter to this kaid 2-barrel combo
But he switched things up and brought the striker this time around that meant the wall was really
impossible to open up and then they decided it wasn't gonna be worth it.
Dino works his way down snow, somehow actually gets into a plant position but
then gets shot out. A really chaotic round from start to finish but in the 2v3
J9o and Neuers let those guns sing and they find a couple of players who just
aren't able to find safe spots in the bomb sites. They're not cleaner outwinds
Parker, they're not as easy as they sometimes seem to come for Dark Zero but
One way or another, they will make sure this game remains close.
On the first half, coming up, we have seen different maps for every single bit of action so far.
I think watching Shal-A was nice to see Villa.
I'd be quite partial to a layer or a border as our final map of the day,
but we will have to wait on that one.
Who knows where we will go?
What we do know is that M80 and Outlast will be the final bout of the day and the question
that will be asked in that one.
M80 sitting in ninth place at this current point in time.
Is that just an aberration?
Will they bounce back to the form that we know that they've been able to achieve before
and can potentially still achieve?
And for this Outlast roster, with their three new players, all of whom are veterans
but are new to this team, two of them new to the region, will they continue
to make steady improvements because they won their very first match back and played a number one.
But we're not successful in their next two.
That'll be an exciting final game of the day.
And of course, we'll be back in action tomorrow with our final match up in the NAO of the week.
Lots of pressure on Monk right now, Parker.
It's him who's playing the mezzanine position.
They've also got Uzi here and around this position as well.
It's just the top of these blue stairs.
There's nobody directly in the corner.
Of course, with the Wimai Band, it's difficult to play that position.
and actually that's Selma, that just destroyed the ADS the monk was playing behind.
So really good U2 work coming through from Dark Zero,
that's gonna make things a little bit easier now as they want to push through.
There are still ADS's inside the library, good show from our observing team,
but now that you've started to open up some of these walls,
you at the very least have denied that position
and Dark Zero can start to do what they love to do so well.
That's play these cuts, force the enemy to start moving
and catch them as they try to rotate.
It's the first casualty to Eddie.
Eddie continuing his hot play by the way.
You mentioned it.
Fourth highest rated player on this team but I mean when the top three are one, two and
three I mean that's not a bad thing right?
It damages to be outdulled.
Kino dies in the hands of Pambazousa.
C9 will continue with their advantage.
Taking care of Kino on that shield is huge but J9O ever the threat, ever present
up top.
Another player over on library stairs as proximity explosives from Neuers, those concussions will show that nobody is there so they've scampered off of this position.
3v3 with 40 seconds to go is about as fair a duel as you're going to see.
Yeah, certainly just feel either way Parker it's gonna really rely on how well these work together.
There's still this threat of Pambazoo lurking up on the top floor.
It looks like they might be willing to commit a couple bodies.
They hunt him down and get themselves a man advantage 20 seconds to push.
A bit of a disappointing game for Pambazoo in comparison what we've seen from him, but good news
They've got backup. Uzi's been great. Eddie's been great. Uzi's still in this position, but the F2 is there.
NJR and J9O make it work and we've got ourselves a tie game.
And we've got ourselves a heck of a matchup on Villa here. Cloud9 and DarkZero neck-and-neck right now.
And on the front half of this, I guess, first half here,
We're seeing things from cloud 9 and we haven't really seen so far this stage. We're seeing someone like Eddie step up
Yeah, I think that's a big factor for me because if you remember in the last stage
I was actually giving a lot of flak towards Eddie saying that they need to make a page with him and the fact of the matter is
He's been he's been paying off here for this cloud. I think it was specifically in this match
I mean this was a great 1v2 and round 2 and then they extend that even further into round 3
It was a great 3k that inevitably falls into yet again another 1v2 clutch big heads-up play from them to be able to close out this round
But again their defense they were really good. You said it throughout breaking all of this down
They aren't scared to get aggressive
They aren't scared to make plays and I think that's something that's so important outside of the trust because when you got rookie players
Like month like Lucy like center you go against the likes the heavy hitters of easy sometimes you cow or sometimes you get scared
But these guys are not scared by enemies. They will take these engages. They will take these fights
They will play for these trades and yes, they did get a little scrappy
They did go for these clutches and didn't them really close them out
But the fact of the matter is it had to get to that point because C9 is constantly fighting back
Now it feels like we're also seeing this odd
pattern emerge where the last two rounds cloud nine held the advantage and dark zero were able to claw it back
It feels to me like we're seeing the imbalance of experience thing
Yeah, it almost reminds me of the last game Dark Zero just played on Chalabers the thieves except what's the difference cloud nine won a couple more defenses
But again, I'm not even sure how easy is winning these attacking rounds
They just kind of walk in the last second and just win the gunfight because they are just so much better
But I wanted to give the praises for cloud nine because I feel like they're almost like a mini wildcard
They give so many problems to DZ. They're throwing a ton of C4s at them. They're adapting
We're powering them there. You had the lots of traps and they're making DZ have to work for it
But there was a couple mistakes there that I'm sure they would have loved to have back
I do want to highlight for a second during the time out during the time out
Called out said hey bring the shields nothing's working get off content creator mode bring the shields
They ignored him the very next round they lost that round
But then they brought the shields the next three rounds and what happened DZ 1 3 straight
So it's beautiful to see love that for dark zero
But we want to see cloud nine on attack right that is where we want to see if we'd other defense
They're good and three is great on cellay, but we want to see can they attack against the greats
Yeah, absolutely and already see them removing the issues you can tell they're already targeting center and they want to make him always
We know that center can play that he said he's been able to take a seat back because the other players have been performing
And it looks like DZ want to keep him on that seat and remove him from being able to play that blitz
Monty's still going to be available, so still going to be possible to make some headway.
Monty's going to be available, but most importantly, I think one of his favorite operators, he's already hopping on Blackbeard,
but Glaz is also available. We've seen C9 ban the Glaz away from Kino,
and I feel like Center is kind of in the second best Glaz right now in North America,
so we might see him hop on it at some point.
Well you guys mentioned it right, the majority of the rounds we've seen Cloud9 play have been on defense.
We've seen some attacks, but can they attack against DarkZero on Chalet? Let's find out.
Well, thank you very much. It was this exact playday all the way back in Stage 1. A couple
months ago, where Cloud9 found themselves in the basement of the NAL. And despite what
would end up being a better second half of that stage, they still weren't able to make
any real progress towards the playoffs. Here today, right now, it's Cloud9 in the driver's
first in the region guided by incredible performances from their gunners and the
steady hand of Pandazoo of all people because a couple months ago we probably
wouldn't be saying that the way we are right now. Cloud9 has been quite a pleasant surprise,
a big organization backed up by big results but they have their hands full
against the defending major champions of Dark Zero who very easily could be up
4-2, were it not for Eddie's improbable clutch. 3-3, the first half as we now
stare down the second half and see if we can get out of here without overtime being needed.
Dark zero of course, moving on to the defense, they'll have the momentum in this second half,
Parker winning the last three rounds of the first half, making sure that they can have that bit
of an advantage going into the second half, but things do tend to switch up when we switch sides
and when we go to this top floor in particular,
Dark Zero had a couple of missteps you could say.
In the last game versus under thieves last week,
they actually lost both of their defenses here on this top floor site.
Backfalls on the clash will be a new strat coming out from them.
They haven't really played this in quite a long time,
not since they played GKT Sports World Cup,
so they've changed things up a little bit to try to catch Cloud9 off guard
and maybe give themselves a bit better fortunes here on this top floor site.
Center's brother surf played in just the most once a match before this one is a rough day for him and
SR and unfortunately it is running in the family at the moment with center having probably a less
than ideal start to this map I will say that based on the role and what he plays on the team it's
pretty normal for him to be towards the bottom he plays a tough role just as surf has for many
many times. Centres had opportunities here against Dark Zero though and they have slipped
through his fingers. But again, the same can be said for some of these DZ players. As for
Cloud9, they've been led by their fragging power. And again, Eddie having a great run
through two separate rounds to keep Cloud9 very much in this. Jesse, one minute left.
This round has flown by. Yeah, we've just been staring at Solar for two minutes now,
Parker. They need to find some way into the building. Eddie will go down outside
one of those windows eats a C4 for Kino, but with nobody able to walk in, things have gotten really
difficult for them. I think they saw faults in the clash and kind of just didn't know what to do
about it. They've been staring at them, they even hit them with an air jab or two, but they aren't
able to find this kill, so now they're worried about it. Now they're worried about the clock,
35 seconds. They have to completely shift this push.
