I can't be I'm the one I've been in love with I'm the one I've been in love with I'm the one I've been in love with Let's go The words that make me feel lonely, the words that make me feel lonely, Mix them with the colors of the eyes, The tears of the people who disappear, The light that shimmers in the sky, The light that shimmers in the sky, I'm going to melt away, This is the last wish, I don't care if it's a lie, I don't want to see you anymore The lost voice, I was born in the town The smile I'm counting on I'm a person who's far away Even the distance between us is sweet Even if it's just a little bit I'll let you call me in this world He gets it, get this! He's the favorite man! He's the best by far! And Toppe never followed his powerhouse team from the 8-0 region! He's the best of the Grand Final! He's the deal with Rage, they love that as well! Much and certainly, Piper, Lavo, Jamie will be heading to the Grand Final! No! He's the leader best in this region throughout this year! They are the best that this region has got to offer! It's that time of the week again, that's right, it's our big APL weekend. I'm so keen to be back in the Asia-Pacific region. Today we kick things off with North, but before we get too deep into it, Pengu, it feels like it's been a while. I actually did some of the South American League with Jesse. You unfortunately had to take a miss on that bro. Just how have you been well? Pretty good, you know, we had some big selling stuff happening in all the regions as well as even in Israel We also in the L we had EML Ceasar officially started for Q1 competition because every single region has had their very first cleaning Yeah, we truly have kicked off at this point. We're getting ready for the Salt Lake City major that is coming up That's what we're all trying to qualify for so you best believe that we're getting keen for the next major a return to the United States of America and of course an allocation that certainly took me by surprise us to go to Salt Lake City are very interesting and unusual place very different part of the United States compared to places we've been before like Boston and Atlanta so this should be a very unique major. Also taught me some geography because honestly I had no idea where Salt Lake City was placed on the map so I thought you know we're going east coast like you should like He said no, it's practically on the west coast, right? You know, above, let's say, I guess, and they're not too far from Los Angeles. So it's quite far away for Europeans. You can scan the QR code right on your screen. It's a tick website, a ticket if you want to go. Maybe we'll see you guys there. Have a good time. Yeah, 100% go get your tickets while they're still available. But across the pond, over in Europe and the Menna League, of course, we've really, truly been underway. It's been kind of crazy. Obviously, every region has had a roster mania. But to me, I can't deny that my heart, when it comes to Rostamania, was really brought to Europe and the MENA league because of what has happened with Falcons, with G2, with Virtus.pro. And already we've seen a bit of a surprising result out of some of these teams. For example, G2 losing their first game, Virtus.pro, for the first time without a full Russian roster, undefeated. Yeah, no, it's definitely been an exciting to meet your CGML fan. The big kill they are here, right? VP shoots surprising performance. They picked up Na'Q, Rorak, and Skye. They're still keeping Dan and Pasha from their previous rush and rush and roster. Now people go, that shouldn't be a good turn paper. But like you said, they're having to feed it. They're doing so good. Meanwhile, D2, their ego's swinging every single gunfight. You're dying to skylight. That's a good old meme from that first couple of play days. No big surprises there, right? When you have a team like D2 with big star players and a bit of an ego, you're gonna see some pretty funny moments. And honestly, the EML, from a content perspective, it's definitely deliverable. There was some pretty Friday clips we were talking before we went live about that shot between, I think it was, how Sharman on Twisted Minds taking on GK, and yeah, it was kind of embarrassing what ended up happening as Hungry in that 1v1 shield outside on Conslip. Of course, let's keep rolling through the other regions. So let's talk about Asia down here in the APL. Of course, the Asia region is in a way our most potent of the subregions because they host Waybo Gaming. of course the best team in all of a pack top eight at the sixth invitational and Continuing the roster mania man. We've had some serious changes in here. Of course fury dropping their previous team They've now been called the six seven Ross They've actually recently got an organization a team orchid, but we'll perhaps talk about that on the Asia playday tomorrow Any highlights for you so far out of the Asia sub region? I mean big highlights honestly not too sure about particulars obviously way more gaming are as good as ever I might be a question mark about them was are they going to take this seriously to play the 100% or they're going to stop, you know Lack of some discipline ego challenging But they showed us that they are as good as they were last year and they're not cheap of that just elevating their Level every single stage essentially getting more and more experience. So I feel like a shot is played out kind of Yeah, yeah, of course, I wouldn't necessarily say the same down under in OCE, of course here's the bracket for what's happened so far in O's. Now, of course, similar to Asia, we do have a clear number one in this region. It's Enterprise. They've been the number one for a very long time, over a year now, and they picked up the two best players that weren't on their team in the region. So it's no surprise that Enterprise did away with Barbie Boys very easily. However, what is maybe a bit of a surprise? T90 was previously a tier 2 roster, take down that brand new Chiefs roster, which is funny, Nick, because it puts both Bobbyboys, which by the way is Wettables' team, you know Wettables, formerly of Chiefs, formerly of Bullies, he's going to be playing against the Chiefs for elimination on the next playday. I feel like O's they have this storyline where they always upset one of the top teams. They create a very good villainy storyline, we saw that before with the Titan roster for example. I'm not sure if we saw everything from that strat, but was the team's enemies matchup, was that team's playing really poorly, was the enemies playing really well, what happened there? I'll give you the TLDR. Look, Anios is not a team to underestimate. They actually beat the old Chiefs roster last year in a tier 2 circuit, and they do have some well-known players in the region. And also, let's remember, this Chiefs roster are quite a departure from the Chiefs that we know and loved in previous years. You know, it's not your odor. It's not your wet-ables. It's not your cheeks or in your Brenda. It's a brand new roster, much more like the old. They are completely... Anyway, it's a very different roster. Let's go talk about what we're looking at today, though, which is APEC North, of course, this is Japan and Korea. And this is that the matches throughout the bracket We'll be casting today, PENGU. Already Play Day 1 really impressed us. Japan is as strong as ever. That's the one. I mean, if you're a Siege Korean-based fan right now, you're going to be feeling a little bit bad with both. Hubble said it's all falling to KineTroph in Japan. It's the same thing here for B&K, FIRIX. Also losing 0-2 to SCAR. Now they're both going to go a little apricot, and eventually, you know, they're going to take each other out. That's what's going to happen. That's the reality of things, meaning that you're a bit more limited. But Japan, big surprise. not got ideal. I feel like we had CHE for a long time being like the frontrunner. Scarce had a couple of moments but nowadays they also have LFO, no name, not really showing up. But yes, they lost to CHE but they have some really good performance, they have some really good individual showings that have so much potential. Scarce, back with Nina and Rek on the same roster, really fired up in their gimmick as being a fierce. So, Japan, dude, more and more teams are showing up all of a sudden. Totally, of course today is going to be a really exciting chance to to see the final quarterfinal, a one semi-final and one lower elimination match. Keeping things off with our quarterfinal, Pengu, of course, this is very much a David and Goliath matchup. Can you be my enemy? Brand new through the Challenger series from Japan. These guys were very much a tier two or tier nobody. Roster, they made it through Challenger series, and they had a big upset over Vine in doing so, and made it through to this tournament through the kickoff. This is a very exciting time for young up-and-coming players. Yeah, honestly, one of the big strengths of these guys might be that they're a bit of an underdog, and I think you have to kind of play into it, right? Because you're going to go up against a pretty big name in this main bracket, regardless of whether you're up a bracket or eventually if you end up going lower. So play your wild card, play your surprising stuff, play out the fact that people don't know exactly what you're going to be doing. I think if, can you be my enemy, goes into this thing, the most default siege ever, they're probably not going to go super far. I want to see a bit of that flair from them. Yeah, they're very much going to need to do so. Of course, BME as we're calling them, I hadn't seen any of these players in Japan in the previous seasons of the Japan League. This is a true down view for them. Of course, they didn't even play on Play Day 1. This is their first match in Tier 1. What a crazy time to be one of these players taking your first step in. And it's going to be a really tough first match. Like you said, Nick, this entire region of APAC North has been really competitive. The Japanese teams are looking phenomenal. But one team that we know is at the very top of this region that we haven't yet seen play is D+. Korean organization, yes. But a full Brazilian roster made a recent roster change as well, bringing in World Champion from 2021. Muzie, formerly from NIP, to this already star-studded lineup. After a top 12 finish at the 6th Invitational Pengu, There's no question, D-POSK here are the favorite team out of this entire APAC North sub-region. 100% that it's going to be the right take here. Also, you see in the player camps right now, they are booted up in the same building on that bootcamp live. Of course, this is the thing, when you have an import roster, they might go home to Brazil to practice in the off-season, who knows who cares. But when you go into the active season, because they're natively live in the region, they're probably always going to be exclusively in that same building. So they're going to have that slight advantage, as you can see, having all the players in the same same space, being locked in 24-7, seating it up. But that's also a necessity for these players, because they're expected to get number one in the region and go international every single time. Falls, who's in the camera right now, has been phenomenal in the interviews, being very humble as well, and really have taken this floor from being, hey, we're the villains, saying, hey guys, we're actually going to play an APL, we're going to represent the region, we actually want to see that if we win, it's going to be an APL victory for the whole region. So, really hard to pay these guys. For sure. For the last two years, we've really been talking about these import rosters and informally elevate, which had a Brazilian team form the Game and Gladiators down in OCEA, which had a largely European team. And yes, they have been positioned as the villains in the past, but you're right. That story has really changed because D-POS has become such an integrated part of the APL. Now, let's talk about the best of three that we'll be playing today and the maps that we'll be going to for it. Obviously, no matter where we go, D plus are going to be favoured, but it is BME who get to pick the first map. Now, they're going to take us to Lair following that, it's Clubhouse, and then finally, an Attackers Paradise on Bank. This is spicy. I love all three of these maps. I love them as well, but you have to go, you know, these are pretty difficult maps to play, especially if you're less experienced. So it does kind of just say D plus the spirit before the map veto and looking at the map veto They're probably even more favorite right layer. Yes, a little bit new But still so many layers to pick apart plop house all about your fundamentals and you know strategy to get firm and Like how many layers and stress that you can have and then bank that just is a lot to deal with open attack and defense So honestly, yeah, there's gonna be D plus all the way for me Yeah, of course I think it'd be a miracle to see BMA come away with a win out of this game That would be without a doubt the biggest upset that we have seen in a pack so far Maybe even in the world Of course, I don't want to understate the fact that BME are up out of nowhere from the Challenger series None of these players have ever made it to the tier one of Siege before and they are going up against a top 12 team in The world in D plus Kia So this is a huge opportunity for some underdogs to make their mark on the APL to kick things off things off, we're going to their own map pick. Can you be my enemy versus D plus Kier here kicking things off on there? So you want to see the enemy kind of go for these out of the usual approaches that can obviously start in the upper end of bands. Now to their benefit, they are starting on the defensive side and I think it's going to be a lot less daunting if you're up against a really strong opponent like in D plus Kier. You can kind of, you know, have your prep work, follow the paper, not have to think about countering and making all these sudden adjustments on the operator phase, because that's the job of the attackers, right? Vendors, you do your stuff. And they have bans and pretty good operators here, right? Really talking about the execute, we're going about the Ying, the glass, taking someone that lethality away from D plus gear, it is really opening up the other portion, which is going to be shields. That's been the conversation for the last what James year and a half, two years almost at this point, where either you bend the shields and you get the utility thrown your phase or vice versa. Most of these open up areas like the Capita which still has a ton of utility between our players so very easy to see. But be my enemy they're starting off very strong themselves here but they clash after to shank you for plant denial, traps in the thin rear, this is a very good start from the ITV for my mind here from be my enemy. Yeah very much and they've brought so much utility they're looking to play some smart siege here and to be honest Pinger I'd love to hear your take on this. I feel like D cross is maybe giving them a little bit of grace by starting on the attacking side. Of course it being BME's map pick, then D plus Kier get to choose the starting side. They're the ones who have chosen to start attack. Now obviously in Siege at the moment there are some maps that have more attack aside. Leia doesn't take that list, one of the top three at least, and it's really bank and border that take the cake on that. But yeah for D plus to say no we are confident in our attacks, obviously that's a great confidence statement from them, but it does give a little bit of leeway to BME to build up some confidence on the defense. Yeah, so being we have to layer three times at least in the challenge league series run, so maybe there's one D-plus saying, hey we scouted them, we know what they're going to be doing on defense, we suddenly attack inside, we do our counter prep, and we can hit the ground running. Because that's often the thing, if you choose to suddenly attack on a non-attack or favorite map, it's all about the counting because you're expecting your opponent to be too specific. And also, if you have a sticky defensive shot of your own, you can then not show your enemy that, right? And then you can use yourself later on, maybe playing with a Calyphe or playing Solus or Roman, whatever the case might be. Right now, it's D plus attacking from the very bottom stairs, kind of right here, from beneath. Then you have Blackbeard upstairs, turned on the roof actually, who can then walk in the building and work the layers together. But before anything happens, D plus really struggling down in the drone work, making sure that the Roma's bottom stairs can stay safe. I couldn't help but notice, Koromomo from BME also has a vertical angle looking down on to where that buck was playing. Really nice little move. Also, love this DMR on the Hibana, making quick work of those keeper barriers from the Izami. So, very split from D+, but I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing from both teams so far. And you can see me making respect in that pressure and the verticality right constantly check the angle make sure Hey, it's holding me. I'm fine. I'm safe But look at the plus though applying pressure into me the locations downstairs on up to now in the back portion as well There's falls in that black beard leading the way forward and the big thing to me is be me have the clash of Sami holding the front portion Where there's not really a push coming from it's just me holding them with that DMR So be me like your first price in the back side. Yeah, it's a big pivot here from D plus gear They look to try and make their way inside. However, Koremoto He suddenly gets off the clash's shield finds a kill and retakes control of ops now D plus They hit themselves have taken control of server and the associated hallways But BME have fortified the bombsite. They've reinforced off of server and they've pulled back However, that pick might create an opening gap here for D plus Kira as they start to make their way inside though BME are ready for it. JV 63 is on the grounds comes. D plus need to convert this kill. C4 comes over the top, shot out of midair and Levy finds his big kill. It's all up to the final player and I mean, there won't stand a chance. Will they not against a very, very keen D plus Kia? It looked pretty tight there for a brief moment, but a great start from this Brazilian roster to kick things off in style. Honestly, not a bad stuff of BME at all, right? They've read the play quite well. Essentially in the beginning they're just kind of fanning out and putting out their feelers right as we said holding the bird, peeking up the room with the clash etc. Once they felt that backside pressure being like oh two three oh there's four people they just send the Asami and the clash to be won against the player in up-sroom that Hibana and they get the opening pick and they get that 5-4 for a brief second but then he blows here the strike back on the rocket stairs or display window and they get killed after killed they injure Tashanka in tribute early denying all that potential plant denial and that just meant they could keep pushing and keep taking that map space. So honestly pretty good showing for both teams it did feel like the clash played maybe too big of a role for BME being that wherever clash is we can find success everywhere else and it's extremely vulnerable because they all lost to individual gunfights but that's that top floor done it can be a bit tricky to navigate all those different angles but I think that's kind of the story of Lair. Now they're in the basement and and this Bumpsite plays kind of similar. If D-plus wants to just go for a, you know, horizontal basing attack and they go garage, they go locker board, attack all that bottom portion, there's like seven angles to watch and worry about various crossfires as both an attack and a defender. So it can be a lot for BME to keep track of exactly what is happening. And that's why I love this double shield play from D-plus. First it was Blackbeard who has the grenades, now it's Monty who has extended a shield and go for a plat into map control for free. but Echo's been brought out as a counterplay, so both teams again, honestly counting each other quite well. Wow, aggressive Pete there from Kormomo, with the shotguns with the drone, that's actually a very cheeky angle I personally have not seen before. Already a bit of map control taken here for D+, and great work with the Flores to clear out these Vulcan canisters on site. The light round is going to get much easier because of that early pressure alleviated should surely die music goes for the peak however bokeh managed to find one first takes down music on the day moss lot of damage done great support from your shiko with those your guide drones from the echo finally here's will take bokeh down and with that a little bit of pressure alleviated however there's no question the warden did so much damage in that position before finally being taken down I'm just in the left channel and can't see the flag. Oof, nice cover on the jump, the vault, managed to get spotted, yeah here comes the, oh no the Yokai needs to deny the plan, but it doesn't levy upstairs as well, but it's the couple for one years as well. Oh, it was looking so good for Be My Enemy, but then Yoshiko missing that crucial plan denial, and the rest of D-plus bringing into action is that despite this being a good showing from the Japanese, two rounds in a row, they have fumbled over the finish line. So, really interesting thing right there honestly is that D plus, they're winning these things on very small things, right? Normally when you go up against an echo or a trache etc. You'll go in that door, plant left hand side, and you just try to get denied. falls, just toss the smoke in that door, went right hand side, and then planted there instead. To Yoka, just kind of guessing what the plant is going down, it missed because of it. It's not being missing the Yoka, just being like, oh, I can't aim. It's literally falls, just planting in an off angle, and because of that, the Echo has to guess where that player is in the smoke. So honestly, it's me against the GUN Zero Two, but they're losing on tiny margins. 