Down go Sender, GZ boxing them out at this point in time. Cloud9's Lethargy's coming back
to bite them they've not been able to do much at all. Pambazu with one kill but it might just be in vain.
He's got it easy stacked up on Solarium as you pointed out so much of the focus has been on this
part of the map but it's all been for naught. Pambazu last standing and J9O will hit him as
somebody in DZ hit him in the chat at the same time adding insult to injury. Four consecutive
rounds for dark zero they are starting to make an impressive run look even better
I've taken the lead. I was NJR typing nice lurk to his former teammate
Pambazoo there who is left alone in the 1v4 couldn't find a whole lot of value and again
And that was just kind of a bad push from cloud 9 if I can say it
They just wanted to take solar they had most of their focus on the direct take but I had nobody that could actually go down below
below. That's usually the key ingredient. If you're going to take solar, if you're going
to not really care about piano and worry about that side of the map, that's fine. But you
usually have to have some kind of vert pressure because they had no Zofia, no Deimos, no Buck.
It allowed Faults just to exist on that clash. And despite the Nomad being brought, despite
the Capitao being brought, Faults was never properly cleared out on the clash. Because
the solar push was just a disaster waiting to happen. I appreciate them trying to
pivot at the tail end of that, but they just did not have time for it. So well
played by Darkseer to lock that one down. Cloud9, maybe some old demons coming back,
because this has historically been a very poor map for them.
I mean, we raised our eyebrows when we saw DarkZero on Chalet. Why would Cloud9 take DarkZero to a
map that they look almost indomitable on? But I mean, a statement it would have been
that Cloud9 not only taking down the defending major champions, but doing so on their home turf.
It seems maybe they got a little bit too ahead of themselves here.
Maybe a bit too much ambition, not enough reality on the side of Cloud9.
Again, that one round, if we go back, and this might be the last time I say it, I don't
know, it just depends if it serves my argument.
It could very easily be a 5-2 scoreline if DZ hadn't completely bottled that third
round.
Newer is taking down Pambazoo and immediately, Pambazoo's longest tenured teammate of
NJR hitting him with an LMAO in chat.
This is a bit personal, and DZ likes to talk their ish and get into the skin of their opponents.
I do wonder if it's starting to get to Cloud9.
It's an absolutely massive target, I think, being painted on the back of Pambazoo, choking a little bit in this game against his former team.
A team that he really built his career on.
The only other team that he's played for, in fact, at a tier one level, retired and then came back from this Cloud9 war,
A point that is the IGL, the captain, they rebuild with a lot of young players, like
Boosie, like Monk, like Center.
But now it just feels like the lack of experience is coming back to bite them. Dark Zero in a dominating position here.
Early on the defense, winning the last round and getting the man advantage.
Taking down the snake early on this one.
And honestly, Parker, this looks just like the last rounds. I mean, there's not a whole lot of map control being gained.
most of just sitting outside the building hoping to use the capitol to work themselves into an advantage, and it hasn't come yet.
The stallout for Cloud9 was very real in the previous round and at this point in time, just a little over a minute to go seems to be
within reach yet again.
Smoke off, library, Eddie on the first point of this assault takes down Kino and they've managed to capture library and this top part of
chimney very quickly.
They're hoping for somebody on DZ to emerge maybe on Lobby side maybe over towards the office
But nobody giving them a single thing, you know the only casualty for dark zero now monks on the board down goes chain
I know almost ten kills for Jack. He's been leading the way on this team and in the server
Golden opportunity now for center to show his work to use kit in hand
Newers taking care of monk centers coverage good enough
Damage is being done to Eddie and the center, but Eddie is still firing back a great day for Eddie
As Newer's and NJR will need to save this round or else Cloud9 will tie it up
They're backs against the wall as the timer continues to run
Newer's knows that he's got one over towards library, but it's Eddie yet again
And it's time for Pambazoo to get his revenge inside of all chat
NJR
unable to do anything, is that a 4K from Eddy?
A terrific round and C9 equalizes.
It was over four years that Pambazoo and NJR were teammates.
That time DarkZero had incredibly high highs, incredibly low lows,
and, I mean, through all of it, they clearly developed a bond
that is now being showcased in the server.
I love the text chat.
I love the push from Cloud9 in general, Parker.
I was worried about them stalling out outside the building, but they actually did have a good bit of pressure coming in from the other side.
They had players jumping in piano, jumping in through mezz window, finding ways to kind of pinch onto the top floor.
And DarkZero, they tactically retreated away from the top floor. They were trying to play with their nitroselves down below.
They already had a man advantage, so they knew they didn't have to fight for top floor too hard.
But once they gave up that space, they did a really good job of taking advantage of it.
Eddie in particular, of course, with the Quad massive round coming through from him just
playing inside of library. It felt like everything was working as it needed to.
And even the plant spot coming through from the center, the one spot that is
strong that he's unlikely going to be able to span out because it's on an elevated position,
that was really well read by Cloud9 and they put together a tying round behind it.
I think what we can learn so far is in our lose here, Cloud9 have been able to stand up
against DZ, they've been able to stand up against tough opponents to get to this point and of course
Garg Sero is among the toughest that you will find in the North America League.
Ultimately the Esports World Cup didn't go the way that DZ wanted. You can still cry in your
Salt Lake City Major trophy. I mean that's at least something good to say for the squad. And of
course it's been noted by the DASK. It's been noted by other regions. You've heard it on
on other broadcasts. NA looks to be the most competitive region right now inside of Siege.
There are a lot of really good teams at the present point in time and it's hard to say
who's going to have the best day. DC having a pretty good day, Cloud9 having a pretty good
day. It's a wash up to this point and overtime looking steadily more likely.
Down to kitchen for our third bomb site again despite Cloud9's favor of it. We don't
I don't expect Dark Zero to play in the basement. I like the Cali coming out again. The counterout, this Kaid being played by faults.
You will commit both electric claws, it looks like. Try keeping this wall shut. Just trying to juggle this one at the very least.
So far, he's done a good job of keeping it closed, but without Tuberow, you'd expect it to be opened at some point sooner rather than later.
Back she kind of pulled off the office wall though, Center's going to move his way over towards Solar to deal with some other utility, and Cloud9 will play the window game once again.
Halfway point of the round now and not a lot of action happening. C9 have not been the fastest team on any of their attacks up to this point.
I still found success even though they've been a bit sluggish here now.
You mentioned that they got bogged down with Solaria and previously they managed to take
this portion of the map quite quickly on this particular round.
It's not the same bomb site.
Pampasio alluded to things off, not getting a lot of kills, but the ones that he gets
happen to help quite a bit and he'll find another for his trouble as Eddie is on the
board yet again.
Eddie now jumping over everybody, leaping into the lead with 10 kills.
Raise your hand if you thought Eddie would be having his life game here against Dark Zero.
Stenger's had a lot to say from a gun perspective, but for the second round in a row, he will get the defuse kit down and it will throw.
DZ's remaining two players into a tailspin.
Jane I know and Newers can make the magic happen, but 2v5, time running against them.
It'll be a tough hill to climb.
Newers being held down, pinned down in his position.
I know debuffed as well. Newers finding one. He knows there's one out on repel miles away from the diffuse get being watched by the man
Who put it down in the first place?
Center the final kill and it's C9's lead to lose
It's great gaps plotting from cloud nine Parker
They spent a lot a lot of that round almost two full minutes outside the building assessing their options monk was in man
It was in mezz but broadly they just didn't have a lot of good ways to get in but at second
At one point, they find it, right?
Pamba walks into the office balcony.
He gets two massive kills.
At the same time, Eddie swings in solar,
pushes down the stairs.
They're pressuring both the top floor
and the bottom floor at the same time.
So, DZ, after two minutes of non-action,
they don't know where to look.
All of a sudden, everybody is trying to take gunfight,
and none of them go the way of Dark Zero.
You gotta give credit to the shot calling on Cloud9.
Pamba's clearly spotting that gap,
calling for the 3-2-1.
They push in together, and they find that moment
to break open Dark Zero like an egg.
Now they take the lead back under their control.
They lost it at the half time swap marker,
but they have gained it back now five, four, two rounds away.
Not only their fourth win in the league,
but a victory over Dark Zero.
That would be a statement.
It's been an incredible run from Cloud9,
but I mean, again, yes we set about 100 thieves.
And as we set about Space Station,
and we've set about other teams,
both in stage 2 and stage 1, I do think Strength of Schedule is something that needs to be noted on here.