5 seconds left before insertion. It's a good sign. Now I did manage to get to watch a little bit of the Challenger series that these guys compared in. And I'll be honest, coming into that final match, the qualification game, for BME they came up against Vite, which is a team that has played in the Japanese region for many years and had a lot of more familiar players. And Vite had already knocked BME down to the lower bracket 2-0, quite dominantly. It was on this map that BME started their comeback They managed to win Lair and overtime and then continued throughout the rest of that series to earn their spot here in the APL for kickoff So we've underestimated them before I shouldn't do so again now D plus they are being pushed hard, but two rounds Yeah, still two rounds And they're gonna be happy with that I don't think they're gonna worry too much about the details just yet with these gunfights and change everything D plus they need all their attackers alive We've seen how they don't couldn't put split theory all around so far always having a backstabber somewhere and a main push on the opposite Direction then working together to meet in the middle. You've got a book of beyond me to hear often That's gonna be your backstabber. Let's let him guess that first kill the JD Castle move to action at the most important operating to the utero but has a great go with that damage buff that happened recently. You know, Torimono on that stairs, gonna lock him down on green. Well, hello, Blackbeard. Goodbye to falls! Big play here from the Izami on the staircase, about to get swung from the player down below, it's Levy. Finally clears out that meddlesome little Izami. And restabilizes into a 3v3, a lot of early pressure. But now it really comes down to that late-round coordination. All three defenders for BME are upstairs away from the bomb site. They have verticality to look for a plant denial later But they don't have a lot of utile to work with here Pengu. There's no solace There's no spokes or any way to kind of delay this push they can have to deny the plant with their guns or perhaps if possible the C4 Stereo fighter depth though because D plus has no way to plant either no shield no smoke no sense while the Ganagobst doesn't take those fires. There is one for Levy off of Triple. Oh, and Midi comes in from behind as well. Another round where it looks so close for BME until it simply does in great stabilization at the end of the 3v3 for D plus Kia. Is it Levy with three or four kills in that round as well? Yeah, four kills. Massive plays from him. That's three rounds deep already for D plus. They're not slowing down at any time soon. I mean, again, strategically, D plus aren't really winning the round. And the very first one I argue that they did right second round on basement, they actually lose almost two people to warden on a staircase because the echo drone denied false is Monty. That is BME winning that round strategically, but still losing the round in actuality because you know, the bus kept the plant down the smoke grenade. The round that we just witnessed same story D plus it lost the shield player, they couldn't clear green stairs. They lost two people to a sole player of Asami, and then they can't go for a plant. But Levy gets four headshots, so they win the round again. So it feels like D plus, they go into the round with a very clear strategy, but more often than not so far, they've actually been stopped before they can be victorious in that singular instance of play. Then saying guys, what about our players, let's just walk down the hallways and go over the gunfights and force those 50-50s. And maybe this is the thing that D and E are gonna be a bit surprised by, is how quickly D plus can just flip that switch and go, you know, D plus are being a little bit more passive, a little bit more respectful and then saying screw you. I mean, look at Levy, he's nine and zero. When he wants to take a gunfight, he's gonna win the gunfight every single time. Nobody can stop this guy. And if that's gonna be the story for this game of Lair, I think we're gonna continue on that exact same trajectory where D plus would just rely on Levy or individual players when things don't go well. I guess that's one thing that separates okay teams from really good teams is you might have some okay teams that can get by because they have really good frags so even when the plan doesn't go right they can kind of redeem the round out of nowhere and you'll have the opposite you know people like me in ranks not gonna win a gunfight but I have a few smart plays so I might be able to win around because you bring the right piece of utility And to be a proper good team in tier one, you can't just have one of those. And at the moment from BME, we're kind of just seeing the second one. Like, to be honest, like, they're playing pretty smart Siege right here, Pengu. They're just losing these 3v3s because a gunfight here and a gunfight there, and the round is over. That's it. I mean, they literally have three doughnuts right now on the scoreboard, right? They only have two players who are actually having kills on the board. That's gonna make a ton of difference here on a map-like layer, because you're not fighting in one or two areas of the map, meaning just one or two defenders can stop the enemy. You're fighting often in three or four areas of the map, meaning right now, how many plus player, right? I'll take the scoreboard. Okay, where is Jutsu-Ko playing? He's still a three. Let's take that gunfight, right? You always know that there's gonna be that weakness in that gunfight. Obviously for this one, it's gonna be a bit more each lower, until we got the demo striker that can go downstairs, the camp has a fire and smoke from falls, got the Blackbeard entry now from Levy. They're gonna wanna take off through them. They're gonna walk down those hallways. They're gonna wanna take apart this site. I expect this to be five people actually taking the same area for once without having a back step because it's risky But somebody stopped levy. It's gonna be JV But then he over swings a little bit for a second and get to your classic It looks like they're gonna try and make play on the back of it. Yeah, indeed. Look at the way D plus Kia are flocking Like most will play and looking to try and pounce on the chance It was given to them by that injure on the JV 63. He's back up again and still D plus R, playing from one player behind. BME just needs to restabilize, that's a great smoke. Just prevent the rush, make D plus KIA, think okay, we have to slow down, we have to reposition. And also notice Yoshiko's gone downstairs. I'm actually not against that, there's not that many strong spots upstairs any longer and you can be stacked quite close together so instead go for a back step flank below, give me a second avenue of attack, the other defensive side. Meanwhile, we've got the attack for D plus, back on the front portion, fire in the breach, smoke and guard as well, there's a last touch of B from defenders leaving just the echo alive, but now look at this, we need a gunfight, another one goes down for Tito's gear. Great fire, though, from the capitol. It forces Dukov back. Oh, no! A team kill as well from Bokeh! On the Dukov, and with Niers finding not one, but two kills! I think the round is surely over. The Echo has to come in to deny the plant, but the first one gets shot. I'm not sure where his other two are. Nice shot from Midi, but Niers finds his third, and there is no clutch potential there from BME. Another round that they get so close, but they cannot take home. Another round with strategic beam E, they placed solid siege, another round where they actually get the advantage, the opening kill, and they don't strength the map control, all those kills shortly after. Yes, JV got a kill, then got injured, but they stabilized, they stoked on the round, they hit that hard reset button, but then with CT+, they stormed through the bomb site. And honestly, I'm not sure that team kill really ended up making a huge difference because the person that got team killed was getting shot from two different attackers at the same time. So I wouldn't blame that as being like, oh no, they messed up. That's why they lost the round. It's just that once again, in some very simple siege terms, the gun skill difference. Deep prize, whenever they can't go for that default planet type of a desire, they will walk in together 3 to 1 and just pick up every single kill. 4-0 now, and there's a very clear sign I guess from the scoreboard perspective of why D-plus wanted the attack inside Yeah, it's been pretty easy going It has they've really been using all of these shields a lot of blackbeard Although the blackbeard has died both times. It's been played pretty early on now the blitz speak No, actually blitz has picked off of and the blackbeard is brought once again Now we're attacking the basement for the second time Remember the first attack on to this base from D plus. It was actually very good from BME They warded delayed a lot of time on the stairs found a kill the Monty was very slow And D plus kind of erupted at the end of the round to redeem what looks to be unwinnable at first Of course, but I saw a snake the more reasons that we've seen play the More and more regions and players swear that he is in the operating play right now easy easy romping out a little bit of map control could be the intel but no no longer no more die to the LF leave upstairs so I should know what's downstairs so Mike she didn't really death and then fall just turned to the bunch she came to the thorn trap there was really so much damage half his HP and he sprinted as soon as he detonated. That's impressive. From the thorn, Levy's got 10 and 1 by the left. I only stopped once in Blackbeard and then he said, you know, get me out of the shield, man. Get me to the long range gun and take those 5s. JV goes down as well to Mitzy. So again, another pressure on the D plus. Oh, another one for Levy. He makes it 11 before he finally goes down. It's up to just duck off in a 1v3. D plus to go 5 Nothing on their attacking side falls putting that pressure right on his face It doesn't have any more traps doesn't have any more utility the nades coming his way He means that he is doomed to die a great finish from Muzie and a great five rounds straight from D plus Kia taking no prisoners Against the new kids on the block of be my enemy. Oh It's gonna feel frustrating. I don't know what the you know, there's the thing about be me They're a new team. We don't know that much about them. Honestly, looking at the player camps, it does look like they've lost too much hope right now. It feels like a similar, same expression since we've seen the entire game thus far. But honestly, for this Dio 3, just stay composed, right? You're playing your round, you're playing your shot, you're playing your game, and honestly, if you look into the details here, again, B and E are not losing in these really big ways, and they have no fighting chance, whatever. There's been some close rounds. Again, one or two gunfights on their previous one goes differently it's a different outcome and this is the thing that frustrates a lot of people about siege right is that we always talk about strategy in depth and whatnot it is still an FPS game you can hit that one shot headshot you win the gun fight and you took down maybe a smoke or echo or maybe a shield player and how that about this gonna play out in the 5v5 without that head shot versus how it plays out because you get the kill somewhere can change the entire landscape of around so again if you my enemy can just reflect upon themselves here you go guys keep playing our siege. Yes, we're going 0-5, but actually, if you look deep into the round details, we're actually not losing that badly. Because again, I think they're so close to a run victory here, and it's a B03. So don't get knocked up mentally because of one bad map. Yeah, honestly, it could almost as easily be 5-0 in the other direction. I feel like the BME have played really well, but like you say, crucial mistakes here on there mean everything. And it's like just to kind of piggyback off that At that point you're making stages of course an FPS, it's an FPS with a lot of utility, tactics and strategy, but it is an FPS, but it's not just you need to be able to have good mechanics and flick people, it's about the team chemistry, it's about playing around each other, and that is one aspect where D plus are running circles around BME. Obviously, you know, Levy's going 11 and 2, there have been a lot of really good entries from Neers and Midi, but whenever D plus are making a play they're doing it together. Whenever they see a gap, they're going together. And that chemistry, that unity amongst the team, elevates them to being a world-class level team. It's also the shield's bringing you, right? Like, you know how back in the day when you played Lion, it used to like a 3-2-1 countdown to play together? Because it's like, the line's gonna literally count down. Shield's kind of a force to play around the teammate, because you have a shield walking and it doesn't technically have an active gun, so he has a gun behind him. Now you're licking up two maybe three attackers in the same portion of the map to take that fight together It could mean the ship and turn the menu later on for pop house who knows Issues pop house base very you know this similar very different to layer. It would be mine here right now I think the biggest obstacle is how do you want to try and target band and counter D plus? Because the issues of this map won't be the issues in the next map, right? But for this it's gonna be a talk for pushing clear again option games that a bathroom for the back pressure oh team kill and an intro kill for me taking great shot not so great shot and like you said white people say twice before died early maybe played three times now dies early again I think Lenny's gonna be pretty upset about that his stats I think he's just gone from a 200 EPS in the 100s again poor guy yeah the team kill but at least for BME they found a kill back again with nears going down so they are in the numbers advantage here d plus though we know it doesn't take much for them to bring it back again and musy's made his way to the top of the mezzanine which means he's in a perfect position to contest these players in the hallway i believe that's jv 63 just wait and d plus will be able to make their move he pushes one crucial kill that could be the one he falls back and stays alive actually very important Campaigns have a server. 15 seconds now. Mipsy, G plus, they're on for the push. They have to score right now. Yeah, this is a good angle though. From Muzie, takes out JV63. Muzie's now getting flanked, but he finds that kill as well. It's just him and falls in a 2v2. It's gonna be challenging with the Arunigate in the way, but Bokeh's the last one standing. Falls. Low HP is forced onto the plant, and Bokeh can quickly swoop in, find the final two kills, and get the first round on the board for Be My Enemy. And you see there are player cams. So important for these players. I can see the world from up here I can see the world from up here So, that concludes the first half and honestly, yes, it looks like it's going to be a little be a 5-1 scoreline here with D plus which on paper not really to surprise in the better team top dogs you know first place last stage last year but if you look at how each individual one was played this could have easily been a 3-3 or even dare I say a 4-2 in favor of BME now side-spot happens and this honestly with the real test for me occurs James can BME look as competent and as potentially here on the attacking side because potential defense is one thing, you prep your strats, you preach them, you see what happens. On the attack is not about what you want to do necessarily off the rip, it's about what the enemy is doing and what you can do against it. And that, for most teams, is much more difficult. Yeah, absolutely. It's so much less preparation based and much more reactionary. You have to see, okay, what is this setup? Are we going to change any operators? Are we going to change where we're going to push? Are we going to try and hard counter what we see set up or We're gonna try and play our own game. What about during the round if they're going for a flight? You know if they're changing their setup as the top teams are want to do mid-round Pre-positioning changing their setup stripping away different layers of defense. There's so much to work through Here for BME having a look at that defensive setup. Thank you. You've got the castle making an appearance between castle and his army Well D plus can create quite a fortress and help also a very unusual way of setting up ops room a a right side here and a castle barricade but it's just feed holes next to the one reinforced I like this I mean we spoke about BME having to play a bit of an off game of siege but I'll be positive bring something little bit of one gear to the scenario BME goes how do we um what are they baiting us like do they want to clear it the most not the clear it like what's the the train is all right now. Usually if you're an attacker and you see a cast of barricade, I feel like the line of thinking should be if they want to put a cast of barricade here that technically speaking you know so valuable, we should want to deal with it and clear it. Looking at the plus and how passive they're playing close to the bombsite and not playing on the room or also casting it off, they probably just want to close off that as a back step potential saying if that cast of barricade does not get broken we know everything over there is going to be clear. And if you look at the attack inside right now, only one thing can really clear these castle barricades. It's going to be the floors. So very limited soft destruction on the attack inside with a very high reliance on utilizing glass to smoke it into twitch and the capitol. That means unless the glass is successful, I'm not sure what else they can really do that. It has to be you. You really try and make that one playwork. little bit of backup to do the castle barricades if you've broken sixes on the uh... glass capitao uh... also you can always use the hibana but actually we just saw the florist don't get muted out by mime's new jammers both the florist and the hibana but will be well counted by that means so if there's no success here that's pretty much gg to the castle barricades it's true that it is jammed right But I guess the outside reach is open though, yeah, so they just pop the jammer and pop the wall. Shouldn't be too big of an obstacle. So that three smokes in pocket in terms of throwables and two from the capitals are plenty of smoke shrouding to enable the glass. And the only real counterplay is gonna be those two C4s in pocket of Mitzi and Lucy. Because Fawzi's playing on the main stairs and he's got only one toxic babe to his name and he's not gonna be in a spot to actually use it by the bomb site. This means that B and me, honestly, could be on for a very good first attacking round. The deep wasp is doing very well not to get baited here, midi is just lying in waste, gov really wants him to push, he's just holding that actually turns him for a brief moment and the shotgun comes out easily takes him down it's a poorly timed push from JV63 and midi will claim both of their lives. The quick end to it with a 2k from Muzie on the tuberowl makes a flawless rounds falls frankly She looks bored. 6-1. And map points on the first map for D-plus Kia. Yeah, I mean, looking very comfortable. And again, I feel like it's the same story every round. BME not making any major mistakes anywhere along the way. They lose the backstab gunfight, they lose their front gunfight, they lose every gunfight. And of course, you lose every fight, you're also going to lose the round. Strategically, they actually did all the things that I wanted to see from them. They could have maybe gone like the Deimos buck route and gone downstairs vertically, but they got the Mute Jammers on the bonus side and of course they can be roaming beneath as a bit scary, a bit risky. So it just feels like Bima and enemy are doing the right things, but they're just kind of falling short a little bit in those different areas. Like 5% there, 1% there, winning that gunfire, staying alive. Maybe playing a shield could be a good follow-up as well. We saw them kind of just like punch a barbwire on the back side for the backstab and then you know, you just have shotguns one-off that sound you. If you're playing, you know, your Blackbeard, you're playing something like that, you can say they should play your boss, the Firefire, and then run away, and it's in the gun in that direction who doesn't have to deal with that piece of utility now. So I feel like, again, tiny details, you could be mean of going the right way, but very much leading them to these very one-sided rounds. When the time comes, don't talk to me, don't talk to me. Well, it's the final chance. Thank you, final chance for being my enemy to win a round, a second round I should say, on the map pick of lead before we go to clubhouse which, let's be real, is going to be much harder. Wow, what a shot from Niers. That is embarrassing for poor Dukov. Looks like D plus are looking to get aggressive now with a lot of these players heading upstairs onto the roam. Actually putting some utile up on the roam. It was giddy actually looking to protect Niers. Niers is in the perfect position to take the 1v1 against JV63 the Blitz, but it operator for it too, got an impact and a Grishmo in pocket to deal with this Blitz. If JV6Fig gets better than him, that's going to be it surely. The last Grishmo goes out, almost a kill. Second player following behind, Nears will fall back. The Blitz is taking a look. Oh, this is what he just said! Oh no! Oh, it's pure comedy! Yoshiko finally finishes off Niers! He's on the side! And now GV's on the side! A hundred and ten seconds in the round, and now he's dead. This has been a last ditch effort for BME. They said, look, we may as well go for Broke. And unfortunately, if Broke is all they have got... Yes! one head, then down another, and if you hop over to the bottom side in 5 seconds and he's dead. Honestly, I respect the 4th centipede feeling like, okay, I could be fined upstairs, let me just go somewhere else. And he would be right, Moosey is still creeping up on top floor, he can watch beneath that hatch instead of lobby, I think it's a good inkling that somebody's downstairs, but does he know exactly where he goes playing from? Probably not. Oh, a shot from Moosey. 