C9's victories started off with a 7-0 pummeling of 100 thieves on plating number 1,
but then, any historic bottom teams of Outlast and Five Fears were next up.
In Client, I didn't really break much of a sweat there either.
In fact, C9 has yet to drop more than five rounds before this game began.
Dark Zero has almost matched that same tally in a single day, that C9 amassed over three days.
So, maybe C9 is excelling because of weaker opposition, but you're absolutely correct.
Beating 100 thieves, 7-0, and if they do end up beating Dark Zero without going to overtime,
those are terrific results that can't be taken away from them. And they've had a fantastic start
here in round number 10. Two kills, uncontested as Kino and Nures are buried very early in the round.
Another one for Pambai lines up. He just barely misses that shot through the hatch
But you're still gonna be happy with how this early round has gone dark zero after letting cloud nine set up in the previous round decided
They had to do something aggressive early in around 10 that has been a hard punish with newers going down in the basements and
You know going down on the cases window and JR falls to Uzi as well
They've expected this aggression on the side of cloud nine. They've read it perfectly and they are just waiting for their pics
They could not have been playing this round better.
Full control, no damage done whatsoever. Just C9 as they still have utility,
they've got their weapons at hand, secondary gadgets.
An embarrassment of riches now for Cloud9 is the halfway point of this fateful round has been reached.
J9O, EZ's first killer. Down goes Monk.
That's the snake down. A J9O will be buried shortly thereafter by Pambazoo.
It's all up to Foltz now to clutch a 1v4 c9 looking for this knockout punch to move to match point
Foltz still has two gas canisters in pocket
Eddie with diffuse kit and his center again
The exit kill in the previous round and this time to cloud nine on match point
It's such a good game plan. It's such a good execution. They're all playing in sync with each other
That's such an important aspect of this cloud nine game
You know for how new of a roster they are this team really thrown together at the start of the season their coordination looks impeccable
Everybody seems to be aware of what parts of the map they need to be focused on if there's an aggressive swing
Somebody has got it covered might not necessarily be you know this person or that person
But every single position that could be swung out from dark zero
It feels like it's being predicted by cloud nine because of it whether DZ play fast like they did not round whether DZ play slow
like they didn't round 9. Cloud9 are getting the better of them time after time and now
two opportunities to close this out on a map where DarkZero have not lost all season.
bad map for FaZe Clan at this point in time.
Defender EWC Victor is in the winner of Rainbow Six's first triple crown ever winning a six
invitational, a major, and winning the Esports World Cup.
It's been nice from a bragging rights perspective.
It's also been very nice from their bank accounts perspective.
This FaZe Clan team has just been really something to behold and so far this year
the only team at an international tournament to get their number in a high stakes match
is this one of Dark Zero, defeating them in the semi-finals
of the Salt Lake City Major and then toppling SR
to ultimately claim that major crown.
And here we are with DZ looking like mere mortals.
It's been really not the results, I think,
to start this off that DZ have been looking for.
It's crazy, Jen, I know is still at 10 kills, too.
He's got to be the most frag-focused player on Chalet
that we have in the world.
So well, statistically, on this map
is still having a good game,
but it's just not enough with how coordinated Cloud9 are.
It can't be a single person's effort.
Everybody's got to be here playing as a unit
and right now for Dark Zero.
I don't even think they're playing that bad.
Frankly, I just think Cloud9 is playing a really strong game.
We're back to bar in games.
This is the bomb site where Cloud9 got that victory
when Eddie had his 4K just a few rounds ago.
They changed up their attacking strategy
quite dramatically, moving Tampa to the Sends.
They've got Monk on the Black beard.
It's actually a double shield
with center on a shield as well.
So I'm really interested to see how they want to put together this push.
It doesn't look like they want a clear master side.
So the positioning is similar to round eight, but the operator is very different.
Another sluggish attack from Cloud Nine.
It's been the story of the second half, but boy, oh, boy,
they have been able to still win rounds despite it.
So sluggishness maybe just means a bit more practice than a bit better put together.
And now DZ showing good discipline, but on the run, I tend to say that this DZ team is
a bit more paralyzed than they would like to see.
Fenther with Diffuse Kit was ever close to that bomb, so he takes a healthy amount of
damage and now it's J9O just looking for an inch to hit him with that TCSG.
Blackbeard is there for distraction, Monk is hoping to take care of him, but Fenther
does the job all on his own. What is going on here?
Foltz guns him down, so at least the numbers stay close, but there's Pambizou on the board.
Renewed Foltz from the equation, C9 regain the numbers advantage.
Very limited time to go. Nourz takes care of Pambizou inside the site. Both these teams back and forth.
Afray, ever continuing. What just happened? NJR gets two swift kills.
It looked like Kino got the last, and just like that, the round is over.
Aron's a mess, Parker. I couldn't even tell you what happens in the midst of it.
Obviously, we're focused on the Mez clear. We see Center and Monk, the double shield,
pinching onto the Mez position that does eventually get the opening pick onto J9O.
At the meantime though, Pambazu is in the bomb site, taking out the anchors as we watch all this
chaos unfold up on the top floor. So it really is a multi-dimensional push from C9.
This is what they like to do, but I think they were just a little bit too split.
They ended up having to send it into the bomb site to be rushed it a little bit more than they need it to
Still 35 seconds when that round ended and said they just fall down to the LMG being held by NJR
And while it goes the way of dark zero now one opportunity left before this game goes to overtime
Final round of regulation I suppose this is probably the appropriate time
We need to go back to that 1v3 clutch that Eddie pulled off
Dark Zero right now would be sitting on Managed Point where that the case Cloud9
trailing no matter what Cloud9 is guaranteed themselves a single point
win or lose because the only way for them to be bested is through extra
innings and in that overtime with Dark Zero pizza two points Cloud9 will
gain one that will maintain their spot in first overall because the final two
teams competing M80 and Outlast currently sit in both eighth and ninth
in the same place.
The M80 team has been a bit of a surprise so far.
Outlast just showing signs of adjusting the tyrant icon,
I can joystick, still getting used to that team
and playing under TrevMax leadership.
Of course, when Outlast made it to the big leagues,
they opted not to make any roster moves.
It was a curious choice that some observers felt was poor.
The results leading up to those roster moves
suggest that maybe they could have made some changes
earlier bringing in the king bringing in the cyborg.
It's been a, it's been a fascinating one to watch.
And I still think OL's potential is quite high.
You just have to figure out what the heck is going on
with M80.
Five nine though, don't want to go too over time.
As we'd mentioned, it guaranteed themselves one point.
So why not push for all three?
Pambazoo leading by example,
very quietly now going positive.
For a while there,
Pambazoo was not pulling his weight in his role,
but he has come alive in the second half.
baffled that Pamba gets a kill on the false and this is that. I don't even know how it happens as
Svaltz is seemingly safer on the site and Pambas and Atroby stares but with the clash down
they're in a very good plant position and Cloud9 can go for it.
One minute and forty seconds still on the clock and guess what?
Senter is planning to defuse Kit Neuer's and NJR the last two standing, make that just Neuer's.
Suddenly Cloud9 has swatted them all away. Three rounds and Senter got the very final kill.
huge value for his team and Cloud9 will pick up all three points as they
best the defending major champions. From Pambazoo with love it looks like there
might be a new talk dog in North America. Cloud9 beat the allegations and
take down the best team in NA to get the crown for themselves. Let's hear
what the desk got to say about this momentous rise from Cloud9.
I
I
Well,
now the only undefeated team in North America, and
They remain so after taking down the SLC major champs dark zero fall to cloud nine and pan
But the captain of this team the IGL of this team the man we've spoken to quite a bit joins us now pan
But I'm sitting here looking at you guys win this game, and I'm thinking like I know you guys are stoic
I know you guys are like yeah, we just another match
Can I feel like you have to smile after this one you take down the major champs you're undefeated here in the NAL
I mean, is that not just special?
Um, I wouldn't say it's special beating them as a whole. I think it's special beating them on this map
I think that was the big thing like everyone knows shut the DZL is very good
I think they're like a to know if they've been destroying teams, you know some of the better teams the map
So to me that's like the big one like this literally we were gonna ban it because it's common sense over DZ advanced really but like
We've watched the show a and it just it didn't not look like anything special like you know granted
I do think they play a little bit more free flowy and like didn't have prep on us
So there wasn't too much to get views on us, but like honestly it was a vision like I woke up today
Knowing this week are we gonna permit ban it and then and I was like no let's just play the map and we ever were agreed like yeah
No, we're good at this map. Let's play the map. We played the map. What call
It two things one that's so funny because that's exactly how Troy was on DZM ever a couple times
Oh, yeah, he was ending a map and then Troy's like we're playing this
I'm sure you remember that as well at Lannis guys. Yeah
We got seven of them and then of course you ask a random host question which took my question
I wanted to ask that way but Rob what about the importance of beating I mean it's not
even just a juggernaut team it's DZ is there anything in it for you beating DZ and going
against your former teammate and Nick because we saw the trash talk in the lock honestly
like genuinely not really I just took them as another you know another good team I
I don't really care about my past with the organization.
I think it's just, it felt good to take a strong team
to their best map and be able to win the game.
Like honestly, that's a few things.
Like I only typed back to Nick
because he was typing first.
I wouldn't have typed, but when he typed to me,
like I'm going to type back 100%.
So.
You even went around after he started typing?
I don't even know, but anyway.
Well, fanbook, congratulations.
Flawless so far.
You know, we had big questions coming into the stage.
We highlighted you guys' defense
over the first three play days.
They were electric, they were dominant.
We had questions about your attack,
But watching this attack here in your console specifically
we're in the back, I mean, they were excellent.
I kind of want to know what is Cloud9's regimen,
the practice schedule?
What does the average week to week
look like for Cloud9 that leads all the way into the series?
It's just taking the light.
I'm not going to lie.
I was a big advocate of like, on this team,
we're not double streaming.
That's not happening.
It's something I hate as a player.
Me too.
Especially as an IGL.
Yeah, when I was IGL-ing, like on this team,
we initially had more doubles than nothing
but we had a fair and I cannot stand it like my brain would stop working so I was like okay
we're just gonna do three or four maps a day we're gonna come with it with 110 percent we're
not gonna let anything slip like any effort or anything we're just gonna play our best each
for those maps and that's something that works for us it doesn't work for everyone you know a
lot of teams are obviously double-scoring and it works for them but for me as specifically oh my
god it just had to be three maps and other than that like maybe an extra hour of you know
of talking over maps like the new attacks are going to be or like how we want to
what we want to work on that day specifically but we keep it pretty
light and you would really like you'd say that healthy balance has really
helped you flourish in the game like to watch black scrims make new strategies
like just think of the game like a lot of time I love that I love the inside
on that thank you thank you so much for your time as always congrats on
staying undefeated right now at the top of the standing if you look
forward to seeing a lot more of you I needed a Pamba as my IGF throughout my career I absolutely
dreaded doubles and singles that you're starting to make sense why everything is working for
cloud nine they aren't going above and beyond they don't need to they're making it work with
What they got I remember this being a thing in EU when Leon gets his team was that rogue ended up winning the event
And they said that they did double scrim and they and then everything changed all these pros started doing three map scrims guys
It doesn't work for everybody. Let's not get I don't want to say lazy, but let's they would have worked with them time in
It's totally fine. Like we can still double scrim. I'd hate to see us practice in less
But hey, it works for fun. Well, the takeaway here is really the cloud nine
I mean to take down dark zero to stay undefeated right now
I mean the major champs they fall cloud nine at the top right now Kyle
I mean it really is they are the real deal
They are the real deal and I said this last stage as well their attacks weren't working
But it met the eye test they play the meta so well they throw that one round
They're playing the solid snake another round. They're playing the glass another round
They're playing the shield and then the fourth round the playing all of them at once and they're creating so much pressure on dark
Zero like I love what Pambazoo is doing. We don't need to have a specific
Opening strategy to that round. We can just bring all these meta operators have a bunch of mini plays in order to get free kills
Get the map space and then figure out how to win the round once we create those openings
And it's working perfectly for them
But to go even further into that it goes back to the trust
Trusting the process being able to flex around their operators change the take even change your map band
You heard from Pamba they were going to ban this and then he woke up today feeling confident feeling great
And then they all agreed no one questioned it no one was like, ah, maybe we shouldn't they're 7-0 and it just goes shows
They are they are the fearless they don't care who their opponents they focus on their game
It's the reason why they're currently flawless and sitting at 12 points and again the threshold last stage was 14
I did not think we'd be living in a world where cloud nine just took down dark zero here like as we approach the halfway point in
in the stage, nor did I think we'd be in a world where M80 at 0 and 3 will be trying
to get their first point against a 1 and 0 outlast, because that is where we're heading
next.
M80, the team that we put in the A tier, the team that we expect to be qualifying
for every event, they have no points right now, and they need them.
No, they absolutely need these points.
We are hyper fixated on it because when you think of the players on the roster,
you think of the organization, they've been to a lot of these six invitations.
have come close at the six invitations, but back to the matter is they are not in a situation
right now where it looks like they will be attending a six-invitational.
Even just based off these first three playdays, they have not looked like the M80 that we
were used to seeing in the previous stage, and that's something that I even want to
go look at.
When you look at the old M80 from the previous stage to today's stage, completely different
team.
Now it's very apparent, clearly they're 0-3, you're going to look at these numbers
and clearly it paints the picture.
However, I was a little bit of a hater
in the beginning of this show, because as we said,
I said they weren't going to make playoffs.
I am going to backtrack a little bit here
because we have to look at their strength of schedule.
They started out versing very strong opponents.
And those games got a little dice.
They got 7-5, 7-5.
Now they're in this week where their opponents
are significantly easier.
This is their time to be able to make a comeback,
make an uprising, and sometimes you
You have to stumble in order to find your footing.
And this should be the week where they absolutely can do that.
However, on that other side, the easier games sometimes
always tend to be the hardest.
And even in their series against Outlast
in their previous stage, it was 7-4.
And that was against a far weaker Outlast,
in my personal opinion, just from player to player.
But I feel so wild-cared on there.
I feel so like wild-eyed on there.
Like, it's really not a guarantee.
It's not.
Let's say they win today.
They got another game that's winnable, five beers,
right?
fun they end the stage with a easier matchup like that that's only what four
games sometimes you see the wind on you look at for fun now they're having fun
sometimes you got it like I said you got to beat up on weaker teams just to
reinvigorate yourself and make you feel confident again well I'll last I mean not
in a dissimilar situation maybe less about the strength of schedule but kind
of when looking at stage one versus now we were kind of asking the question
new look is this going to be a completely different team what's the
Yeah, I mean I'm kind of seeing the same team. I'm not gonna lie. I think we all got a little excited new look same
I and why do I always have to be the bad guy? I feel like I'm hate Watson all day today
I don't like this, but again wait we had a super week last week
We and then we just got through super week this week and if we pull up the stats on that it looks the exact
Same the only difference at last get they won one map or they won one series. That's great
But other than that I mean still one of the worst defensive teams in the league
also one of the worst attacking teams in the league and yes they had an x-factor
yes they're in the here's their stats yes their attack did get a little bit
better their entry got a little bit better but that was only from one game
the next two games after that they got completely shut down iconic was nowhere
to be found he was four and eight in both games and we were also putting
him on clash on the defense side which I felt interesting where it's
like we have him as an x-factor on the attack why is he not allowed to do
anything on the defense why are we locking him up
I'm spot for them to be in here as well because now they're looking for another win and they have to go up against MAD.
I mean, as you said, this is a team that has been struggling, not exactly the time you want to go against one of what should be one of the better teams here in the NAL.
I mean, the most important thing is the day-to-day practice and the schedule and what that looks like and what they were rewatching from the previous week in order to fix going into today because they didn't really have an identity in their last two previous matches.
more so even in that Cloud9 game.
I mean, that one really was frustrating to watch
because we were highlighting them.
We were praising them.
And then they were just met by a brick wall
that they just couldn't break through, let alone get over.
And then even in that next series following,
I mean, a lot of identity crises for them,
not being able to figure out certain situations
that they found themselves in.
And realistically, I can understand it in some instances,
but in others, I'd expect those three standout players
to really step up.
And so far, we've only been able to see iconic.
Well, obviously this is the outlast roster,
not the wild card roster.
But the point is the same that this team, I mean,
the numbers just aren't there, Kyle.
Yeah, the numbers aren't there.
Again, I mean, like Locke said, iconic has been the standout.
Wow, look at that.
We didn't even notice that.
But Tyrant, I mean, Tyrant is the worst rated player
in the entire league.
So that is obviously not working.
Joystick, a little bit of rust, right?
He's also not having his best performance.
And Millie is the 47th out of 50 rated player
also in the league. So again, clearly, if you look at stage one, almost all their players
were rated at the bottom, and it's looking that way again, besides iconic. But we need
to see more from the team. You can't just have one player and expect him to do it all.
We need to see everybody starting to get comfortable.