3v2 now. That was a pretty determining gunfight there. If Muzie had been shut down, then it's numbers advantage BME, no more Scopus, no more roam to worry about. But because he's still alive, not only is the defuser caught, and now not Karamo is going to have to go get it back, but be my enemy and not going to know whether Muzie is upstairs or whether he's teleported back to site, and he can continue keeping up that pressure throughout the rest of this round. Yeah, that's a booby zone as well. Smoking is topping the hatch and honestly for BME, I don't know what they want to try and go for here. I mean they had to go for the desperate play. It's a 2B3, they can plant. If they just push in from Carrot, they can drop down the hatch and work together. Well done, fight. Not a bad kill. Levy goes down. Top fragger. Oh, good pre-fire there from Cormomo. Fools It's just waiting though, but now Moosey's gone down so it's a 1v2 opportunity for falls. A bit of damage there onto Boca. It's going to be a tough plant here for Be My Enemy. Both players so low, but Boca finds the kill and can you Be My Enemy stay alive for a brief moment longer? Beautiful. Again, they just had to go for a wonky play, right? They don't have that plant, they don't have any stability in the server. So it's a head start with this last Mokunate and walk with the backstab. It's how it started off. Domination from D-Block's gear. And then, I mean, in JV Dice, you're on the bomb side with the Blitz, I'm thinking, that might just be the round, but then I saw Muzie get the kill, and she got him like, no, that's the round, Don. And yet, they keep on fighting. So they've officially won one round on attack and one round on defense, but I'm impressed that it only took them two attempts to get an attack round, them six to get their first defense it's kind of impressive that they are on the attack on the front foot so quickly at the half swap especially being down five one. Oh that certainly is impressive I also do want to say I think D plus they thought you know we can kind of simplify this round a little bit and just play aggressive on the room and play for kills I mean that's it looked like what Neutra's doing right? Spawn picking up store fighting the Blades, swinging the capitals shortly after but if you want to go for that aggressive you know four plus one kind of roaming strat where you have one guy just going as aggressive as you can if possible. All you need is one good kill on defense and it's completely worth it. I mean again look at this lineup for example in the attack. If you take down any operator maybe besides the striker it's a high value kill. It's gonna be your plant enabler in the sense your EMP in that, your only harbinger in Hibana really. I guess it's a Faken Openers and then Black Beach on his shield. So if D-Pulse again when I come up with that aggression, very valuable. Oh god. Oh hello. He's alive. Yeah thankfully both players are still alive. Duckoff very much needs to survive a bit longer. Ball's on his room upstairs. We can hold on for as long as he possibly can. Levy's in a great position here and the keeper barriers are perfect. Crit sees one-way angles where he'll be able to see there but they won't be able to see him. They can shoot their feet too perfect for Levy for a position to play. He's only so potent on these stairs. He tries to knife away the keeper and he does so. He is kept at bay. C4 as well wants to go out onto this window. As soon as he gets opened up by JV63, he is gonna wait for a chance. Out goes the The EMP somehow missed the C4. Thankfully though, for being my enemy, still the C4 found nothing. Now no one's watching him downstairs. There's a person in the outside window of hell, but the Assamic Keeper kind of locks off the angle, nobody on the door beneath the staircase though. They actually use EMP, frag grenade and two or three people on that green staircase spot just to clear it without getting a kill. It's hecticly not worth it, but what they're being said is they get the map control without anybody dying, but right after they get the control, then Fatshia goes down to these longer angles by the bomb site. So D-plus ends up winning out the exchange, they have map control advantage and they have map player advantage as well. Yeah, what concern here is that we don't have a lot of pressure upstairs for D-plus. Of course, they've completely vacated the second floor. That does give an advantage for BME to go and take it up above and look to try and isolate players on site. Usually, you will never abandon the top floor here as a defensive side, not until the round is pretty much over. You'll almost never have five fall back to the ground floor, so a little bit of an unusual play here from D+, it feels a little risky. I'm sure that BME can clear these corner positions from the bustle. I mean, they're building very smarking into the townspear using the turret almost against VME. Lapid has to kind of walk down the stairs because it's green and just gets some information by the bombs because it's right behind the angles. Yeah, bit of a mistake there from Falls, but me, we'll trade him on back. Now pressure alleviated from outside of the breach on the bomb side, Muzi going for a flank up above and with Bishiko on the ground. This is all he is. The end of the round and the end of the game for D plus Kia. B my enemy only get two rounds on ban that pick as the Brazilians over in Korea start phenomenally in their opening game here in APL, APAC North kickoff. They've come out windmilling like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the whole king of a scrap! PEDO! If he goes on contest and the kick goes cold, that'll be devastating. The grenade goes through! That's the swing! Cyber and Bullet are able to get one piece with the kit so far away and Canadian down upstairs. Wow, that was special. It's a one versus three to hold, and they're pushing from behind. He's found one. He's got to get the vertical as well. He gets pulled off, Tim. But now it's the last three or four seconds. Ryder's got another. He's held off. He's going to do it. And B and Q take the two-one win. Both players spotted, but the Ransom he made successfully. Oh! Oh! Another one for Sartle. Inflammation from the Bs. He goes, Tim. No, he's not! No, he's not! They cement themselves as one of the greatest of all time! He's starting to get cooked alive only, but he's using the stem pestle. Look at this from the dark. Surely not. Brilliant! That's Clayton here in my book. The place the game hits the old body doesn't quite catch it. There's the... Oh, my God, Sam! He doesn't have the motivation! He's going back. He's not quite sure. He This is an angle that he might be able to contest no personally takes just a bit of damage there Walk I guess the second one he clips though will get one training it into a 2v2 90 pushing on the side the bed It will lose out on this he clips the last alive on the Ella He will down BC Canadian positioning to pick up but that's gonna result in a double net crocs the final defender against vertical the absolute domination I'm going to keep it going, I'm going to keep it going, I'm going to keep it going, so I Run it up, I'ma keep it going to the end of the night Throw it all in my mouth It just happened to be one of those games where the scoreline just really didn't tell the whole story. Yes, it was an utter domination on the scoreboard by D plus Kia, but thank you, we really can't give enough credit to be my enemy. Those first five rounds, despite them losing every single one, each one of those rounds was very close. Yeah, I mean, I think the match replay highlight reel here shows the score. It's gone 5-3-1 by D plus in every single second. It's It's a lovely highlight reel, even 9-0 before it's offering his first death, and he uses farming in BME most of these rounds. Honestly, I think there's a little potential here. How they're playing was strategically sound and they have so many close moments, but ultimately, they lost to this stuff that you see right here. They just lost to gun fights. That's fixable. This could be a bad take, could be a bad angle. I think the enemy that could just be the real deal. I think that's why some leadership and perhaps some coaching could really help out this up-and-coming roster because you need to have confidence in a moment like this, where you've just actually had a pretty solid game against the best team from APAC North, arguably the second best team from the whole of APAC, if you look at their side results, right? That's where DPOS kind of sit at the moment. So I think that, yeah, if you're BME, don't get too down in the dumps about it yet, obviously it's It's going to get harder in this series because you're still playing against the best team in APAC North. And, of course, going to Clubhouse, which is D plus' map pick. But after today, going into that lower bracket, I could seriously see if BME just tightened up the ship a little bit with some of these details, they have a bit of confidence in their gunfights, if they really, if they don't lose that confidence that they had to go for these clever plays and clever setups, then, yeah, they could absolutely upset some of the other teams in this league. It's so hard to judge a team when you do a team that's qualified from CL, taking the speaking bottom barrel, or against literally the best team in the region. That's just an unfair comparison. The fact that the rounds are looking as close as they are is really why we are praising BME despite a significant one-sided loss score-wise. If they can do this against D-plus, you would have to assume they can go toe-to-toe with a lot of teams that are not D-plus' level. Yeah, of course. And look, we've already seen a huge glow up from BME after the early stages of the Challenger series where they were really struggling. For example, they got 2-0ed by Vite in the upper bracket in the playoffs of the Challenger series. They go into the lower bracket final, which is the actual qualification game. They play the exact same team, Vite, and they take them. They have a really close overtime on the first map, and then they win 2-1 afterwards. So we're already seeing improvement. I think the fact that they've held a candle to D+, here it speaks volumes as well. So it's an exciting time. I just really hope this team sticks with it because they could be the next up-and-coming Rising team in the region if they start up But of course let's talk about the team that has destroyed them so far and one particular player has been responsible Levy had an Unbelievable monumental performance. You said it Pengu nine kills before he even suffered his first death Yeah, and he was doing this mostly just as the I don't know the saving grace the hero the playmaker This was not levy going on the entry getting one two three kills. No, this was t plus plan a doesn't work out How are we gonna win the round now? Um, where's levy? Get me levy. He's gonna get the job done He would get a 4k you would get a 3k look at this round It's a 3v3 a minute left. I can't get down a diffuser. I don't have way inside the bomb side Then levy he wise things he gets the first one and it gets the second one later And before this clip even started, he got the first two initial kills when D plus started off on the wrong side of the round Maybe we'd be doing this in about half the rounds to play it on lair and he was just always the why it was wasn't a fair Yeah, three entry kills 14 kills overall in just nine rounds only four deaths an unbelievable performance from Levy but of course it continues now on clubhouse D plus here have decided to take us to this map and really, it's BME who are on the ropes. After losing their own map pick, they need to come back on an even tougher battleground. Clubhouse, it is stable, it is classic, it is so typical, Rainbow's succeed, and it's a chance for D-plus to show us what they are worth and fly into the upper bracket semifinals in a 2-0 fashion. Let's see if BME can do anything more that they did on Lair here on Clubhouse. So for D plus, if they were to win this, of course, we know from the bracket who they're going to play next, they're going to be up against CAG, so a much more formidable foe. The other aspect here is I want to now do the artist and D plus, because yes, they won one sidedly on the scoreboard and layer, we talked about a whole thing how to play it out. But D plus, they had a lot of plan A's on their attacking side, you know, they picked operators with a very clear goal in mind and the reason why Levi had to clutch up so much and why he had so many kills doing so is because Planet didn't work. They would lose a very important operator, they would not find the entry, or they would get locked out by a play from BME. I want to CT plus now actually have a Planet. This is most notable of course on the attack and side-by-side defense but still just keep in mind for later. I want to see them have Planet actually work out. Klobhouse is all about that you see what happens in the prep phase as an attacker and defender and then you set up your countermeasures. Klobhouse is all about the fundamentals, the depth and the variety in how you play the same bomb side with small changes. So that's the test here for me. Can D plus lock this one out in a clean fashion and not rely too much on individual heroics? And the other side for BME, I want to see them play that same style because they are playing solid and sound siege and lair, which is a bit weak in the gunfights. If you wanna make those gunfights stronger, as I said before, playing operators that can nerf the defenders, like demos like Dokka B, are excellent, and playing information operators, Rump here, like Solid Snake, or Shields, is also excellent. And they've got both of those things with this round. So this could be a good one. Good early round droning, I will say. It's pretty rare that you'll get a drone into sight so early in the year to call for late round. Unfortunately, it might not be super possible because D plus are already getting aggressive. It's nears this time around to lead the way or the Brazilian roster Great opening kill for him bit of damage outside. I think Yoshiko must have I don't know if he was sprinting towards strip or if he was actually entering perhaps without a bunch of information Well, it's allowed at the soulless to run rampant now The day most will track nears down and I think that's probably gonna be his Q to fall back to side indeed it is but that's really probably I mean the job done for him find one kill fall back to site two minutes to play BME have a little bit more work to clear the best amount before they can properly set up and start thinking about next acute. Here's the fingers paradise you get the the five versus four take away very important operating the doker bee and you can just literally just cannot AFK right now right look take your hand off the mouse and keyboard stretch your legs to next 30 or 40 seconds you get D plus because we know realistically nothing's gonna happen and that's no critique here to BME that is just how you play clubhouse when you're attacking you got to get all the hatches destroyed get the flanks established set up the bomb side then you go for an execute obviously nears right now got testing his limits by reapportioning regression up here top floor in CCTV getting demo strike where she blitzes silhouette behind them as well near should be dead here but can they get him done clean? Oh they certainly can't not when he's ready to turn on them like that! Another! On the ground but finally Nears is put to rest! So much damage has been done to fall all the way back to the bombsite and then go for a rerun and find two and a half kills unthinkable. He has single-handedly already won this round. I mean I guess I get back this is the true scenario I should have been there in Club Bars. or people haven't played the game yet, and you're actually guaranteed the round victory. Yep, there down goes the Blitz, that's gonna be the phone trap with mythy and support, leaving just your 1 health, JV 63 on Daymos, and of course, all the snake and give information, but to who? Who's gonna act upon that intel, my friend? That's the problem. There's often hats stuck on the staircase, and a great one-tab here from boss based on JV who's still on health, leaving just one sole player stuck in Moto with going on fire to unleash the war. Yeah, and they're gonna keep on swinging and they don't care that you hit one Nali shot They will continue looking for the kill and D plus styling on BME in the opening round of Clubhouse It's not looking too hot here for the Japanese. Let's be real Panku There are many ways back into it and the problem is the more that D plus play like this The more that nears is afforded the luxury of going solo runs finding 3ks It's just gonna make things even worse the mental game for me. There's no universe You should be able to make this happen and no the fact that it took that much effort and that much time to clear him Yeah, it's just it's gutting for me One of the big issues is And this goes back to layer obviously When you feel as a player in the server that your opponent for example is never watching the flank you're gonna start going for the flank because I mean it's free right you probably have players like levy like nears go guys when they go for room clearing attack inside they don't really cut off the rotations don't apply some of pressure they can't just walk in the door and it gives you like a 50-50 gunfight and when you're room clearing somebody with five attackers and strong operators the last thing you want to do is make it a 50-50 you should make it as unfair, as humanly possible, for that solo roamer. Niers was like, well, they're not good at doing that. I'm gonna solo roam aggressively, not once, but twice. Because I can win that 50-50 more than I lose it. And that's how you get a 2 for 1 trade, essentially. And now we see Niers again, aggressive inside bottom garage, has a solo scan, knows there are no drones, but there's a monthly who's literally walking past him. He is literally on for another freebie. If he plays this perfectly, he can once in the month when he walks Steven's with telegraphers and again, insane value. Do they know? No, they don't. I think he thinks they know. No, the Monty was just looking at the camera. Oh yeah, now they know, unfortunate. That would have been a free kill, but he should be able to get away with his life. I don't think there's much. Oh, JV is above the hatch, I think, in stock. Think so, yeah. Yeah, he was, but he dies! Oh my god, what? What? They might have played that so well though. That was smart. They used the lion they had JV63 on the hatch and yet He still dies to Niers Brutal absolute route around again Things are looking good. And all of a sudden you just die Still got the Monty. They can still make headway here in cash CCTV But the thing I love about this attack or this digital defense and D plus But the attack from nearest it's how passive everyone else is playing by the bombsite mostly with nearest is doing whatever he wants But freedom down beneath a great need trust our plan scan as well He jumping the hats beneath him try catch him off guard, but again he has to better read didn't fall backwards He's actually going forward taking the fight and stuck Yeah smart move from duck over like you thought that throwing that made with baits nears and trying to fall back now He's about to get double swung as if he finds one again be my enemy played that really well they had a player peek from the window at the same time as a player peeks from bottom garage yet he still tears one away before falling levee's also found one of the bombsite with the FMG from the Denari now 3v2 it's not easy for bogey to get back to this but he does find one kill on the midi will there be a re-swing here from falls there will somehow bogey misses all of his shots and falls turns around to find another one. It's a 1v2 for Bokeh now and BYN we just cannot get into these rounds because D plus are not letting them play a typical game of Siege. They're just playing aggressively and continuing to take the fight to the attack. So the round will close and D plus find two rounds in a row. It's crazy what Nierus is getting away with, I mean it started off in bottom garrison, you said it so well. Both times, it's gonna be BME playing it correctly, having a 2v1, having a 3v1, but still getting the worst end of the deal, like here, going 1 for 1 trade is obviously phenomenal, right? Nierus gets the kill, then you take it down. On paper, not a bad trade at all, but the fact that Nierus then, you know, gets to just live and set the server for so long and applying so much continuous pressure, Niers is not going to take that loss as that, oh my god, I got outplayed, they played that so well. He's going to say, I was roaming for half the rounds, they had no idea where I was, I burned like three line scans, I got my kills. Like, as a roamers, you do that, even if you die. That