Well, if M80 want to get some points on the board, hopefully they can go to some
friendlier territory. They've lost Villa twice. They've played labs once to close
out the week last week and they lost that too. Let's find out where M80 wanna head today
against Outlast. Fortress is the choice here deciding between Lair and Fortress at the
end of the day. I mean, lack from where I'm sitting, I like that it's not necessarily
a default pick, maybe less comfort for Outlast.
I mean, yeah, I think it's definitely more comfort for Outlast. Only for the simple
fact is they did have a close series against M80, the same team that they played against
Previously so it was a 7-4 there is a lot to take from that
But on the side for a lady this is more familiar territory and we did recently see it back during EWC in that liquid matchup
We're honestly KZ was a massive proponent for getting that success over and maybe but there were a lot of gaps that liquid was
Exposing on M80s defense in particular and on their attack
So it's gonna be even more so important for a lady to fix all the mistakes that they've been having from EWC
playing into these first three play days of the NAL and to come here today and not treat outlast as a weaker opponent
But treat them as themselves that they have to go against
Yeah, and as far as the bands I mean for some reason M80 they love to ban the wall around this map
Which I know something you'd mean locks don't really agree with there's not like there's so many other operators
The one-eyed is on me the Goyo even the smoke there's so many good ops on fortress
So, I mean, taking out Wolvenile, we're able to get the walls open,
but are they going to really be able to get a push going?
I mean, I guess that's the bigger question.
Is that going to be the case?
And the fact of the matter is, when it's coming to this situation,
regardless of the bands, they have to play their game.
They've been in their own head.
They've been in their own situation.
So no matter where we look at the bands and how it's going to play out,
MAD has to play their game.
And MAD need some points.
They cannot wait any longer.
It's MAD and outlast the final game of Playday 4.
starts now well thank you so very much Jesse we go to fortress five different
maps and completely different stylistic matchups on all of them but stylistic
matchups between the teams is something that's been fascinating to watch
M80 obviously way underperforming their own expectations we trip over
ourselves to mention it outlast still gelling is a roster tyrant iconic
joystick the questions that were asked when they were brought in still
haven't quite been answered yet. Have you seen any improvements on this Outlast team
after their victory in playday number one despite their losses? I mean I think
Iconic has continued to prove himself as the best player on this team even in
their losses. I thought he had moments where he was really carrying the roster.
Obviously he was the MVP in their victory back on playday number one so he
has been the guy to watch for me on Outlast. The rest of the roster
certainly still trying to find a way to gel in with this team. Treadmack
Millie the holdout from stage one yet to really find too much of an impact although they are playing the support combo
Tyrants still kind of struggling as well statistically so we're hoping to see some of these players get back into the action
This could be their opportunity though against an M80 who is already weak who was already bleeding who have really
Struggled to find any success so far in stage two. This might be their moment to make a statement a
Very good point already a minute into the action here now and
well tools being used to hunt down these off-site players. I aren't taking a bit
of damage. Fingerpointed as the lowest rated player heading into this matchup
today and I mean it's been an adjustment I'm certain. Three Europeans in this lobby
if my eyes don't deceive me. So slowly but surely we are seeing an
expansion on these NA teams bringing in outside talent for M80 Savage. Looks
like a brilliant pickup during stage one, but stage two, there's definitely been a
regression that can cause some concern. The inverse is what Outlast is hoping for.
They're hoping that their two pickups will continue to pay off, but as you
pointed out, Iconic has been good. It's now up to Joystick and Tyrant to show
that they still can hang. And Joystick might be the first casualty here in
this matchup. Tremac will die first, but M80 still hitting their marks as
Joystick is bleeding out just out of reach. They might be found by Gunner.
They'll be savage credited with that one and now it's Tyrant firing away from deep inside the site outlast clinging to life
But I don't know how much longer they'll be alive for is it's just iconic and Tyrant now alive
Everybody from M80 still upright and there goes the round M80 a flawless start
I think it's fair to say that this is a must-win game for M80 after not winning any points back in week one
They had a tough schedule
Nobody's gonna deny that but now against an outlast squad who have struggled all season long
You have to be confident coming into this game and they show nothing but confidence in that first round Parker picking apart
These players around the map before they have to go for their execute joystick dying on the window there was really really tough losing your smoke player
Especially can be so devastating at the early part of a push good credit to Ashley will to take him down and then
get that secure with the bees as well as Savage finish them off. Gunner finding an opening pick
down to the bottom floor like they're not all together on the side of M80 they don't need to be
all together but they're pushing at the same time and you're all individually catching players
off guard so really nice attack start from M80 nobody dead just yet.
We need something back!
Yup.
Yeah now we've got of course the opportunity for M80 to double up, go 2 and 0, up on the top floor.
Most of these defenders do reside. They want to spread themselves across the top floor and find a way to
prevent the entries on the side of M80.
Gunner is going to come in from down below and the rest of the players look like they want to take office control that spawn peak for Millie
Of course didn't really find anything so he goes back towards the site
Ashing clears out the position with those floor as drones and things will continue to stick along for M80 at some point
They're gonna have to come to blows with these players
And at that point it's really going to be on the roamers of Outlast to find big moments
We're looking at guys like Millie who are aggressive guys like Tremac playing in battle
These guys have to be strong on these opening fights
Polly on the board yet again as strong as she is just seen her through most of the matches so far today
M80 continuing their assaults
Outlast you have to get a single pick through the first
Round and a half here will not improve as Gavin gets yet one another for M80
It's Gavin's first pick so far.
Fuser and Gunner sitting at five kills combined for this team.
Who will be the first on the side of Outlast to draw blood?
Right now it's M80, still getting closer to the site.
Utility here, four Outlasts, so they can just sit
and wait on that, but at some point
these guns are gonna have to get active.
There's a good swing from Trev-Mac.
He's trying to find something,
but Ashen's holding the angle very much ready for it.
They still have zero kills through two and a half rounds now Parker and it's just Tyrants and Iconic trying to lock things down
Iconic's been big for the team before but he loses the gunfight to Ashen and now Tyrants no hope in the 1v5
It is back-to-back flawless round victories for M80
Let's got to be a timeout, right? We've seen timeouts called in the second and third rounds here
I mean unless outlast are waiting for another opportunity things are not looking very good at all they're getting run over
There is the timeout called by this team. No shock there
It's not just that that they're losing Jesse. It's how they are losing
They are not holding map control at any point to slow down
M80's entrance M80 is being allowed to set up. They're being allowed to drone
They are not losing their information in the process
They are settling in and playing their style of game and there is absolutely nothing that Outlast is doing in this present point in time to counter it
It's been a dreadful start
For this OL team and looking far more like the outlast before these three pickups than the outlast since
One of the first real tests for control the head coach of outlast was assistant coach for this team back in stage one
But then super oak super oxy stepped down for personal reasons and now control can do his best to try to take the reins over for this team
control short for controller as he told me in a recent conversation he and I had
before the stage started and I know he's eager to prove himself as a coach
still quite young himself 22 years old but when he's piloting players like
joystick like iconic who had so much history and so much pedigree in in the
rainbow 16 obviously the pressure is gonna be on his shoulders this might
be his opportunity to stand up and at least you know make things a little
better for his team. Back-back-fall is round. It's not like things can get much worse.
I don't want to put down some of these teams, right? Like, you don't want to be in a position where
you're feeling negative, so to speak, but there are times where you just kind of have to call
a spade a spade here and in this instance there's...
It's been a woeful year for this outlast roster, and the organization has come out and
shown their support before, wanted them to play together, wanted them to show and test
their medal.
I mean, hey, you're picking up Iconic, you're picking up Joystick, even Tyrant, who hasn't
had the same level of success as I would argue Iconic and Joystick have.
You're picking up players that haven't played at their old level the way that they
They used to but still can show signs of brilliance as the desk said and you mentioned even as well iconic can definitely still hang
It's been a rough go here
And this looks honestly more like the M80 that we saw during stage one who would just dummy teams left right in center
It gets two players out with that lion scan. It's gonna give them good information on both Millie and joystick
former of which is playing quite aggressive there on the roam. Joystick is the horse player
trying to lock things down with some Keevins. The Nitro will claim the first frag for Outlast,
but it's instantly answered back with a Pick from the Tyrant.
Firing away, so the very first pick for Outlast. This round's not really improving at this point
in time. Gunners shreds through Joystick. There goes Trev-Mac to Ash, and Millie and Iconic.
Millie is given away by the Lion's Scam. No phone available for him as well after Gunners
Gadget taking care of it.