is significantly gained for the rest of your team, because mind you, when it came time for bombs that execute, they had spent half their frag grenades and half their lines, well, more than half the line scans, on one damn player downstairs. So and I think that's the important thing to to notice a roamers How can I make this round a better outcome for my team without just simply getting kills? Yeah, it's just about burning tools right if you kill five drones and you bring two line charges You might not get a kill that round, but you've made the brown certificate easier for everybody else even if you die Yeah, I see a lot of ranked especially at the kind of lower level the non like solo Q-TAC level a A lot of players underestimate the value of everything that isn't getting a kill whether it's breaching a wall whether it's making a call out whether it's giving some information to your team whether it's delaying time Whether it's burning you till and yet you're dead right like the top level players. They know that that matters in some ways more than getting kills If you go one for one at the start of the rally you spawn pig and then you die and it's a 4v4 in five seconds That's okay. It's not as good as if you wasted two minutes as a solo Roma and burnt a bunch of Util, even if you don't get a kill and you die. The question is often consistency. It's not can you do it one round in 10 or can you do it once in a while? The question is how consistently can Nier's be a problem for BME on the entry? How consistently can he stress the time in his advantage in just very utility? I like this mini play though from Ushiko. the sense wall that can get popped whenever he wants to cover the CCTV window. Of course you can still get smoke banged kind of through that wall but they won't know exactly what they're aiming for and no other no operators can look through the sense projector either in a ward no glass it's not to do this smoke as a projector wall these days with the mini rework that happens on timeback. We got the Monty going on in can punch the mirror window if you want still and try and make an entry pocket for Jim. Oh, Niers actually managed to survive and not get concussed by Dukov, who ends up falling and the second one to follow. Oh yeah, everyone's dying. Everyone from Be My Enemy is looking to make a play, looking to jump in, make their way up the stairs, and one by one they will fall. It's just JV63 coming up the stairs. He finds one with that LMG, looks for a second. He's about to get swung up nice close and personal by Niers and D plus KIA fight a third round of defense in a row. They continue to dominate and BME are really struggling here on Cobhouse Attack. No two ways about it. I think the good news here for BME is that the things they're struggling with here on Clubhouse is very similar to that of Lair. Again, they got there, they're straddling when I go for here on the attacking side, you know, they wanted to go for Jacuzzi, Jim, Master Bittrum, Clear was again, not a bad idea at all. But the very small details is kind where they have problems. The Monty walked in the gym breach or the jacuzzi breach rather, I want to punch the mirror window and while doing so, Monty got shut down to literally one point of health, like one bullet point of health. That means that Monty kind of dies trying to punch the mirror window, then the Sophia gets pre-fire one tap on a kick sling holding the sling, which is obviously very expected if you're near, right? Of course the guy behind the Monty is going to hold the tiniest of angles, you're just gonna take that pre-fire. You're kind of missing the pressure, right? Where's the capital fire, obviously? Where's gonna be the verticality bar? Where's the grenade from Master Bitch from Window to kind of dislodge Niers from a safe position? You're just giving them these even in-game gunfights, which again, you are gonna be a worse team, and you are obviously worse players. That's experience that anybody on D plus aside, They got years on you in tier 1 play, you need to kind of make it unfair, again, bring utility, bring a nade, bring the things that are like, what's Nier's gonna do about Captain Fire? He's just gonna die, he was sprinting through it and you shoot him, that's all he can do. So I want to see them just be a little bit more sharper than she needs any details because they're not making it fair to themselves how some of these rounds are being played out now. I think the D-plus will continue to just push gunfights here. I think that they're kind of going full ranks now like you look at this lineup and it's pretty much traps it's Things that just make things a little bit harder for BME to make entries and when you're worried about taking gunfights Doing a hundred different things when you're playing shields traps always make things even harder now I'm wondering What's the play with the alibi here on nears because recently alibi kind of got a new purpose Wait, they're not gonna drain. He's still under the kitchen window. They have no idea. Hmm. Hibana's about to die. Oh How many seconds is she survived here, what do you think? At least five. Oh Maybe ten. Oh the duck we call could be everything. I don't think they heard it. No, same. There was shotgun shooting below Smart move Nears is triple drone now midi looking for an aggressive play doesn't set a stock find one trying to get traded By dark of on the blitz but it doesn't work out 5v4 for D plus Kia after that opening pick and nears has managed to get back to site It's been on the alibi were you referencing the solid sneak instruction? Yes, I was trying to get I was trying to get to that but like not really here but yes yeah i'm not really excited but essentially alibi is prismas when their play style and activated when someone pops the scanner or walks around they will trigger and look like a real player so by playing alibi out against a solid snake you're kind of bringing a soft counter which throws a big like okay why are there eight people on my screen that i'm scanning when there's only five defenders well prismas right yeah obviously not brahman this round You won't see it, but I maybe they were expecting it. It's their nearest. It says I don't care what I'm playing right now It's gonna run around a second or she'll come a fuck it because alibi does have that and that gun is actually really good the MX four storm oh After run one way or the other or shooting you can't hesitate Unfortunate there the thorn trap getting a free kill for D plus Kia and whether these will go down So no more alibi here JV trying to bait out any thorn traps get them to detonate so he could make his way up slowly but no no luck and levee will find one another kill from the storm trap bloody hell Give this guy another chance Not core remember I should say finding the first he's being spotted now It's actually only a 1v2 with midi on the ground, but he's gonna get continually pinged and continually swung It's a hard clutch attempt and it won't get across the line D plus continuing and there's just no hesitation whatsoever No, I think they figured out they can play this game a little bit more relaxed in the side of D plus, right? I mean, again, they have a pretty hard bracket. They got a pretty big game coming up next time where they play CAG if and when they were to win this matchup. So the more they can kind of hide, if you want to call it that, will be better. Of course, it'll be a BME tactical timeout right now because they got to figure out guys, um, what's happening and how do we get around the board here? First things are looking a bit dire. Um, not the same look on Lair where you go, oh, it's one sided, But actually no this is one sided for this one. Yeah, you're right. This is a very different story to what we saw on lair So how do you get back into it here to be my enemy just a few more chances on the attacking side? The piece of advice that comes to mind is when you're getting run around Simplify right, but how do you simplify on Cobhouse with these attacks? Well, that's kind of been their problem, right? They've almost oversimplified and it's kind of why they're in this position. They're not using the usual means of futility to get a kill. That's often how Pofas works, right? You play, let's say, an EMP to get the wall opened up, or a sphere from below, or a spear to your grenade. You'll use the same kind of tools like hands of fire or grenades to get player kills from those isolated room positions. of CCTV calligraphers when you're playing against a dream extension, instead of a bathroom, you can use these things to get kills. Be my enemy, need to simplify the attack, maybe buy something more bodies on the same area of the map, so if they want to take CCTV Roam Clear right now for example, they can send 5 people dealing with that Roam Clear, don't worry about a guy backstabbing jacuzzi, office and just send five people working together on lounge, parish, cctv breach. And then secondly because you have five people around you in the same area, use each other. If there's a guy top right stairs a garage counter out there's a guy in the i need a nade right now who has nades and somebody goes i i have nades okay you come with me you're gonna need this guy i'm gonna hold the angle it's truly one in with utility like small things like that and simply break the round down to very small problems most of the time. Problem one, probably if you're going to be attacking their own carries from nearest, he's going to be the first in action, so figure out how you're going to deal with him together. A concern is try to coordinate all of that when you're a newer team, it's going to sink time. Yeah, near the end of the round, you're going to be dealing with mirror windows, you're going to deal with some really impressive tripwires from the Denarii, and of course the Thorn Tracks, which got two kills last round, let alone the position set up By the his army protected by the war miles so it becomes a very difficult task in the end round. Oh quick spot there on To midi in cash You get really shooting Selma's off the wall perhaps Might have you know I think he did yeah, cuz he is almost almost in pocket now with that last one being spent It was dad. He's just a mall in the exterior and the interior, but not these campers. Yeah, must have been a Selma Now they've done that for a step, right? It's a definite kill anybody but they've gotten map control for free. Everybody's alive and they spend you know Like grenades and heart destruction. This is technically really good It's just really good for you know, let's say maybe deepness is a CAG Maybe not because it's haggars might be running low on time But this is great for being evil steep plus because they got map control with five bodies now What's the second step you gotta start working those bombs at windows right caught off the rotations and be honest angles Then you can start working into connector with the black beard start working the office hatch if you want to attack it and say guys What are we attacking gonna be office? It's gonna be truthy and you send five people to that one area don't spread out to thin I've been spotted the phone trap It's a dodge great grenade. It's exactly what you call for Nick another kill as well It let me finish off on the floor. How do they deal with these denari tripwires though is a lot still to clear It's important now to consolidate the advantage here for B my enemy D plus will be looking for picks and they have to make sure not to give them anything It's gonna be there. I'm it has to be like you said don't give them anything right now The air strikes back as the issue that's gonna be gamers removed downstairs and nowhere player is now playing from Plan could honestly be possibly here, but the issue is like it does not have a user another kill This needs to be found by your shiko. He does finally take down falls another player on top of the main stairs but Niers will go down, it's all up to Muzie. And they know exactly where he is. Another kill for Yoshiko on the black bid. A big 3k on the round. And finally, on to the scoreboard. Ah, BME. It took a long time, but they finally got there. And it came a little bit off an individual player of Yoshiko, but he did the exact right thing. Used the utility, organized the teammates, where you're going to be attacking from, and they actually also had a player on the window, on the exterior as well. So he made an office play, and teammate was watching from Master Bedroom window, then towards the rotating to office, and they're actually working together. Then they had demos downstairs in kitchen, he could demos track somebody through the floor, if that grenade doesn't find the miracle for example. So a lot of things working together to get that round success, but honestly, the biggest point of improvement for me was how they took CCCV. Five people during the heart breach, during the grenade, nobody overstepping, nobody swinging, nobody dying. That's such good improvement when they were struggling with Nier's Rome game so much previously. And they get through the spawn step in the 5v5. That is what you want as an attacker. 5v5 or 5v4 advantage to execute and that is how you want to play the highest level of this map. 1-4. So be looking for a second and then all you need is a little magic you can even get a series on your hands to fall would not be the end of the world factor the bit of a dream when one five on the defensive side of so that's anything to go by bm e will be very happy if you look at you should go a lot he was very quiet in the first map you actually highlighted him he didn't find killed for like three or four rounds Now he's 6-4, he's on the Blackbeard, again, it's a hard role to play well, but such a crucial one if your team plays around it, you can gain so much ground if I shout that position to 70 players. Ashtalk on the mirror window, that kind of shrouds this portion of the map at least when Nierce is playing for once again. Mind you, he's stuck in bathroom, right? If you put a player in the master bedroom window briefly and toss a good grenade, wow, that can literally kill him. That's just phenomenal. Almost killed Yoshiko on the blackbeard. The tomb window closed. Master bedroom window closed. This is the problem. It's walking in one simple door and perfect, and they've got a plate. Oh, come on. Too simple. Yeah, you're right. It's such a sad way to see it go down for Yoshiko and not Koremomo. Now, Koremomo himself has fallen to falls, and it's just DarkovinJV63. This is where they look to get desperate. I mean, how do you try and push for these final killers? You don't. That's the answer. Now, so far from any kind of actual attack onto the bomb site, BME find themselves in a 1v5 and it's peaking time for nears. He'll go down but a lot of auctions here for how D plus want to deal with Darko's position. Of course they could just sit back and chill or they could try and get aggressive which is exactly what they're going to do. A great angle from Levy and it's effectively a flawless finish to a phenomenal half from D plus Kia. 5-1 and BME are getting flashbacks to what happened on there. We go to the halftime vibe check afterwards we'll find out if BME can come back in the second. Had enough of the talk, let me hustle it Got my limo, came up off a lesson Does he gon' hang up like tankers, I'm chosen Need my necklaces and wrists since it froze He ain't read out the game like I thought He can't get done, make me no pity to show it Fuck a stack, cause I'm here for the trophy He made it lower, they came out appeal Show them mentalists, then I don't feel What you think it cost me, I just feel All I know is I ain't mean for the know Since it's intertested now, I don't wanna know Now I know I'm to the world, I ain't tryna feel Just run it up, run it up tonight My money wrong, project wrong, feel at home, got the juice man it made I'm calling game in his face, in his slim, hit a J, been a gay My people long, won't belong to me, y'all see it, no, I'm son of stave Get right off what I do, I know they get tight off how I move I still ain't didn't write off from the truth, yeah, I knew we been claiming we was cool Really, I was just painted by the rules, still moving like gang, I never lose But most of them won't know until I show them And that's why they're tryin' to keep you smooth And that all of my prides is to prove That I can make it all real when I they lose If it'll hold on, then don't stop this soon All I know is how it came here from the door Since it need to touch down, I'll hit on the ground Now I know to the world I ain't tryna feel Just run it up, run it up till I get a feel So, sometimes the first half can show what happens in the second, but then of course you gotta take into account the side-slop going from attack to defense is gonna be honestly a whole different game, especially if you're in this kind of matchup where you're a new team from CL of BME, all against a seasoned veteran in D plus Kia. BME had honestly some good looks on Lair rather, the previous map, it was looking hopeful. Here on Cloud Pounds, it has not been the exact same story. The one run victory they got so far was phenomenal, there's a gym attack, everything went according to plan, but every other round than that, there's always been something missing, a window not open, the dawn of pressure, the cross front of the staff, they should have pushed up time together. Now they can go back to paper, they're in defense and D plus up 5-1 will go on to the attacking side. At this point we're wondering how many rounds can I, can you be my enemy, get on the board before the game finishes. On map one they had a very similar scoreline 5-1 after their defense half and they ended up winning one round on the attack and then eventually losing 7-2. Yeah, I think this first round will be very determined. We'll really get a better understanding of what to expect after this round because of course, defensive club, you're going to have a bit more comfort. Most teams are going to be a little bit more happy on the defensive side, but I just can't help but feel the momentum and the mental game really factors into it like how do you not go 7-2 and then 1-5 and have a little bit of mental boom when you're playing against players like the D plus guys who are running rings around you on this roam game like we saw in that first half it nears silly business from him like how do you not get a little bit tilted after that? I mean I think the only way you don't get tilted as you go So guys, we're not supposed to win, you know, we're B and E, they're D plus KIA, like, we're just happy to be here at the type of vibe. Of course you're not gonna have that mentality, usually when you're a pro player, because like, you're a pro player, come on. But you also have to be realistic and not set your expectations too high in the matchup that is practically impossible to overcome. And like I said on Lair, they had a really good showing, and it's gonna be very proud and happy with that. here in Clubhouse, that is just being the map pick and the extra map domination of D plus. And it continues. It does. Early pick there for the doke of Nears. Wow, that was actually just a peek outside of garage. He's also easily going to be able to hack any of the cameras here if he wishes to do so. But D plus here. Less than a minute into the round and look at how quickly they're pushing. Look at this from Leather. He's gone straight up deep. Thankfully, Bokeh Karamomo has got the read onto that aggressive play that D plus and not looking to slow down any time soon muses deep into the building with falls to support falls actually has the diffuser at dummies because he wants to go for a plant this name will keep be my enemy at bay and musy actually gets the kill with the gas pipe itself as it detonates and takes down your shiko quick drop shot and falls and nears together have put in the numbers to push BME onto the back foot it's a six one scoreline after a domination in the opening attack from D plus Kia. And you see how excellent they do that against split fear right? They're applying pressure in so many different areas of the map. Bottom main, spinning through a goya fire, deep in moto. Surely if it dies, but people think guys are rushing and pushing and doing something. They are down blue, they are in dirt, they dropped the kitchen hatch. They were attacking from four different angles in the first 40 seconds. Plus, they hacked the cameras with Dokka B in garage, as you also won the individual gunfight against the Skopos or JV. So literally every single area of the map is either won by D-plus or at very least under heavy pressure from D-plus. And it just goes to show again that there's levels to Rainbow Six Siege and levels to that by Clubhouse that look so simple on paper, but because it's a map that's been played for so long, this map has been a game since the very beginning, although it has been slightly reworked since then of course about eight years ago there are still layers to this map there are still a lot of information approach it in many small details that you can change around time and time again D plus show us that they know that they know the gaps on that they do one more round is all it takes now for D plus guys to put this to bed do it news is that a phenomenal performance today on clubhouse who was it was it levy on map number one and now it's nears continuing that on map number two they're really just taking turns being the absolute goat and this round really cemented that didn't it we got two kills and an injured before finally getting taken down by the blitz this roam game as well unbelievable this aggressive 2k you found two kills from that position by the way it's been just too good here for nears one thing I really love about D plus Kia is if you give me the roster on paper there's no one player that usually I'm like yeah he is their carry you know there's no Shaco on the scene but any one of these players could have a 20 bomb game and today it's been me as on clubhouse it is true like