Another will go out and yet as well iconic his very first kill comes to the hands of Gavin
So down he goes the lion no more lion black beard too pretty get operators get rid of him
Gunner will fall as well as Millie hits him with the drive-by
Suddenly this round has become far more winnable than it was just moments ago
Ashen and diffuser the last two obstacles for this help last team
Diffuser with his name second hand
He'll fall off of it, iconic red like a book, great coverage from Ash and there goes the
fuser.
Millie and Ash in a 1v1 with over a minute to go.
Millie's position, over by that horse statue, given away, blocked out by the Aurora Gate.
Let's circle on in.
The proximity-based explosion, concussion, giving his position away.
Littering his path backwards with the razor blooms, now it's Millie sweeping through.
Ash thinks he's found an area where Millie can't spot him.
He's correct.
Millie getting up.
Right in his face. Ashen knows this.
Millie with a better gun at close range,
but he's using all of his bullets.
It allows Ashen to just get out of dodge.
Millie's leading so much ground,
as Ashen repositions doing an immense amount of damage.
A tough fight for Millie now
as the Tracers go round the wall.
Who will come out ahead?
Ashen will, and M80 takes round three.
Really nice round from the kid from Chicago.
Ashen does a great job in that round,
playing with the time that they have available to them Parker. He starts off
that round actually getting a really critical pick on to Trevmac. He pushed in
through the tower side, he finds the pick on to the IGL who's playing inside the
site. Despite the fact that they lose their shield, they do just such a good
job of picking apart those players inside the bomb site. They've got so many
different dimensions to that push and it really makes things claustrophobic
inside the site for Outlast. You see an early pick on to Tyrants, you see
another pick on to TREVMAC, joystick goes one-for-one playing on horse and once
they've got that site control with a minute something on the clock I mean
they were in such a strong position because of how fast they moved to your
Parker. Gunner actually works his way up the main stairs as well. Some nice
shots from Millie, I thought he played quite well in this round as Iconics
tried to do so too but there's just only so much Millie can do with a
sliver of HP. He tried to play the game but Ashton a little bit more
experience pays off in a big way.
Way too close for comfort for this
team and a heartbreaking round for
Outlast as they come close to taking
what would be a full rotation if you
were defending but now the attackers
can attack any bomb site. Nothing is
locked out here for Outlast. They can
go wherever they choose. Fortress is
a tricky one. It's both a big map but
but also can become more mentalized and end up looking and feeling a lot smaller and you
tend to see engagements on some of these bomb sites all occurring within a very small footprint
of this map.
Without last down defending downstairs, we'll watch with keen interest to see if OL will
spread some of their forces up top to buy time.
So far that has been a major point of contention for this Outlast team.
They have not been able to hold this top floor from M80 and M80 just keeps sinking
their fangs into these extensive defenses. Rounds 1 and 2 we saw Outlast looking for early picks
through windows. None of them worked whatsoever and now a bit more of a conservative defense here
from Outlast as it did ultimately do better in round three but didn't ultimately net a successful
round. It's a single man roam from iconic here on the top floor while all of his teammates do
extend around the bottom floor. Even one roamer is more than most teams will usually afford
this bomb site, but clearly M80 a good idea of what's going on. They track Iconic and he instantly
sees that ground since I'm happy to give it up. Moves over to Hamam where you can play alongside
Joystick. Sometimes that's the best you can do when you get tracked by a demo. Just link up with
a teammate, try to get a free bait kill, but M80 very much happy to drone through. They've
confirmed now at this point that there is nobody remaining on the top floor. Expect the flank
a little bit later. That's pretty common where we're on the old tower side, but
But for now it does seem like these players are in firm control of the top floor.
They can start to get to work with the ram drones and start applying pressure inside the site.
A traditional hard breach are being brought from M80s.
He saw one of those gas, or he saw one of those can openers being used by defuser.
They still got one in hand as well.
Ashen yet to die as he survived that onslaught of his thrown his way back in round number three
Really extensive offside hold here from this outlast team, and I'm not
Really sure what Tyrant was expecting unless that was just him looking for information
Gas canister to gas canisters thrown out by trev mag answered by a smoke from above
That's a missed flame arrow that was shot by diffuser, a bit of a bummer, but Savage looks
successful in getting this diffused kid down.
There will be no late second heroics from Outlast and now Nade will attempt to get out
of dodge.
Or so we think.
Savage is just going to sit on top of this diffuser like a mother hen and catch iconic
looking the wrong way.
Surprise!
Nature's Soul goes out by a milli.
It does some damage, but not enough to fell any of those M80 players inside the site.
Grab Mac and Millie now in a really rough spot.
DeFuse kit well past the point.
Half, Savage still just buying time.
He's in a really good place to just sit here and wait.
He feeds Millie to DeFuse and who will get the smoke?
Savage will another flawless round from M80.
Great play from the Portuguese captain of M80.
plays the blitz perfectly in that round Parker and I can't help but feel like we're seeing
a little bit of inexperience in one of Siege's newest maps.
I guess it's technically the newest map to the pool, but Fortress really the newest map
and the map that guys like Tyrant and Joystick and Iconic might not be as familiar with
as it didn't exist back when they were professional players on former teams.
And now like Tyrant's position in opening death in that round is kind of a good
example of like they were just not super aware of the angles being held. This is a really common
hatch to be holding for the attackers. It's not like it should be a surprise that somebody is
watching that position. I think there's been some rock moments from joystick earlier on as well that
might kind of showcase some unfamiliarity with the map. Ultimately that position from Savage
even tucked in with the Blitz. I don't know if it's necessarily what he wanted to be holding,
but the way that toxic babes played out, it just was a little nook that he could find
himself in the plant, never really wanted to leave there, the pots it made it kind of pinned him in,
but it's such a great job working from that position to help his team out in the close plant.
I think once it went down, it was really difficult for Outlast to recover that round.
Again, I think it's a space these early rounds for M80, they are doing such a good job of
finding where there are no Outlast players getting in the building knowing the pain points
and being allowed to settle in. Rounds 1 and 2 Outlasts might have had a premonition.
That's why they got aggressive at the windows and the doors, but they were out of the duel.
M80 is full of terrific gunners.
Even if you have the idea of where they are, they can still out duel you in a simple heads-up gunfight.
M80's playing with that level of confidence today.
So our last attempt to be a little bit more reserved in round number three sure looked like it would be a recipe for success,
but ultimately Milly lost that 1v1 in the post-plant up against Ash in round number four.
looked a lot more like rounds one and two so a bit of a regression here from
Outlast. We have had a slew of wapsided games today and so far this one looks
like it's gonna repeat what we've seen throughout play day number four.
Flash's go actually onto their teammate Gunnar a little bit blind here in the
hallway and Millie knows he has to make a play it was his heroics that
nearly won them this bomb site the previous attempt with the Goyo popped
he can focus his attention just on these main stairs and Gunnar looking
the wrong way does go down. He was being pressured from both angles. Iconic is down below, so
clearly Gunner being pulled from two different spots, gives the opening pick to Outlasted
for the first time. This is a solid advantage. It's not being traded back by M80.
Big loss. Zofia is such a Swiss Army knife of an operator at this current point in time.
Great with those concussive explosives or explosions, you should say, to figure
out the locations of the defenders.
I mean, it was M80 actually, defending Zofia, saying that she's fine when you can just shoot
three explosives up and down somebody through the floors.
It'd be a bit of an unpopular opinion at this point in time.
Ashm takes care of Tyrant, but Trev-Mac answers that one right back.
It's Trev-Mac's first kill, and it comes in round number five, Joystick taking care
of Joystick only with a single kill to his name.
Tyrant outduld, he's yet to pick up a kill, Millie's now down for the count,
and Trev back, will have to do a lot more than just the single kill he's had so far.
His work will be cut out for him. A full HP montane with Defuser as the escort. Savage
holding the case and Defuser will get the job done before. The objective can go down.
M80 all smiles as they are running away with this game.
I think a lot of credit has to be given to Savage again in this round Parker just
because you're attacking the same bombsite for the third time. It's really difficult
sometimes to change your attack up to stay unpredictable for the defenders to deal with.
And while it initially looked like they wanted to go for that same horse push that they went for
in the last attempt, they kind of pulled things back after losing Gunner and said,
okay, we can reset. We've got white stairs control. We can go take new tower.
We can push in with this Monty. And while it was, I believe Gavin,
getting the lion's share of those kills, they were mostly coming off the back of
Savage's information as he pushed forward with the Monty. So just really good team
Teamplay coming out from M80, everybody doing their job.
Ashen does a great job getting a pick inside the bomb site too.
Marshley helped out by Savage there on the shield and from top to bottom.
It just felt like they never panicked.
They were never worried about how they were going to get into site.
And they are barreling towards the 7-0.
6-0 halves, 6-0 halves, 5-0 halves.
It's been an incredible day so far when it comes to the North America.
expect the unexpected. I suppose you could say I believe that's Big Brother's
tagline, so CBS don't come after me for using it. I hope that's okay.
Oh, copyrights these days, Jesse. You never, you never really know, but I think
expecting the unexpected is perfectly applicable here with what we've
looked at. M80 at this point in time know that they're gonna be playing
the remainder of the group stages with their back against the wall. They
have just simply dropped too many points through their first three play
days and while they'll look at some of those matches and say hey at least you
know we got to the twelfth round that still doesn't net you a single point.
M80 do have a bit of an advantage with their matchup tomorrow they go up
against five fears who look like a team that is lost in the woods at the
moment as for outlast they play wild card which is a golden opportunity for
wild card to start amassing some more points themselves as for the rest of
schedule well there's four more play days after that but we'll talk about
about them. Next week, when we come back, and we're actually going tomorrow, those are the
explosives that we talked about. Look at that. Absolutely no way to counter that whatsoever.
Tyrant found out three explosives right at his feet. Goodbye to the smoke and goodbye
to the gas canisters with two minutes left. Yeah, that's brutal. 0 and 6 to start this
game from Tyrant. His overall stage KD before that death was actually a Kalindrome,
13 and 31. That will be destroyed now as 13 and 32 through the first four playdays.
Trying to make this push work here into the tall floor of the glass is singing
action will get a kill diffuser with one more this should be a plant going down
any second Parker. There goes another flawless round perhaps unless the king
polishing his crown no another flawless round. Four flawless rounds Jesse.
Holy smokes, MAD!
They're unstoppable at this current point in time.
Six and no right now, I mean it just seems like this one is just about wrapped up.
The words were uttered backstage after the two flawless rounds in a row.
Well, this is going to be a quick one.
Yeah, what a quick day it's been, but we highlighted the fact that it's been, it's kind of the same old outlast, right?
And we're seeing that, but we're also seeing the same old MAD.
I mean, what was kind of M80's problems?
Their frags weren't showing up, right?
If we look at the team stats, no one is positive on the side of M80,
except in this game, who knew all they needed was the strength of schedule
and for them to farm some of the bottom tier teams.
You knew, you said they weren't making playoffs, but here we are,
the Ashen diffuser.
I mean, both these guys are 10 and 1 and that Parker, wow,
spit some ball knowledge on the cast.
M80's getting a ton of free space, which is what Parker's words look.
They are giving so much space and also giving a lot of free kills.
What do we highlight from some of the best defensive teams in our region when we look at the cloud nine when we look at
The wild card. It's the fact that they make the attack have to work for the space, right?
And they're making all these layers, and I'm not seeing any of that from my life. I've been so many freaks
It's not even working for the space. It's also working for the kills working for the trades
I mean Outlast is just letting M80 just take full control of the game from start to finish
I mean, there's questionable rotates.
There's questionable peaks.
There's so many issues on the side of Outlast.
But again, it's the exact same Outlast, just new identity.
That is really the biggest thing.
I mean, new faces, same identity.
It's kind of frustrating to see because, again,
you're looking at those experienced players
that they did bring on that you would hope
would help this team.
But I believe Tyra now is 0-6.
Joystick is 1-6.
I mean, it's not helping the cause by any means.
Yeah, definitely helping the cause.
And I love to see like the NAL MVP as voted on by us.
I think it was.
It's having another great game and diffuser.
Love that guy as well.
A great golfer.
I have to say, great.
Had to throw that in there.
Great golfer.
Missed that guy.
I do want to give praise to that, Maddy, though.
They don't seem to be cutting corners.
They seem to be given outlast the respect that they
deserve and are just more focusing on themselves
and making sure that they are going through their motion.
They're getting to those late round executes.
And sure, if the space is for free,
then you're going to take it as any team naturally would.
I'm not seeing anything crazy from M80,
where I'm like, wow, they're just
taking full advantage of Outlast.
They're playing their game and playing to their strengths.
Yeah, and it was just, again, it was just Outlast.
Just swinging, swinging, swinging.
And that's not how we play Siege.
But if we look at the bands, it's
a little bit different than the Walden Isle bands we were seeing.
I mean, yes, we do get the bandit, but Goyo.
Wow, would that have been a good operator?
Maybe waste some time, put some Goyles down,
maybe fire back.
I think they would have popped it and still swung probably still swung off the coils like they didn't around one when they had
Goya would mirror and they still swung behind the fire swing
Yeah, pretty much so I mean yeah, we have six rounds to work with here for M80
I don't even know if it matters what they bring guys
I think we could throw it to the cast if you want Jonah, but I think we're gonna be right back
Yeah, we get to start the post game breakdown right now
I mean if I made you play anything like they did on the attacking side outlasts
I don't know if they stand a chance there and outlasts guys
Yes, thank you Jonah and the desk I mean it's been a game of a couple of swings
you know outlast they've been swinging on the defense apparently diffuser has
been swinging his golf clubs around mint has some inside info on that clearly
we're gonna need to see some big swings out about last and six in a row ideally
all of which must connect just for an overtime to come through this is gonna
of the a nightmare situation to come out for no last and facing down potentially
the third 7-0 of the season of the stage they will have to dig deep Parker nor
being brought for the first time this playday by Gunner and he's bringing it
on the roam with the Alda I'm excited to see what Sean can do with this
forget that far yeah they might all just run into say gunner doesn't fight
anybody but we can hope we can hope. I appreciate Mint giving me some some
credibility saying that I was showing some great ball knowledge here. I am very
curious to see if M80 allows Outlast that same freedom of entry and movement
that honestly those countries could learn from. I think Outlast is gonna have to
fight for every single inch here but not surprise me if M80 plays a really
aggressive defense the way that Outlast has been shooting today through six
rounds. There have only been seven kills on the side of Outlast. They are just
above a single kill around. That's gonna get to you and the vibes for this team
I'm sure they're probably not what they could be. M80 looking like they're back
to fine form and if they can play this way against tougher opponents in the
NAL. Another teams really need to take notice. A competitive M80 will throw a
a wrench in the works for just about everybody hoping to claim a playoff spot because M.A.D.
did look, at least on paper, to be North America's best team for the group stages of stage one.
After round now finished and, well, I mean, M.A.D. is not playing anywhere near as front
until a game as I'd thought.
Yeah, they haven't really given up much map control to be fair.
I mean, there's nobody actually in on the top floor for Outlast, so it's not
like they've been giving up space for free.
The bottom floor has been controlled by the attackers, though, and with Zofia and Daimos,
you should be able to find some kills through the burglars.
A lot of these players are playing on hard floors because you can't really target them,
but instead, Gunner with the Elder shoots about 100 bullets and one of them finds the
head of Joysticks, hit him with the LNAO, and now we start to see his attack creeping
closer toward the long side.
On the ideal position to be in for the Cyborg here, that's the Daimos down, and now
Information will be harder to come by for outlast.
Savage gets Tyrant.
Joyce to Tyrant, combining for a single kill
up to this point, and Todd and Trevmak
with one of his own, Millie on the board,
but it looks like that's all she wrote for this OL team.
30 seconds to go, outnumbered two to one, Millie,
below half HP.
Still utility in pocket for Iconic, one flash for Millie.
Now it's Iconic taking some serious damage as well.
Gunner will find his second that Alda has so many bullets.
Ashen will send us away.
And we barely loaded into that game.
M80 make mincemeat of Outlast a 7-0 scoreline.
And three big points for M80.
M80, they do what we, as opposed to expected 30 seconds ago.
They take their first offensive round, a 7-0,
making it 2 7-0s on the day.
and they get their very first win here in stage two.
Some much needed points for M80.
That'll be nice to pad the round differential
going forward as well.
Lacks it was open and shut out last.
Really just did not load it.
I'm going to feel like I just said exactly what I said.
30 seconds ago.
Again, I really want to give more praise to M80
for going through their motions,
making sure that they were doing what they needed
to to close out these series.
And then for the side of our last again,
Four flawless rounds on their defense, the easier side, they're, I mean, I don't want to beat a dead horse.
They just got a lot of shit ton of things to improve on.
Yeah, and as for me, I got a telestration on that outlast attack.
Not again, not the weatherman again.