if I think of the entirety of the last year I don't think of like a single a standout if anything is false because we had him for all the player interviews so like these the guy that we We heard of the most, we saw the most, spoke of the most, probably, but it has been a matter of team performance and obviously individual fairs have it all, but different players practically every game of the round. That's good. And you can rely on anybody to get a much higher chance of consistency than just having one sole player being the star. It's nice to see as well that Neers is playing a variety of different types of roles on the defensive side, as we've just seen from a lot of these highlight clips. of the times he's playing a bit of a kind of play-the-die position like that mirror window he's anchoring sometimes is going for a very much free and far roam sometimes he's on guns like the SMG 11 and you play the solos you're told yeah I know that you've got this tiny little 17 bullet SMG but go on roam and get as many kills as you can with the depth of play styles that he possesses is certainly impressive not just the fact that he's getting kills but he's doing it in so many different ways. Every team can benefit from a player like Mirus in terms of play style, you know, just having that go wild play style, you know, a loose wild card. You can say, you know what, this round, Mirus, you have full freedom. We'll do what's called the four plus one strap. And it's something that I want to say that Empire created it because it's pretty like made way before that. But I think Empire kind of perfected it. You know, in part in 2018-2019, when we talk about the joystick era, they would have four people play a strategy on defense and attack that everyone knows what they're gonna do. And then they had, that's called the four, then the plus one is going to be their fifth player who was joystick. He was going to have a jack-o-lantern attack, gager, and defense. He would do whatever he wanted. It could be a rush on a staircase, a lurk, a backstab, a flank, whatever where you name it, and they make it work so well. Watching Nierz here on CloudBound has given that same vibe. He's almost given no real resources to achieve his goal, but he's just doing it anyway and going as crazy as he wants. And the other four people are playing very safe roles normally by the bombsite, because if he dies, we can still play the round. If he gets kills, then it's a lot easier for us to play the round. Well, we just have to get everyone back into the game. We'll be back in a moment, but D-plus KIA is still on the verge of closing this game. And so we're back into it, the score remains 6-1 in favor of D-plus and BME have a lot of work to do to come back on this defensive side. So since the side swap we've only really seen them one round obviously out but people are just gonna rush the bomb site and kind of cleaned house very clearly. I'm curious to see if D plus a bit of a slower more normal paced round with B and E can maybe add back to it and not just get caught off guard because it felt to me a bit like there was just not ready for that push. Obviously that's why D plus went for a right is okay there's a gap here guys just go for it. We have seen the clash being brought out now three times once on there twice here in clubhouse and clash usually phenomenal operator no issues there But when D plus are playing this playstyle in attacks, where they're attacking from different angles all at once, it does kinda diminish Clash a little bit, because Clash can watch one single at front of entry. Usually Clash is exceptional against teams that play a lot of missing air from the Africa, so they're distracting two or three separate attackers. It's gonna keep my eyes on that throughout this round, where Clash is gonna go, or D plus are attacking from and seeing if that's gonna have any big effect or not. Is that a Kali? I spy with my little eye on Muzie. Any counter-peak in Jorah's, by the way, guys? A little Kali in the clash. I love betting on it. I actually think Kali is so underrated as an operator. Yeah, I think that if people just gave it a chance, then you'd see that Kali is often the answer to a lot of the problems. For example, mirrors, people hate dealing with mirrors. Carly counters Mira, just like Ash. In fact, a little bit better because Carly does not get stopped by electrification like Ash does. What's more, Castle, we've got plenty of Lancers. We can clear a couple of Castle barcades. Clash, yeah, I can clear Clash. I'm trying to say that too fast. It doesn't even take any utility. It can clear shields. It can clear as army keeper barriers. There's just so much. And that's even without doing the traditional role, which is clearing all the nails. So yeah, I think Kali is such a good operator, really. Underrated, it's great to see teams embracing it. I do know that there are the two clashing, sorry, the two Kali means in the world, they have to meet the discussion about the change to armor and health, because all the defendants have more health than average. All the defendants where as most are changed, they're just, again, just rushing on in. Yeah, look, I don't care what you were gonna say, Nick, you don't have a chance, maybe we'll get to talk about Kali later. For now, we really need to talk about how T-plus have flooded into the site. Not Koremomo needs to stand up now, he's the only one left standing and now he's on the ground. D-Plus put their boot to the throat and finally finish off BME. And Goliath is victorious again today. D-Plus Kier assert themselves as the better team, they march forward through the bracket without breaking a sweat. The round lasted 25 seconds, man. We're watching Akali on the strip roof. Next second, boom, in the bombsite, boom, double kill. Denying the maesters, denying the flanker. Last time testing CCTV, they're also dead. Again, the spit theory, working out on Lair and on Clubhouse D+, very strong on the attack inside. Incredibly fast, half there on the attack. Yeah, beautiful performance from D+, as a unit, but we can't forget about the individual showings. Miers was the star of the show on Clubhouse. Levy the star on the show on Lair. If we look holistically across the best of three, Nick, Levy got 20 kills to just seven deaths, Nears 19 kills to 10 deaths, even Midi had a 3.0 KD at 15.5. It was unbelievable. Every single player went positive and yeah, D plus really just took no prisoners. They ate and left no crops as the kids say. So perhaps this is a bit of a slow start from DeeperSkia, perhaps Cloudbusters isn't BME's map of choice. A lot of questions, right, and that's why it's exciting that we're in the early stage of kickoff, because we don't know exactly how teams are playing, what maps are like, the current meta with Solid Snake being enabled, etc. So every bit of freedom we get to see, we learn a bit more about these teams. Yep. BME now go down to the lower bracket, their elimination game will be against LFO, no No name, formally, and of course, 36. On the flip side of that, D-plus, let's talk about them for a moment, because this is their moment. They dropped only three rounds across the series. Their next game is against CHE. Yeah, Kagawa Saka, the best team out of Japan taking on, the best team out of APAC North. It's gonna be a really tough game coming up. But before we get there, of course, let's have a chat with the brand new coach of D-plus, Kya. Hell, welcome on in to your first interview here in the APAC region. Also, I suppose welcome to the APL. How are you feeling after seeing your boys play so phenomenally in their first game? I'm feeling great. Like it was really good to To win the RFRs game to start with the right foot Hello, I did want to just ask a few things about yourself as a career Of course, you've had quite a long time in Siege I looked back and you've been on so many different teams as a coach and even originally as a player even as an analyst You were representing teams secret at the Montreal Major you coached the old Saudi Arabia GK roster for a time most recently you were coaching blows I looked way back in the history books in 2019 you played pro league for elevate in Brazil with midi on your team And now you're coaching him. What's that trajectory been like and why did you come to D plus here in the APEC region? Like me, Vili and Levy, we work in three teams. We played together in Elevate and I coached them in Miners before in 2023. And it's good to have these guys back. Now I think we can reach more things, you know. I really think we can reach some tournaments, some good tournaments. Awesome. Of course, as a support staff, there's many different kinds of support staff. Some that do management stuff, some that do heavy on strategy, counter-streading. What kind of coach are you going to be in this roster? Is it going to be about heavy analysis, heavy strategy? What's the thing that you're really good at? I'm really good to do some kind of strategies. So that's the thing I like. I like the game because I was player in the past. So I really like to see how they work and do some counter things and do things like this, you know. So that's the way I like to work. So then a small follow-up here actually, we'll quick James, sorry. Solid Snake, really good, okay, or bad operator? What do you think? Oh, I think it's really good, really good, really broken. We're not using it today, but We're not using it today, but we are working on this. Okay, so maybe against the HG, a stronger enemy, we get to see some solid snake, maybe? Yeah, yeah, soon, soon. Okay. Nice little tease from you there, Hel. I wanted to ask about the roster change that D-plus made. Obviously, you came on as a coach after the six Invitational. Formerly we had PJH, Korean coach working with the team, but you did make a player change on D-plus as well. Bullet obviously leaving the team and Muzie coming kind of out of a semi-retirement obviously once upon a time This guy was the best player in Brazil once upon a time. He raised the hammer for ninjas in pajamas He was pretty quiet today. It was nears and levee stealing the show Can you tell me a little bit about Muzie and what he's brought to the roster? I? Think Muzie brings for us like a more aggressive tea so and he brings more the We can feel like a family now, you know everyone's together together, because we know each other since a long time, and he played really good, he played like his adaptive things, and I think I want to bring his prime back, you know, so that's what I want to make for now. Just before we close, I want to get your quick thoughts on the upcoming CHE game, you kind of tease something a little bit there, but yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit more. You think you're going to play well against the best team out of Japan? Oh, I think yeah, I think we're gonna smash them to be honest Big words big words, I hope for your sake that you do thank you so much for joining us in the interview today and good luck Thank you so much guys. Thank you so much. Thank you Thank you What a pleasure it is always such a pleasure to talk to anyone from D plus and it's great that we have Another esteemed name out of Brazil joining us here in the APL. Really lovely guy as well, a bit reserved, a bit quiet, but just so respectful even if very confident against us here doing his upcoming games. And I smashed him. Yeah. I'm surprised that I haven't heard more of his name actually because like you said in the interview, like we kind of went over his diggopity in the small breakaway and was like, So while this guy has been around all these teams that we've seen and casted and spoken of before yet His name has really come up in those rosters But now he's getting that praise and experience come to light and honestly with a phenomenal show in today Perhaps there is just some real Experiences coaching staff and what he can support to his team. Yeah, of course that is our final Upper bracket quarterfinal finish now We've got an upper bracket semi final kinetope versus scars later on help us LFO and being KFX will fight for elimination or survival in the lower bracket but a quick tease Pengu what do you think about KineTrope versus Skars this upper bracket game qualifies one of these teams through to the semis and it is a it's gonna be a massive grudge match it's gonna be a huge chance for all of these former players that have been on each other's teams before to get a leg up over each other do you have a calling anything calls to you between KineTrope and Skars who do you think is I mean, it's gonna be the match of the day without a shadow dot, right? It's gonna be the good or right knitted duo up against Genichiro, who looks so high in potential in the very first player day. And I think this matchup kind of settles a very good question of what level of both these two teams had with the roster changes. Because I think they looked very evenly matched going into today. Will one like really steal the show and leave ahead or they have a very close matchup and we actually won't really know who's actually better onto a lower bracket run? Yeah, it will be a big Japanese Derby coming right up in the upper bracket semi finals to qualify our first Upper bracket finalist Kiritro versus scars coming up after this They come out wind-billing like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the talking of a scrap! Teemo! If he goes uncontested, the kid goes cold, that'll be devastating. Renate goes cold! At the swing! Cyber and Blue are able to get one apiece with the kit so far away and Canadian down upstairs. River! Wow! That was special! It's a one bird, it's three to hold, and they're pushing it from behind. He's found one, he's going to get the vertical as well, and it gets pulled off, we're down to the last three and four seconds. Ryder's got another, he's held on, he's going to do it! A PSG, take the two-one win. Both players spotted, but the Reds give him eights exclusively. Oh! Oh! Oh, the Reds have some sort of information from the Bs. It goes down, she's going to last! Oh, my God! Oh, here's the lands! They cement themselves as one of the greatest of all time! He's starting to get cooked alive, Ollie, but he's using the stem pistols! Look at this from the dark! Surely not. Really? That's Clayton, you're in my book. The place the game hits the old body doesn't quite catch it. There's the... Oh, my God, sir! It's the dash! He's got the dash! Oh, he's got the dash! Oh, he's going back! He's not quite sure. He's... That's good, Ollie Cole. A few seconds, stick it, Nassel, stick it! This is an angle that he might be able to contest. No, of course, he takes just a bit of damage here. A walk, I guess, to the second one. Eclipse, though, will get one. Turning it into a 2v2, and then they push it on the side. The bandit will lose out on this. Eclipse, the last alive on the ally. Spots to have, and take life, okay? The ace for Walker. He will down BC, Canadian positioning to pick up, but that's going to result in a double-take. Vertical, let's force our team around. Necrox, the final defender against Vertical. will be a absolute domination. I don't believe in Magic, Michael. Team 1 does as they win the Mexico Major. I They come out wind-billing like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the tall king of a scrap, Pino! If he goes up contest and the kick goes cold, that'll be devastating. The grenade goes through, that's the swing! Cyber and Bullet are able to get one piece with the kit so far away and Canadian down upstairs. Wow, that was special it's a one versus three to hold and they're pushing from behind Both players spotted but the ranch can be made They submit themselves as one of the greatest of all time. He's starting to get cooked alive, Ollie, but he's using the stem pistols like it's from the dark. Surely not. Brilliant. Let's play the year in my book. He plays the game, hits the old body, doesn't quite catch it. There's the... I only got sense! There's the dash! He doesn't have any motivation! He's going back, he's not quite sure. He... He got it though! You second stick it, Nassil! Stick it! This is an angle that he might be able to contest. No, unfortunately, he takes just a bit of damage there. Waka gets the second one. Eclipse though, Wilkhead one, turning it into a two-v-two, and I'd be pushing on the side. The bandit will lose out on this! Eclipse the last alive on the Ella. Spots the head and take that, guys! The ace for Waka. He will down BC, Canadian, positioning to pick up, but that's gonna result in a double-a. For Oracle, that's four for Hamlet around. Necrox the final defender against vertical, the A absolute domination. Oh, believe in Magic Michael! Team 1 does as they win the Mexico Major! I'm breaking next and I'm out of that. Don't want it all messed up in my money now. Cause I can't get down from this running up. I'ma keep it going till the end of that. I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going. I'ma keep it going till the end of that. Well, the top dogs have already made their debut here. It's time to see what happens with the second in class. The teams are constantly fighting to enter that conversation to be the best in APAC North. We only have one spot up for grabs here at the Salt Lake City Major for a team from APAC North and a lot of people would say it's probably going to be the fossil tag to take it, but I would tell them you better not be underestimating Scars and especially KineTrope, a team that has just made a massive set of roster changes, bringing Gata right out of retirement, bringing Alegator over from Scars and Eclair who formerly coached Scars back into the server on the playing roster. This is a very exciting team right now, PENG. As we saw last week, yeah, it very much is. And you know, we always say this, but you know, going back to last year, we're talking about KineTroba and the prospects and how exciting the team can be to watch. And they just kept filling short with that previous roster. Now they come into this season with some big roster changes, some bigger names, more experience and all of the rip, but against Helvet de Levoe And the former PS2 roster honestly had a really good showcasing for the mentally, the strategy, the timings, the coordination. They were hitting all the right marks. And this right here, a big clutch as well by Kawa to really help them settle into that VO3 match. Yeah, a little bit of a snack for Akai, by the looks of it. of it. Big plays last week, I was so excited to see Aya Gator on the entry with that Solid Snake. It was of course the first playday of APL. In fact, I think it might have actually been the first playday of kickoff globally. I don't think we've seen any of the other regions play before APAC North. So Aya Gator was the first one to really show Solid Snake at the tier one level. He was incredible. Scars looked, sorry, Scars. I'm confused because they get a play for scars so recently. Kinetrope looked fantastic against that XPSG now help us have a roster. It did take them three maps so that if there is any cause of concern it's that they did let Fortress slip through their fingers. It was a 7-8 loss for Kinetrope but aside from that the other two maps that they won 7-3-7-2 actually quite comfortable in dominance. And that's the thing is, you know, when you look at the map scores, just on Liquipedia online, you go, oh yeah, 2-1-2-0, you know, Scars a bit too old, their opponent is going to be better, etc. But if you dig into exactly what you said, what happened in the individual rounds, surely lost in maximum time on Fortress, a brand new map is in your roster versus destroying them on the maps that they do know quite well. I don't think there's too much to take away from that, to be honest, because the same thing can be said about Scars, right? Scars, they had a 2 of victory against Fyrex. However, it was like a 7-2 and a 7-1 or a 7-2 and a 7-3, I forget. But the individual rounds were so close that could have easily been a third mapper, but it wasn't. And that's why I think these two teams, they match each other so well on paper, and it's why for me this is going to be the match of the day. Yep, of course. Let's have a look at their opponents. Ayaget is previous team. It is Kena trope. Sorry, it is Scarz. Former team is a lot to go into this roster about, of course, the return of Nina, who played for this team for quite some time and made a departure go, played for N436. Now, Bakken and Nina and Rek, of course, are like these two insane players. These players, and as a team, have played at several international events, notably the Copenhagen Major, but that That was such a long time ago now, Nick, it's been three years since this team made their debut on the international stage with the top eight performance and we haven't seen another performance from them even within a shadow of that showing in the last three years. But of course they did do away with the fear ex roster quite convincingly just last weekend. They did and honestly when you look at the whole gawd, Nina, Reg, the duo that could do it all, and then they had to split up the duo a little bit, but now they're back together and it's almost like they never left it. It was Reg and Nina making play after play after play, but like I said before, when these Hidah groups used to see it, yes, scars 1, 2, 0, but there are so many of these guys that came down to a 2v2, a 3v2, and very late round close scenarios. And that's the reason why I think it's much closer than expected, because it was a close game, Op against Fieryx here for Scars. But Dragon Nina, if they get implanted last week, I mean, that's going to be the prime version of this team when they're working together. Yeah, and of course, Yuki's is another one to speak about. He's made his recent debut onto Scars from... Wait, which team? Oh, that was KineTrope! Well, this is a real kind of incestuous connection between these two teams in the funniest way possible. Something that I'm having a bit of a shock into myself with that is if you look at the the KineTrope players and the jerseys that they're wearing, it looks so much like the old Skars jersey. They're actually following the exact same color scheme, like even just now, like you look at Fish Likes jersey there, it's black with a little bit of red highlight. If you then go and look at the KineTrope jerseys, it's the same black color scheme. So I'm getting confused constantly because these players have jumped between each other's teams. They're Basically, we're in the same jersey and they both have the same Occupying the same space right within a packed north which is these really good Japanese teams that have struggled to make it to the very top Level for a very long time both of them have been to international events before Kena trope was actually at the Copenhagen Major as well at the time they were called Varel They've been through a few different names, but yeah, it's just it's such a funny little parallel between these two teams And only one of them can progress forward into that upper final Very curious actually how the teams have done the prep going into this one because like just kind of off the rib If I'm going up against guards, I'm not going to back right. Just put that on I would not want to take them to it Kino Troghi started with the old roster did play a fair bit of bang It did have a bit of a favoritism towards as far as I remember So there could be a matter of like you really like playing the same maps Do you dare go to your enemy's strong map because it's a good map for you Or do you take a week and map for yourself because also we can map for your opponent? That's where my big kind of interest comes into this is it? Yeah, let's have a look at the vetoes as we continue to dissect this What maybe KineTropes and scars will go for something that's always gonna be in my mind when you look at a veto is The coaching staff or perhaps ex coaching staff and look bank was the decider there Which I'll let you tease in a second But just something to keep in mind with the context of this math veto is one of KineTropes players is the former scars coach Oh my god, you're right. So the mind games that must be occurring between these two teams is boggling. That's actually a great point. And what better way to have banged? Notice the first and second map peek, but rather a handshake deal decider on that third. So the scene is said, James, are you ready? I think I must be. There's no question like the teams must step up now. Of course, it's for a spot in the upper bracket, final to be just one or two games away from the major if you win today. Let's kick things off. It is Scars's map pick. We're going to Nighthaven Labs, and there's a lot of love in the chat as Ayagata says, good luck, bro. And I do not know what Nina is saying, and I'm not going to try and pronounce it because as we discovered earlier this year when we went to Japan, Pengu, my Japanese is not really up to scratch. But thankfully these teams will be doing most of the Japanese talking and we will just be covering it in English to the best of our ability. It's time to get into a Kinochro versus Scars as the operator bands roll on through. Will it be the double Electro Bros for the defense? Maybe so. Banty, Electro Bros done and dusted. Again, it makes our sense. Scars, you know, going back to kind of how they planned Bank and why I wouldn't want to go on Bank. They're very good at getting in the building and taking God of Fights on maps where there is space to take. So when you have these kinds of scenarios where you're making things easier for scours, that's when they're gonna play their very best. But banning the bandit and the kaiyid, you essentially make that very first and just about easier to get them in the building, makes sense here at 05 and lefts. The point, Yammer. What's the game? The game. The game. The game. The game. The game. The game. The game. The game. The game. The game. I love I love this game. I love the meta. I love so many the operators. I Hate thorn with a passion. I Am so sick of seeing the one everywhere. I'm so sick of playing against thorn Why she get four traps? Why she a barbed wire as well? Come on. Why she get the best shotgun and As an automatic second come on man. Go and just as he sets me to five is barely a weapon Nobody means Okay, also point right the traps they they sucked you with as far as sure But I would say unless there's a slowing element combined with the thorn razor bloom me a barbed wire Belucey Whatever, you're not really supposed to get hit by it unless you're hesitating, right? We saw around on clubhouse just before we did two players died to thorn traps in the same round for BMA But come on you can't tell me that that is powerful It is But you all said near play-by-play you gotta go back and gotta go forward you gotta shoot you can hesitate He hesitated so he died if you just like you know It's not just a operator just giggle the corners kind of against illamines You can bear the thorn if you're my beloved if you're not my from the swing though You get shot down got a lot of in the grave as a gator The kina trip is starting on the back foot right now defense of Night Haven, to make matters worse, this top slot bombsite has a lot of different angles to get attacked from. It feels like now Gino Troak, they have to keep going for pro, they've got to keep swinging and playing overly aggressive because they cannot play this run out in a 3v5 fashion. Yeah, the problem is, scars can basically just go into just safety mode, right? Just prevent that aggression, don't overextend, you don't have to rush, you can just slow down and make sure that if you do lose another player, it's going to be with the trade. Now, a Caillou is actually able to find wreck with an nitro cell. Caillou as well joins the fray, but with the Clare falling, it's very difficult now for KineTrip to get back into it. 2v3 is not impossible, but Scars have a lot of control of the bombsite with the Caillou going down. It's Caillou up against the world. They know exactly where he is now, and he has locked out the objective. But if he has to get recollected here, but the Grim is going to be perfect. It's going to enable a quick swing on the Caillou. The flashbang as well as Nina finally swings inside and finds the first round for Scars. Now right there's a classic Scars round. Plant, no. Flash, double swing, yes. Get fast in there. And this is exactly why when I was talking about how they banded, kiting, and banded, they opened up so much more freedom, both in problem solving that first step of breaching, but also just enabling the Interfraggers to do their own thing and not worry too much about being stuck. That's something that a map like Clubhouse Historically has actually caused a lot of problems teams that don't have like let's say two support players or a very good flex player. You're going to have to put one of your fraggers on a support operator because you know back in the clubhouse you have to play double harbinger true let's say so much Hibana and you got to play Thatcher but it's so few teams will have three people who want to be on that leash of saying don't peek don't do this stay over here be in the corner drone the corner etc so stars they can't see that same-small approach. Open things up enable the fraggers and give them freedom don't leash them it's had them to a single area of the map. Yeah and look I feel like it's not the end of the day if a few defences slip through Kinitropes fingers. This map with a good team like can actually skew to the attack so I don't want to like kind of rag on Kinitrope too much. Look if they lose two or three in a row then yeah I'd say that's a pretty cause for concern and I would want to get the coaches in ASAP with a tactical time out but yeah look not the end of the day to lose that first round especially after getting picked so early. It was just on scars to convert the 5v4. What are they going to play this round though? Oh, sorry. I'll let you go. Take it away. It's also a matter of like the way Kinrochro played last week is kind of similar to Starz, right? That they were the ones to strike first and be aggressive if he does to make the initial play. We spoke about them especially on the attack inside, Iigater on the solid snake, just you know always finding value. I do feel there's right now in the first three rounds, there'll be a bit of a feeler being put out. So, okay, she continues from this active. Can we play that really aggressive in-your-face play style against stars or will it go punished? Okay, if it goes punished, we're gonna play plan B. It's probably gonna be a bit slower pace, get more utility, see more problem solving, and in this round they do that, right? They bring maestro cams, they bring the Valkyrie, they bring the traps in both the Aruni and the Thorn, the Aruni and the Thorn rather, Where is your blues? So it's already been a pretty big switcher from round one to round two Yeah, how much of a roam game do you go for here is the question for KineTrope Maybe just playing on the stairs around the thorn traps is a better move for car. Well Come the late round scars have one tool and they're awesome all the KineTrope might not be ready for which is the bliss It's on bliss blitz. It's on also Fish like I don't know why fish likes changes name to that in game but that's fish like right there on the shield and perhaps it'll be a drop down one of these hatches to get aggressive very rarely do you see pushes in purely through animus which is exactly where fish like is going right now you know you've seen some attacks like Aurora and glass you plan the single one closer for the doors with the Aurora but this is just a blitz coming down the hatch it's a lot of pressure going minus two and fish is not planning yeah you He might actually be able to get this down as well. Bit of damage, lot of damage! Finally killed by a Clare, great shots. However, Wreck and Nina do come to life as they often do. And the kill freed reigns. Akayu and Kar-Wale now with Akayu on the flank need to find these final shots, but Nina has that flank locked up. Kar-Wale up against three with so much time on the board, and he's exposed to some vert. I don't think that Skars will let this one slip by. They got two flashbangs, can pop a flash in cargo, use the red kill, also go deep bombsite. Once they find this final player with certainty, then they can make their choice and start planning and covering. And they're successful, the turret, the side swing, and the plant all at the same time. You see again, they're so locked in, they're so in sync. This is the thing, when scars don't make small mistakes and don't go punished on those small mistakes, they can be such a lethal team. did such a good job of planting in the smoke while challenge him on the bird always making two problems happen at the same time I'm amazed here that a clay even denied the plan I mean this should have probably been an even more dominant rounds yeah I guess remind people though that just because you've got coverage from a smoke and just because you're doing a total plan with the Shield on your back you're very much not protected and you could see the way that a Clare He knew that that was a shield. That's why he was shooting kind of off to the side He was shooting the feet as much as he could. He was trying to get shots on the feet in their hands Really good move from a clear unfortunately. Obviously wasn't enough to kind of try but scars looking good They've got some strats prepared. They've got some ideas. They've got some preset executes that they're ready to bring to the table Also, it's the power of shields, it gives you so many ways to win a round that doesn't normally exist. The idea is you can plant a shield in your back, pop a smoke, push into it all the way and just stick your face inside of a bomb, starting to be like, yo is anybody here? With that any other operator than a shield that drops down the cargo hatch or the carcass, the garage hatch essentially to enemies, you probably just die or you're gonna be hiding you grab the wall praying for your life that nobody comes swinging. And it's why we see this shield being so strong in the meta for the last, what, year and a half, two years time now. Because you can use cut some corners, not that bad a way of cutting corners, but the good kind of way of saying, we don't need to worry about the whole map, don't kind of worry about denying every single playing position. The rig doesn't seem to be perfect. But there's no shield for this one. Third time to attack, third bomb site to attempt as well. Skinnerchop going through the motions, now going to Kako. And they've got different win conditions. They've got both the Toxic Babes for some entry and Pantanal. They've got a vertical C4 and a pulse to the Kako scanner. And they've got traps upstairs to kind of weaken the roam clear. So I can strategically, unlike with Skinnerchop, are showing us to playing on many different areas in the game in a good way. But it comes down to gunfights and entry. Can they deny scars than initial gunfights? It's a lot of measuring being done by Scars to try and set up a little peek from Eclare. Well, it's back. Good to say it's something that we've seen a lot of regions, a lot of coaches do is make the return to playing. Of course, it's happened with CAG, the best team out of Japan, with DD making his return to playing. And we've seen the same with Eclare. He looks so confident. I love to see that. is obviously that coaches can't play and Eclaire is already showing us that that's not the truth. However, he is falling back further and further. He does find a kill before he has to retreat down the blue stairs. Great shot on Tawashoi. It's a big one. That's entry denied and it's gonna take some of that momentum in from the scars as well in this round. They kind of kind of re-stabilized. This is an important fight right here in Nature 4. If you can win this on a gator, the round should almost be yours. Oh, but there's two players there, he doesn't want to contest when he's being trapped and there's a player on the other side as well. In the end, fish-like will be the one to swing and finally finish off Aya Gator, but realistically, there wasn't a lot he could do in such a pickle. So, second line of defense, right? You're gonna have to play around the cutting since the pause, the toxin beeps and the stall for time. Get erotic as a killer's one to wreck. Again, just picking up individual kills, scars, not in a tradable position at the minute. minute now they're going for Akka retake so a star star walking down the garrus stairs they can start retaking top 4 for the verticality how do they get back into it we'll need to find a pick somewhere to try and just go fishing open up an avenue especially with Gatorada on that top floor beautiful shot from Gatorada and fish like will not survive it's a first round on the board for KineTrope on the back of some impressive roaming from the unretired at Gatorada. And again the layers. KinoTrope shows that it's not just about the room, not just about the bonza, but again playing to all those different aspects. And it's such a good thing to do against a team that likes to go for those kills. Because now they could afford to lose a Gunfighter 2 and still have a solid way to come back into the round. And we saw it, they won most of the Gunfighter KinoTrope, they retake top floor, they had poles in basement as well, they literally had three different ways to win, only one of them had to work out. Even the title was running up with scars, so you don't give them anything too early in these rounds, they're all gonna have to slow down and respect you a bit more, but I think there's also the benefit of the tertiary bomb site. Because it's in the middle of the building, you can play top floor, basement, and the bomb site itself. When you're playing the top floor bomb site that we're seeing right now in Commando, the issue is, if you're gonna be roaming downstairs, you're a bit more alone, you don't have as much team work around yourself, but if you don't play downstairs at all, well, then the enemies are only going to worry about one single floor, which means they can mess with you a lot easier. So KineTrope with this round, very fine line between roaming downstairs, utilizing the C4, utilizing the poles, but not going so deep into the building and the map, then they can run you down solo across the bomb site, where you want to be in a supportable position. So when we think of this top floor here, Nick, obviously, Skars wanted pretty convincingly on the first rounds. What the KineTrope need to do differently, I mean, one element that they've got is the Roma of the pulse to go below, and I don't know if he's going to actively be looking for C4 kills or whether he's going to be trying to play late round, but at least it's something different, the KineTrope. Drop in line! I like different. Escape you're put in guessing, right? It's not too expected. But there was a post in the previous round as well. So once you start bringing out, you know, these particular operators that are going to change your playstyle, you're going to be more, I don't know, in tune with it? Same with Thor, you said how like, all power operators and annoying and whatnot, right? If you play a Thor in every single round and you play with that in mind, you're going to approach, the window vaults differently, going down the staircase differently. When you start playing as the pulse time and time again, like I see for below, see for low, don't run on the soft core, see for below, and it kind of makes the pulse a weaker operator. So I feel like playing at one or two rounds here is excellent, but you can spam it necessarily every single time, unless it keeps working of course. Well they did play the Valkyrie in the first two rounds, so I wonder if they got rid of that because it was getting countered by the IQ and the pulse is coming to us and attempt more mobile if you will. Good use of the fire that came out on Catwalk Rotate, forcing back the assignment of Claire to not just go for a re-swing and retake, then Blackbeard walks up the stairs of Catwalk, now they got Icy Breach and they got Garage Control. That's two of the three areas that they want. And the question is, they need a third area. Either they need Aqua Control, a head of Blackbeard right here on this door, or they need Meeting across the map. Because you want to attack from 3 different angles at the same time and really suffocate those defenders in tiny areas. Then we see pauses still just like freely vibing downstairs with full IT information. That's where that C4 could get a kill. It's going to be a shotgun of each shotgun battle here. With the Ying that he's taking down, isn't he? By the Thorn. Great shot there from Kar-Wal. Very well read on the back of the sizzle of that candela going out. The scars do get one life in there finally trading back car well and the shotgun is gone. It curious now what the test gonna be because I lack a bit of pressure but the needing of idea that the time is not inside a meeting gets shot down in exactly 9th one plus the catwalk here comes that push. Oh yeah but Gatorade has held down the fort on site and bought enough time for Akayu to to make his way back. Now, there's no pulse down below because Akaiu has rotated back upstairs. So, Gatorada and Akaiu are going to have to get on this retake together with Fish-like on the other side. It's got no utility to work with, and he's now made it to 1v1. This is now impossible now. For Akaiu, he's already used his C4, and while he can go below and get information, there's no guarantee he'll be able to get that kill. He has to get up close and personal with the UMP tight range. He bolts over the top and fish like gives us a masterclass on playing the 1v2. It's a 4k on the round that a big clutch up for fish like. Huge positioning game right there right I mean he's playing it so well. He recognizes that there are two ways for him to get chased after when he makes it a 1v1. When you're playing a 2v1 he has to or 1v2 sorry he has to go for an aggressive play to even back the numbers, so he does that. He takes the aggressive angle. The second he gets the kill, he's like, I'm gonna go play connector slash electric, because either my enemy is gonna go through this rotate, which is a halt rotate, it gets stuck animation, they can't shoot back, etc. I win the round. If he goes for the door, I can just go through the rotate myself, or equipment further away towards meeting, because it's a seven second DQ timer. So the second he gets to one by one, he knows it's over. He can literally just win off frame play, and he does exactly that forcing like a 90% gunfight win rate. So huge stuff for him and his team, scars very much in the driver's seat. That was all a pretty rough round for them. You know they had numbers as advantage, they didn't get that three kind of spearheaded attack, they lost their entry, yet they still clutch up. The same thing as Spirx. Three one of the leaders is pretty good considering Knautrope tries to start on defense here. Now Knautrope continuing to change up the bombsites and keep scars guessing. Remember the only bombsite they've actually won Pingu was storage and control. Now they've gone top floor twice and failed. They're going a second time to the basement after not winning at the first. And the big difference here is the maestro. Now it was not shown in the prep phase. I don't know if scar, I don't think scars at least managed to spot it in prep phase. So they haven't brought a braver to counter it, but they do have other ingredients to do so such as the Thatcher. Thatcher is interesting. I mean, I'm not sure when you banned Kite Bandit, it almost feels like it was picked maybe as she said, specifically for the maestro. It's also not bad for taking any mute jammers, if you want to drone stuff. Uh oh, the issue is, we can talk about the road to a team to support. Oh, we have a flash to come through here before the ADS is safe, but a Kite will fall. And Fish-like's