I mean, yeah, clearly, I'm 80.
This was a big, this was big three points for them.
This whole week in general, I'm sure we're going to talk about it with whoever we're going to talk about it with.
How important this week is for them to kind of get points and get those soccer kind of going maybe even get the M80 fans back on their side
That's that's really all this game was alright. They never left. I don't know after you told them they were making playoffs
I think they all just
That's why you know
I had to backtrack once this I mean it was all you want to call your shot
Say when it was meant to be provocative it was meant to be a little comfortable lean forward and then quickly lean back
Controversial right now, I mean Tyron 0 and 7, this guy didn't load in getting a kill, and I believe he was the worst ready player in this game.
So I'm not really sure what the upgrade was there, but I'm feeling mean today, so I just had to say that.
I mean, yeah, you've been hate watching all day long, we saw great numbers there by action.
From NA, by diffuser, I mean really good contributions across the board from NAD, and it does feel like this team has come alive.
And as I know, we're joking around about it,
but had we looked at this match and seen it be a lot closer
and saw Outlast get a couple more rounds,
we would be really sounding the alarm bells.
Rob, you're reaching.
No.
I'm definitely reaching.
He's spinning.
He's spinning.
Well, in any case, if a game was closer,
we're going to be looking at it and be like, yeah,
you know this.
No, it's like, you've got to ask the question.
I know all you can do right now is glaze that made it
because it wasn't 7-0.
But the seriousness that they came into today
with backs against the wall, it was an easy game.
clearly, but they needed it. They need that way. Absolutely. I said sometimes you got to beat up on the weaker teams
So really just instill the confidence back into yourself
Throughout the team and I have no doubt going into the series tomorrow
It's gonna kind of be it's gonna be treated the exact same way and then to see how the rest of the stage plays out
I'll save you from having to say the same thing a few more times. We got gunner ready to go
So we'll welcome him and now as I may select their first points gunner. It is good to speak with you guys
Finally this stage I know it wasn't the start you wanted the story that we've
been projecting upon you guys is that it must feel like your backs are against the
wall that the pressure is high you haven't had any points yet what did it
actually feel like coming into the day knowing that you guys needed some
points or things we're gonna get a bit dicey
I mean it's not for sitting there like all right guys gotta win this game
like you know what I mean but I mean I'm here in probably the back of
her head knows like it's, you know, we got to lock in, but we had a lot of problems at
the start of the stage that we had long talks about after, you know, any shutoff for three
games and I mean, at least since what's a start.
Absolutely gonna. Well, congratulations on the first one. I kind of want to reiterate
a point that I was making for you guys. How important it is to regardless of outlast
being a weaker team, but to be able to get that win to get the confidence back to go
through the motion. That was something I also highlighted for you guys. It didn't
look like you were cutting corners. It didn't look like you were treating
Outlast as if they were weaker team you guys were doing everything that you needed to to close out that series
Yeah, I mean
Again like outlast has already won a game against you know that a team that won kickoff, you know
So you can't like tune him like they're terrible, but we are not in a position to treat anybody like any differently
So yeah, I mean unfortunately for them to get seven in it, but like we're hungry like we need we need to get once
You know absolutely you need to get wins and this was a big win
And honestly, Gunner, there's really nothing to talk about from this game at all.
And we haven't been able to talk to you guys yet.
So you're going to be the representative.
EWC, you guys, I mean,
Oh boy, it goes right for it.
I'm going for EWC.
Yeah. You guys kind of went in, I mean, dominant in the NAL.
I mean, what, what kind of went wrong during EWC?
Now that I can finally talk to you guys here.
EWC, there was some like role, we kind of just
It seemed like there was some stuff going on.
like we thought we were making their practice engines and then like in hindsight obviously
maybe we shouldn't have but again it's hindsight it's in scrims it looks fine you know kind of
and then uh yeah and so it kind of started with a disaster and then coming back to this stage
assuming that's what's gonna be asked next is uh I mean we were feeling good at least
um in scrims but our like confidence in scrims and like our quickness and our like at the
The sights of this versus game day, the first like couple days was night and day, like we were not making the moves that we needed to do, um, and that's what we kind of focus on is just like treating our scrims like our game days of, or our game days like our scrims, sorry.
Well Gunnar, I know we kind of threw you under the gun here because we haven't had a chance to talk to you guys yet on the positive side here.
Like what feels like is working now that you guys have a win under your belt.
Like what's working in scrims? What's working now today? What do you want to keep working going forward?
And it's just about being on the same page. We kind of lost like our middle to late rounds.
Um, and that's what we're trying to bring back, you know, just when we get those first
picks, just relax, reset, and then actually all just say at the same time.
So we're not called to like getting like clutched on or, you know, things like that.
Um, it's been working well with scrims.
Obviously it worked well today.
Um, and yeah, like it's just all about being on the same page and just being
on genuinely just being decisive, um, and not freezing up.
Sweet.
Go ahead.
Thank you so much for your insights and your time.
Congrats on getting on the board.
You got some points here.
We look forward to talking to you guys a whole lot more.
All right, thank you.
Well, good to hear from them finally on, you know, the state of things, how they're feeling,
you know, seemed like he was a little tense, like, like these guys know that they're not
in the most comfortable position.
Yeah, well, they definitely know.
But good, good to see them get some points all the way.
Yeah, it's important, and it's great.
It's a great way to start out the week of getting a good three points, and not
just three points.
You dominated that series.
You seven-node that series, so it's a great way to start it, and then, like
I said, you're going in tomorrow against Week of War on it.
We can get another 6 points, or we can get another 3 points, which also cost you at 6 points.
So they still are in good contention to be able to make playoffs as long as they keep
this consistency.
I'm not going to lie.
If I'm 0-3 and I wake up and I'm playing outlast in 5 years the next day, oh man it's
going to be a good week.
That's all I'm saying.
I'm sure they were excited.
Well they were excited to close out the day with some points which was big for
them which rounded out what was a surprisingly one sided day here in the NAL.
we have as we continuously talk about the most competitive region out here without a doubt.
We had one really competitive game though today the rest we saw a little bit more one-sided
that was the cloud nine dark zero game which really jumped off the page it was the one
where we were asking if cloud nine could do what SSG couldn't a little earlier in
the day and prove that they were the real deal and they were propelling themselves
well keeping themselves at the top of the standings the only team with 12 points
Despite the loss, Lax SSG close behind with 9.
I mean, it is still those two teams at the top,
but things just got a little more interesting.
100 thieves, the Shopify rebellion,
for fun working their way up.
I mean, you heard it in here from Mahan Kolt.
It is a lot more competitive because teams like SSG,
teams like Cloud9 did go 3-0 on that week.
So as we come closer to these weeks,
we're going to see these points really shaping out
and play a big factor of how that first super week went.
Because right now, I mean, it's all relatively close.
And again, SSG can still sit pretty after losing today a 2-7.
Yeah, it's a long season, right?
So there's a lot of time for teams to heat up, like the M80s.
We're seeing 100 thieves start to kind of figure out
their identity and power up and 7-0 SR.
And you know, you could arguably say,
like I saw the tweet out there saying,
NAL is not a competitive, there's a lot of blowouts.
But you can arguably say, because there's blowouts,
that's why we're so competitive, right?
Who would have expected 100 Thieves to 7 OSR?
Because SRs looked good up until this game.
They had one seemingly bad game.
Would have expected 9 to 7-0.
I did.
C9.
I mean 100 Thieves.
I mean the top eight team that could be making the playoffs
right now, I mean it's wild that we truly have eight teams
that without a doubt will be jockeying
for those top six spots.
Tomorrow we'll have another chance
to see how these teams wiggle their way around the scoreboard
right now, starting with another big one.
100 Thieves and SSG could go either way.
We then see Dark Zero Shopify Rebellion go at it a little later on.
Always fun to see a little major rematch.
I mean, Alastaz is going to have to wiggle their way into next week because there's
no way you're dodging that wild card.
That's a tough one.
Anything to look forward to, Kyle, before we close it out?
I mean, of course, I got to say 100 Thieves Space Station to start out the game.
That's a four.
That's a four.
That's a five.
That's a five.
Oh, brother.
These guys stink.
Hey, that's that's my wanted boys right there for this of them and now they're going at it
Like I said SSG from this going they're going here forward probably the underdogs and that after a hundred these just seven owed third
They're gonna need to do something big all right well quicker day today here in the NAL
Thank you so much for joining us on plate a four for laxing for mint for our entire studio crew
I'm Jonas Miller just saying thanks for watching and have a great night
I