support from YouTube is going to work out. But look at that, I think they're still continuing to get aggressive. Hmm, we'll say that for scars the one play they lost is probably the one they can afford to lose here in the nomad not the end of the world Yeah Different story there also fun fact that this couldn't blind a kaiyo on the wrong here because it's a huge error on the door He's very kind of stalking melee trading the entire time so I'm flashing the school to the kill So they don't got it stairs tough force to play have they released the wall though? Oh, they have okay? So the wall is open, they can actually still win this though, they sure is, again, Guinness World is so good at playing win conditions, they've gotten stuck, playing their vert, that's planned denial, and then they appeal by the bomb side. That means they can no longer go for this default execute for Stars, they have to send one player up above them to deal with Kaba, or screen Thieving towards the bomb side. But then comes the issue, they have Evil Eyes from Maestro also just stabbing him and Blitz is so low on health. It has to be a backstab play, unless I get hit from my shory. Yeah, unfortunately, if it's like falls before the back start happens, Wachoi is now in through Animus. But a big part of the problem here is, like you said, Kawao is still upstairs in storage, he's gone vert, he's even supported on the roam by Gatorada. Two players on site, two players up above, makes for a very difficult execute here for Skars, but you could find one. Goodbye, Gatorada. Now Kawao is all alone on the top floor. Both Wachoi and Yukida are gonna have to go big. Yeah, they deal with the issues here, the evil eyes, those Maestro cameras, they see everything and all throughout the bomber side. So it's full red ping, yellow ping formation for the defenders to make plays off of. They should know exactly where they're getting the effect from. Easy EMP should come through though from the Thatcher, but doesn't the red ping happen? The red ping instead, and Aya Gator able to find both of the final two kills perfectly played on the defensive side by KinoTrip. The scouts struggle to get that round across the line. KinoTrip also doing something that I love personally. They hold F on a door or end or a window which I think is actually super on the radar and they barricade doors and windows. And it's basically, it works almost like a temporary castle barricade or you know an elamine, melusi trap. It gives you a ton of information. While Shorin going to Animus, The single breeze downstairs actually had a pretty good back step potential there, but the barricade a half a goddamn thing So he has to shoot the barricade shoot the softwall expose his position and the back step loses Or of its price factor and he has to kind of just rotate and go somewhere else or get the red spot at the entire time by the camera And people ready and waiting for him And it's something that I think a lot of teams need to utilize more against teams like scars You know that like to go for these kinds of gaps and just push you in throughout the building I'm barricading these doors, scars on the muscles, I could go, oh I'm gonna take a risk, I'm gonna sprint down the hallway, I'm gonna run in this, I'm gonna take a gunfight. If you barricade it, they won't even think of that play being possible, because it's like, oh I gotta shoot the door, I gotta reload, you know that I'm there, now I can go for the swing. And Kino's trove again, I've been very impressive throughout this stage so far, showing us that there is layers to this roster, and not just one single up playstyle. It's good to see, but of course it all comes down to this final round in the half, doesn't it, Pengu? It's great to have a nice round here or there, but if KineTrope end up losing the half 4-2, that's still pretty detrimental to their chances of getting it down to the second half. They want to keep up this roam game, this aggression, Iogata soloing over near meeting Upstairs in the second floor hallways He's supported by a car you down below in cafeteria And it looks like I again is about to get hunted now by Nina on that day most he'll just fall back Here's hope is it scars now into the building and fall to a car use C4s from below? Yeah This is sadly at the big game There's a fine line to play because you know if you stick around for too long You might just die if you fall back too early, you know post my contact to not get the full value So it's important now that the communication is very clear between the C4 beneath and then a gate upstairs of forest going for that play Meanwhile stars might flip the switch a little bit and actually rotate the attack. It looks like It's still mostly outside the ground, but it works out because wreck finds a pig on the reclare who's long that Garrick's graphics work It's a shame really most of Kinetro were playing to put some pressure on and fall back But it clear the only player from Kinetro that decided to get aggressive instead and he will fall now scars have found the gap They found the control of the top floor as it's been almost completely Sacrificed by Kinetro the only one left on that top floor I was gonna say is a coyoo but Gatorade has also made his way up the blue stairs as well So two Kinetro players looking for a flank just near staircases at the moment meanwhile on site Carwell and Agate are feeling very exposed and Agate is going to fall on that flank upstairs It's for the flank in a 5v5, you know 4v5 because you're not going to be watching the drones Akayu though makes work of it and finds one, but he is the post C4 in pocket He is so much more than just a flanker right now He has to go over the simple play of finding that gunfight. Yes, pressure system that trick Carwell finds a second now there's life in this round that's possible to win if a Kino trope. That's exactly right Skars, good flashbang, a lot of pressure on for Kaewow, switches to the shotgun on site, meanwhile, Akayu knows that he can't wait much longer, yes, they get aggressive, Gunnarada on the site, finally falls, and Kaewow cannot survive. Nina with the shotgun, makes it a 1v1, Wreck is on the floor, and Evendetta is called upon by Nina as he needs to hunt down Akayu. He's got info, he can start to force his plant down, Nitro's cell gets ripped, Nina fakes it, pre-fire, but Nina's just better! Massive 3k from Nina to give scars the round and to close up the half, 4-2 for the attacking side! I just punished me for the past while I was out there trying to ball bet you seen through the mask hope I ain't being branched if I say you coulda split it with me girl you would see riches with me if you stuck around through the rags my motivation these days is different I mostly be to myself I don't wanna spoil the couple things I prayed for and was gifted just picked it dry to see how I stayed in my land when they shipped it I knew that time could not erase what my destiny's written right there next to these rids and my skin and my DNA like the one that was risen I'm not that graven I'm more life it's not only decision I'm not alone in my plate. I want you alone for the flight. But to take off in a minute. I've changed my lifestyle, new money, nice house. I've cleaned it up. Yeah, it seems to go. Go on, clean, really. I'm thinking of it. I see if I see new scenes. But can you be two queens? No strings to cook. But I don't know what you want. Do they get over it? Make me wrong. And has it been too long? Yeah, yeah, still I got my eyes on the ground. They're now society's tunnel vision. If I got customers missing, I don't know who might come Missing I don't know who gonna do it thought you were at one time they got proven not to be so true I got left halfway out my mind had to gather some things rearrange it what really matter keep casual fleas set the golden So nothing after had to take a risk bet on me cuz that's what it was before you fantasize it You should dream of a better self and that's for real So a huge explosive end to the first half, another great clutch for Scarce Nina outperforming his opponents in the 1v1 and it comes down to that split second decision-making once again. He fuses at hand 20 seconds, what are you going to do? It's a fake stick, go for the pre-fire, seek the gunfight with the demo's tracker, 2-4 half, favoring scars, and now they go onto defense and get a drop onto attack. Well, good things from both teams in that first half, that's for sure, But of course it being Skars, it's a map that we expect them to look a little bit better here on labs before we head to a very different map and border up next, picked by Kynetrope. So, as the operator bands have flown by us, Nick, I'm seeing double Electrobros from Kynetrope. Skars though, getting rid of, no surprise, the Grim, but the Thermite as well. Just one of the hard breaches taken away. I do like me a thermal band on night haven labs and also clubhouse actually there are so many walls that you kind of want to freely enter and take fights and get these like long lines of sight and when you're using operators like this like the Ace, Summer, Charity, Bionic, Skyros or the Camelbunner secondary hopperage gadget you're much more pre-fireable because it's a very narrow opening and you kind of stuck by it you're also often forced to vault through the rotate because you're not going to spend, you know, two Selma charges to make a standing rotate. This is like really inefficient from a cost versus value perspective. So you make a single Selma and you got to jump in and outside that rotation. So this is going to weaken your breaching abilities on the attacking side and when you banned or your enemy has banned both the kite and the bandit, you know you can play to save the walls. They will get opened up. So why not make that like that job a little bit harder for your bonus and I quite like this trade-off this is my moment to say hashtag justice for Maverick because Maverick can open holes just as big as Thermite just takes a while but it's it's kind of like well we banned Paed and banned are we seriously gonna bring Maverick it's like he's the one that counters both of those operators it feels silly yeah but you're right it takes a long time right but if you're really efficient Maverick player you can probably do a a thermal breach in like, I don't know, 12 seconds? 10 seconds? Yeah. This is the play that very clearly why the thermal was banned, because as you said, it's a smaller hole breached by the ace, but what's more than that, SCARS are actually using all of the clashes and all of the Izami's impact minutes to try and prevent those from becoming vulnerable or walkable breaches. Yeah. And this is why ace doesn't see as much play, you know, in these heavy scenarios, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Danara and then what was she? He swings it! What is that fish like? With the wait for a brief moment, it's starting to get aggressive on the back of that grenade. And now the cheek is up, Kymotropin no longer going for their rush from the top of blue. They just airjabbed it off with Aya Gator. It is absolutely worth it if you're fish like on the Danari there. You've just taken down a kayu and really put a stop to this entire push. It's even more worth it because the grenade gap tossed out and shield was gone regardless. So he swings out, nades gets used, shield discovered, he gets the one-for-one trade. Which if you defend there, especially with clash on the board, it's worth it because you want to limit how many different areas QNT can attack from to make the clash stronger and also even occupy the mirror windows, right? On killcounter afters. Because now one player can hold catwalk and IT, one clash can hold Aqua, and all of a You have nowhere that you're really scared of being attacked from besides meeting which two other players can watch together Yeah, so super super worth it a bit of a fortress here in the bottom side with all this piece of utility Give me some of course they got the four stones. They got some grenades in pocket They got the famous tracker below they can use they still got ways to problem solve this one You mentioned the clash you mentioned these on didn't even mention the mirror which doesn't have any realistic Counts here for Cana church. They didn't bring it. Yeah, Ashley didn't bring the Kali. I didn't bring the twitch It's just the ace who used all of his cell as I'm breaching the external wall So there's not really any way to deal with these mirror windows I don't see a way that Kinatro should win this round like on paper the utils says it's all scars Maybe they must be low business on location Successful and his backside is covered as well by wash on the rafters so an attempt at a refract doesn't work out here for Gatorada Excelling a hell of a lot of pressure But time is ticking away push comes to shelf now for kina showed they have to get desperate wreck is spotted and taken down But not finished off as of yet. Oh, I was way too far away from the bomb site and kina trope They finished the round on time with three players left alive What is going on for kina trope? That is a tough round at that but I got a pretty scars right now Excellent problem solving understanding where the strongest Nina has pull shotgun and sure he has a V per secondary Right, but it's not the best gun the game We all know that so instead of this close it breach or close it door Should I say and can swing the breach when the enemy walks up close by that should be a guaranteed gunfight victory And it is that's the 5v4 then they utilize the clash for aqua and it protects the mirror window player on catwalk So, Clash's acro control as mentioned, Mira sees Catwalk as I mentioned, and then the only gap is going to be meeting where they sent the other players. Scars literally took their brain out of the game and went on a top-down blueprint and said, that's the gap you cover that, you cover here, now there's no gaps, we can win the round. They covered everything perfectly and they made it so difficult for KinoTrope to problem solve that. I think the only way for KinoTrope to have a real way of winning it is if Deimos goes down stairs, breaks the floor with his pistol, shoots the mirror-brindle towards the camera grafters, and then starts tracking the flash, forcing them to go away from the soft floor and into a corner off the bomb site. That's the only way you win, but that requires a lot of things to work out, you know, coverings, holding, flanking, blotching, etc. And it was only like 50 seconds left. Yeah, and that's really just a testament to scars on that defense. So many different layers, so many different components, and obstacles for KineTrip to navigate. They couldn't do that. And I just really love it. I really love the level play that we're seeing from Skars today. They're looking in peak form. Again, we shout out him a bunch, but fish-like, man. This guy is usually like, anchored, chained to the smoke, forced to play SMG-11 on defense, forced to play a little of the thankless roles on attack. And he's been fragging really good. He's been unafraid of playing aggressive when it matters. And on top of that, you've obviously got got Nina who's hit 10 kills already. It's a really good look for some of the old guard from Skars. It's kind of funny seeing Reg on class because he's like this crazy fragger who runs around, but he's kind of scared to put that kind of player on class as a shield who can now run around while dying. You know, Reg can choose where the fighting happens now. It's innocent style. Yeah. But someone has not afraid to take a few risks some of the shield operator and maybe they'll surprise you. It also takes away like, they might bend the clash now because of the problem. And it's not even like a real operator fall, it's just a bit of a, let's just bring it out for the sake of it type life. So I think again, Star's winning on multiple fronts here by bringing out this operator, enabling stuff like the echo, the pulse, etc. to maybe survive the band phase if KinoTrope were to try and attack it instead. And right now it's just kind of step two, it's about to set up now. They got the Rompir, they got majority of the map control. The SCAR is still controlled. Vindy machine C4 comes up as the problem. Lloyd Clair tubes it very nicely by running around the building top floor. Now the gaffer first, did I do the challenge or done? No. Now Rekha and Clash, you know what to do. Can rotate back towards the bomb site and cover this push. There comes one. Right now. He's just kind of baiting in the vert actually. Shotgun is ready for a Caillou. He's going to try and clear the position on the stairs. But meanwhile, Nina's actually gotten active with his shotgun on the Echo. It's a complete bloodbath. It's also Blinding round as a kaiyu's flashes come to life a lot of these players on the pop over. He goes beautiful play from the ying Supported now by Nina's yokai drones a little bit too late to try and save the life of the player who was on that staircase Now Kina trope have a numbers advantage. Can they convert the round with 20 seconds to play? That's the issue. Timer is so low and Flash is still alive. Yoga Drone is giving constant information as well, but not right now by the bombsite. That Flash, Yoga is upstairs actually. So 30 seconds to lock him in, but there's the wreck in the corner. Yeah, the Flash, he's just going to look at them. He's just going to watch the whole situation pan out. He can find the one that two kills with the SMG. He wants to try and confirm it. A little bit of a funny moment. It just gives an opportunity to Kena Trope. Akaiu flanks outside. There was a player and now the plant's going down. What in God's name have I just witnessed? Honestly, what the hell Pengu was that round? We're agreeing here there's a defender outside the bridge, right? Yeah, I thought that attacker was protecting the planter Because the clash to clash down someone outside Yeah, and then there was it down. No, it's a federal there was a federal outside It was a right so right? The recruit outside Enemy and then we're watching guy outside the breach holding what looked like a default plant position But that was echo and then oh man is the echo outside that looks like a defender flanking him every single people here look at this Let's see it I think I'm going to need to see that replay another 10 times to understand what happened. I need like the top down view of where the hell Nina was during that homing situation. It must have been that Animus single breach was open, Nina ran outside to flank with Wreck supporting on the double breach of the striker, and then Wreck, I think maybe he slowly, like Loki fumble he left the crash shield to run us at the breach. Maybe they thought that the diffuser outside wasn't kind of certain I think that was not a low key fumble. I think that was quite a significant fumble. If Wreck had not run outside I think it fumbled. Yeah, if Wreck had not left the safety of his clash shield and tried to vault out the breach Then I'm pretty confident that Skars went that round and beyond that point right now Yeah, I'm right there with you But I still can't believe that it was a ying flanking an echo outside because I thought it was going to be the reverse with it the echo is flanking the yeah or whatever craziness of the round this goes to show how we can get we can get to kill trope and scars in the same match in a 5v5 fashion yeah now we got the tertiary bomb side though it plays around both the top floor the basement and the primary floor so that many ways to attack this one most teams historically will just go for a top floor room clear do the verdict and walk down towards the bomb side And if we have the Ray, looks to be the case, but an early Frank here, again, airgator on the solid snake with the solo entry, again successful. Love that. I mean, we saw a lot of airgator on solid snake just last week. Look at how quickly he's taking this map control. I just love to see it. This is the real benefit of solid snake, just how quick you can be on this entry. Oh, he goes to play right on his breach. Goes for a pre-fire. The swing comes out. You can actually wins the fight and the second one as well for you kid Massive ups to scars to stay stave off. What was a very early aggressive playing car? Wow though doesn't slow down whatsoever He gets aggressive with the pistol and finds one of the players on that top floor now It's time for rector fall on back in a trope have control of the top floor, but they have certainly been blooded And there's a thing right you're left in blitz kali this is probably some of the weaker positions for these two operators. Again, you got to plant and cover a gopher kills. Blitz can certainly gopher kills, but look at this triple crossfire established by the members of SCARS. Plus, they could just kind of run away and give them the bomb site, with only one guy able to cover an angle. There's always going to be a gap to be exposed somewhere else. So Kino Trub again getting tested with their problem solving. Can they find a way to break this round wide open? Or will it just be a done deal to SCARS? Kali and Blitz, what a combo to try and clutch. I feel like Kawao is so tempted here to take a 1v1, yet he needs to find a kill here. Oh, that was so well baited by Rek. He kept pretending to look away and run, trying to bait Kawao into going for that ADS, and then Rek easily shut him down. Now there's plenty of info here for the defense. I know exactly where Akaiu is. They know that he didn't stick the plant, and they know that the onus is on him to make the next move. he's not gonna be able to find all of these 1v1s that's for sure and fish like just from around the corner will put him to bed it's good night to KineTrope map point four scars no fast paced round again KineTrope they tried to go with the slowest steady problem solver and now they're back to just to kind of match that aggression here's the big question though do they bend the clash from KineTrope or have they realized that that is actually not a big issue because the issue is these upcoming rounds of the top floor and basement bomb sites with the clash has a very high success rate. Oh, they're gonna ban the mirror actually. Interesting. Interesting. Mirror is a great operator, very powerful. You saw Skars use it very well when they were... Oh, sorry, KineTrope used it very well when they won their defensive side on the first half. I don't know, yeah, I mean it's not like Kiritrope aren't bringing you to the mirror, he's not here obviously the Carl, he could have counted any mirrors that they came up against. I think you just played the clash, yeah, you just played the clash, why wouldn't you? And maybe that's kind of the, we often talk about the downside of banning the same archetype operator twice, so let's say you ban Ace and Thermite, so two Harpy Jewish, you ban both the bandit and the kai the two wall deniers, you lose a lot of value like sure you cannot deny the walls not at all, you would guarantee breach, but you're leaving open so many other strong defenders that can do either a similar job or very different jobs. For example, Mira clash, they're both a problem in a different way, yet they also kind of work in a similar fashion. And you cannot ban them both because you only get one more operator ban, so you ban the Mira, now they play clash. And I'm pretty sure what would have happened here had they banned the clash, Mira would been a problem. Why is Mira a big problem? Because Scar spent Thermite in the second rotation. So now they can no longer open things, it's easy because impact tricking is the thing. And the breach is going to be tiny. So again, I think this is Scar's kind of not winning the game in Operator Benface, but they're giving themselves an advantage by the Operator Benface. Of course, two teams that know each other so well, a lot of it comes down to the mind gap. We know what we like to play, and they know what we like to play, and we know that they know that we like to play, it's just how do you throw curveballs when you guys know each other so intimately. I mean you just try anything you can in the operator phase The bands of course the pics as well in this case clash has a counselor on the attacking side It's the capitao from Gatorada, but the cash class herself does counter as well. I'm on see So so many layers to it and come down to how the round itself plays out for now though The denari is actually slowing down this push from Kena trope Call out down below. This is one thing that Kino didn't have last time. They played this bomb site. It's vertical presence Yeah, but can they find the value that they need with the Brutal Cality, because they should be playing more spit across the bombsite than we see right now. Yeah also prone to a flank. It's wise to get the colors in the Celestine because you'll watch some flank where Aphrodite lets you see four clips to the top of the wall, it does damage to the monster, it doesn't kill him. I think if I had killed the, no actually the catapult was pulled off all his two in pockets still. the heart destruction. So what do we have here maybe the flashbang might have just kept him a bay for a moment. Akai now feeling a lot of pressure as he's at that breach fully deployed both of his cannon open as he has quite a line of sight and he'll just constantly be out of call out to his team where these scars defenders are playing. Wow big swing for Yukin. He's been wanting to go for that swing for quite some time finally he gets it it's goodbye to the nomad of a gator I mean that's a crazy swing it's against a 5v5 you're setting up you're in such a good spot if you kill so boom you can't find illa and you lose this is a great route of capital but i can't see but look at how rake is navigating this on the soft floor so beautifully this bro is sitting back and avoiding that damage it's a good play UK goats and swings for another one though Nevis under a lot of pressure holding on to two different avenues at once but he will find one kill before being traded. That was well played by Kino Trope, but Nina just held on long enough, did enough damage, that it means Kino now in a 4 versus 2 on the 2 side, not where you want to be. And Ukid found his 3rd. It's Eklian to try and stave off Skars as they go hunting. It's a big round for Ukid. And for Skars, our first map in the bag. It was back and forth, but at the end at the end of the day. There's no question who played better on Knighthaven Labs. Scars get the better of KineTrope on the first map, but we're not done yet. Border is coming up next. I'm gonna keep it going, I'm gonna keep it going, I'm gonna keep it going so I won't lose my mind. I'ma keep it going til I ain't nothing I'm breaking next to the party now But I still won't stop in my money now Cause I can't get down from this funny life I'ma keep it going til I ain't nothing I'm going til I ain't nothing They've come out wind-billing like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the whole king of a scrap, Dino! If he goes uncontested the kick goes cold, that'll be devastating. The grenade goes through, let the swing! Cyber and Bullet are able to get one of peace with the kit so far away and Canadian down upstairs. Wow, that was special. It's a one versus three to hold and they're pushing him from behind. He's found one, he's got to get the vertical as well, they get pulled off We're down to the last three or four seconds. Reiner's got another. He's held on. He's going to do it. And B and D take the two-one win. Both players spotted, but the Reds can be made successfully. Oh. Got a lot of assorted information from the Bs. He goes, this should be it. There he is, the Reds. They cement themselves as one of the greatest of all time. He's starting to get cooked alive, Ollie, but he's using the stem pistols like it's from the dock. Surely not. Brilliant! Let's play the year in my book. Place the game, hits the old body, doesn't quite catch it. Oh my god, Sam! That's the dose! He doesn't have the notion! He's going back, he's not quite sure, he... Asked you to go. A few seconds, stick it, Nassle, stick it! This is an angle that he might be able to contest. No, of course not. He takes just a bit of damage here. I guess the second one he clips though we'll get one turning it into a 2v2 90 pushing on the side the bed And we'll lose out on this he clips the last alive on the Ella spots the head and take that He will down Vc Canadian positioning to pick up but that's gonna result in a double Necrox the final defender against vertical the a absolute domination believe in magic Michael team work does as they win the Mexico Major the camera truck actually didn't look too half bad, Panger. It was pretty back and forth. There were good moments, but Scars just looked so prepared coming into the scan. I arrived from the Orbiter Bands, the small counters forced me to clash in the mirror at the same time, in Patrick and the War Bridges, and that's where stars were strategically better, and I think the chairing tops made the scoreline as divided as it was, the individual's wings and gunfire prowess of Scars. Right here we see a Nina one more touch in a second, that's not the big thing. It's actually when it's a 5v5 round, stars are so unafraid of going for a swing and just win these gunfights out of nowhere and always bring even numbers back to their side evenly or to their advantage. Yeah, for sure. Look, Mina, Fishlike and U-Kid all had 4k's and Mina also had a 3k. Fishlike had a 1v2. It was just great moments from all of the stars on Skars. and something I said in the game is FishLux not usually associated with being a star player on this team so great to see him firing all cylinders how to Kintra get back into a border is their map pick maybe that will help them out I'm not convinced neither am I I feel like the way that it worked before for border is gonna favor scars all those same so let's get into the action and see if the teams can see us what's gonna be different can Kintra bring it back and take us This was a third map, or will this be a decisive 2-0 for Scars? It's a big question, isn't it? Now, coming into today, we certainly didn't expect this to be a whitewash either direction. These two teams have so much in common, not least of which is the players. On these rosters, of course, Eclair last season was coaching for Scars. Ayaget, who was playing for them last season. Yukiz was playing for Kina Trope. These guys know each other so well when it comes to their strategies it comes to how they like to play and just as human beings you see that in the way that they play you see that in the way that they interact in the old chat as well and when a spot in the upper bracket final which makes you just one or two wins away from the championship in APAC Northern therefore a spot at the Salt Lake City Major well you're going to bring out all your stops that's for sure I would really hope that Kena Trope have more than what they've shown so far on that first I see Nimera Asami then come into effect and immediately get off the rip, the clash gets brought out once more. I feel like the border clash's pick rate is necessarily the highest in the world, but it's one of those cases where it's just such a difficult relationship to deal with. We saw that on Nighthaven. Why not bring it here as well? And this is the thing, right? If you keep playing the mind game, create the clash maybe the first two out of three rounds or maybe even all three. How they're forced to ban that operator and then I'm sure that they're going to have something else they can toy with later and then be the new thorn in the side of Kinochope. So I think Scarce once again off the rip have a really good read on Operator Bands and Operator Pigs. I didn't manage to see what were the Bands that you managed to scrape them off. Just the Mayor and the Assamese as far as I got. I want to say Grim and something else but I honestly didn't really look that far because Rihos was called and I was like I'll see you later. Grimm would make a lot of sense on the map. It's been the most banned attacker. Just I don't have the stats in front of me, but eyeballing that is the most banned attacker in Rainbow Six at the moment at the T1 level, which is so funny because Grimm is still not that much played except for the very top teams in you know, Ranch level. Not a lot of people are playing that operator these days. Just do you feel like Grimm is overpowered, do you feel like he needs to be curbed a little bit or do you think it's just a good opportunity to sit in a good spot? I think when they changed interaction with Mute Jammer, he became an overpowered operator because he practically has no real counterplay. Mute was the operator that would stop his gadget from working correctly and Grimm spotting people and nowadays you would still get spotted if you're in a Mute Jammer and getting chills. the only technical counter. It's two-brow freeze technically you can do it, but it's a bit true because you've got to freeze the canister before it opens, so it's almost like you've got to stand with the two-brow canister in your hand and toss it the second that you hear the grim canister being shot out. It's similar to like you can actually shoot the grim canister, but only before it deploys which is about like a half a second window. If it's too good maybe maybe just increase that window. Any particular operators that you want to like, we've got some time, we can go podcast mode. I'll give you one operator that you can give me your elevator pitch of how you would change them, whether it's a buff or a nerf. Three, two, one, go! Elevator pitch! Okay, elevator pitch. The simplest way that I would like to change an operator is gonna be to somebody who used to be very loft and now is kinda not talk about much. It's a Lord and Savior to Shangri-La, right? And there are many ways to make it better. But I think the most fun version to do it is take some inspiration from Buck. Give him an underbarrel effect. We can kind of swap onto the monotones. Pew, pew, back to weapon, pew, pew. Because right now the whole weapon swapping, think of Capitao, Sophia, think of Tashanga, that's what kills it for me. And when you're in defense, the difference is that you're often on the bomb side, flashbang, nades for the penalty, demos trackers are planning on being shot at like a source chaos. When you sit there and got swapped to your gadget weapon, we can shoot any bullets out of and fight back, it just means that Sassanga only works in a perfect scenario and not just like on the fly in the chaos for a round. Yeah, good point. The Lord needs some love and so do we. So let's hear from you guys in the tush chat. What operators do you wanna see tweaked, buffed or perhaps curved a little bit? It's a time for us to just sit and chill for a minute because scars and Kino Trove will be back into it in just a few moments. So stick around, border will begin in a minute now. So we'll be back with you in just a minute. And so we're about to get back into Bordek in a trope and Skars about to kick off the second map of the series Of course first map was phenomenal I'm actually just going back and looking at the twitch clip at the moment of what happened in that one chaotic round Where there was an attacker outside and then a defender who flanked and went outside And then an attacker that was outside to flank the defender who was outside It was a very strange moment Good times though. A lot of chaos on Not Heaven Labs. What's a more chaotic map than Not Heaven? Oh, Borda. Borda's a very chaotic map. Borda's probably the most chaotic map. So, despite it being Kirito's pick, Scar said it to thrive more in the chaos on map one. I mean, that trend continued, I wonder. Yeah, again, we saw just like the very beginning of taking this round before I got re-hosted. So the Operator picks from the side setup. We spoke with the operator Banz, I was like, oh I saw the mirror, the Asami, I think I saw a Grim. Grim is correct and it's so Monty as well from the stars' side. And again, this is where when I give the slide nuts to the stars, right, they ban Monty, probably the one shield operator that can somewhat deal with, you know, the mirror windows and the clash by walking into the building pretty, pretty alright, pretty safe. Now it's like, okay, here's your banding mirror, fair enough, they ban the Asami, fair enough. You bring out the clash, now the attackers cannot play any of the other shields because it's basically unplayable against a clash, because whenever you zap them, it fully shield guard breaks the shield on the second side so you can't really do anything and then, how do you deal with the clash? You gotta start playing Capitano and other things they're doing that right now, they're game spamming, zero camps, and they got the Capitao but who's gonna plant in this scenario? You just rappeling sandwich window and hope for the best, like, they don't have a shield operator, right? right yeah I'm not convinced that the hope and pray repellent with some util is ever gonna work that well no the idea with a ying shoddy but I think they need to clear some of the yeah they need to put some of the thorn traps as well as a bit of util on the site but perhaps the zero cats could find so they're twitch below watching for the flank C4s they're gonna spam container's grappling I'm gonna have to fire. That's a swing of one. Fill me a gutter eye to make a play from outside of the balcony. Still no one is in the building. Oh, the repellent is actually happening downstairs. This is interesting. It's a big bluff from Kinetrope, but scars haven't been baited into overextending. Fish luck is very low on HP, but outside of that scars are actually pretty fine. I mean, I guess they're on a fourth, as you said, like a swing and it moved me from from Scarce first but unsuccessful. He gives them the last bit of useful end called a hamp to go off of this. They've spent everything they have in pockets. It's now or never guys, you gotta go. They're just waiting again trying to bait them out but they don't have enough of an actual hammer to go with this end. Finally, Gatorade finds the opening kill from outside of Armory and Kawao as well all the way over on the other side of the map and off this. But it's now a bit of a reset. 5v3, big advantage for Kino Trope but they've slowed down. It It's worth it though. Yes, they have no use to lift the pocket like I said, but they got two pigs off in a rake or as an or sorry They have a clash or one single point of health not Rick this time. I should pay in the operator It's gonna be fishlight instead. But the question is what about the timer 30 seconds now? It's being to the moony. Oh, it's so good for you kids Now fish likes in the great spot to give call out to you kids for a second one now desperately certainly Kinetrope need to bring this back. They had a two player advantage, but the scars defenders are actually quite low, particularly that clash. This really comes down to Yuki's what he's able to achieve. Now that he's got that diffuser, it's going to have to be a big pick. Now Yuki's the last one standing, there's only one second left. Kler will find him and put him down. Kinetrope, very, very close, but they just barely get it across. That could have been such a disaster round. I mean, I really want to praise how they tried to win that. It's effectively a 2 versus 5 more or less, right? They get the 2 kills as a CCCV, they put a clash shield down, they know the Rappel angles get vulnerable, and then you just try and play the timer. Yes, this right here, that opens things up, really well played, but then we see the counter response. There's like what, 1 second left? 1.74? Yeah, that's very good. And he seems to eclair, just crouch walking into break room on a twitch, he's not making that much noise that I really want to hear exactly where that attack is coming from, so get in trouble I mean creative problem solving I gotta tell you but also very creative round execute rapidly in a solution window baiting the sound to make somebody swing so you can get a trade kill from Akka's window and while the plan A didn't really work I feel like as crazy and odd as it looked it was pretty well thought out and there was definitely a plan in motion they're going if we do this they're gonna do that and if you do that we get the counter. The issue with scars is didn't care what they were doing, didn't sit in in the corners. That's the thing I don't quite understand, like what was the end goal there for Kino Trope in that round? Was it just let's do all this stuff and then Skars will make a move and we'll find a free kill and we'll convert the numbers advantage? Was there more to it than that? It very much looked like it, yeah. I mean, to me it's what it was, because I mean, looking at the operators who had the use for being the Ying and whatnot, there's no way you'd be a listed leaf thing, you can just wrap them in a plant, right? And you obviously, you're covering the C4 below with a clear inclusion workshop, so it had to be a matter of like, Skars have to react now and then we're just going to watch the angles from Arkham's door far away, Arkham's window far away, and when we get a kill too, then we can make the actual execute. But that just never happened. Well this time around, it's, uh, Yuki is doing his best NOAA impression. NOAA in secret, of course, on board, uh, at the Six Invitational was unbelievable playing this position with an LR. Ella because last round was doing it with the Aruni DMR, which is my personally preferred operator to take this position Obviously the future is really good, but just at that long range gunfight that DMR packs a real punch You kids Confident with the scorpion. I mean, it's a mean weapon if you're good with it If you know how to play with that new recoil, you can do a lot of damage for now though Rec is the first one to taste a little bit of damage from Kina trope as they try and made him out of his position on the east stairs can redefine the angles though and see the issue at the minute the issue at border is that a lot of teams stop playing smoke on east stairs and whenever they stop pushing from the attackers you toxic bait them out and you kind of reset the round three separate times and look at this one minute twenty seconds, attackers only now in the east staircase, smoke is falling back, he's alive with a great push here The aggregator, the quick box goes to the key, all the way to the top, vertical kill as well, then traded back, good response to her from the scars, back to a three on three. Yeah, still big moves from the aggregator, to find two kills against his former team. Now, Kai is deep into the bomb site with this Twitch drone. Now, he can shock out any of these Vulcan canisters, find a lot of traps that have been prepped, which is really important when it comes down to that late round push, to get a triple. Got to find something here. There it is DMR from past but a great shot at that now They have cow and black because they kind of safely get that diffuser inside the bombs and there's no more plan to now No smokes no other traps. They have to go for kills not for scars. Oh Good angle. Oh, how does it miss that chance deny that plant that would have been everything and Now Kena trope from the verge of putting this round to bed you kids trapped inside a bathroom finally finished on out a great round from Skars really led the way. Did Aya Gator in through events and after that, I mean it was much harder for Kinnotrope too. That's why it was much harder for Skars, man. I'm getting so confused. Can I just say? You are. Man, the- The jury sees the four players. The fact that a Claire and Aya Gator are playing on Kinnotrope, not Skars. The fact that Yuki's is on Skars, not Kinnotrope, And like you said, the jerseys look identical. I am getting so trolled right now. It's been the theme of the game. It's been guest to player, guest to team, and it's like, ah, dude. It doesn't help that everyone's changed their names. Like even, you know, U-Kiz has actually changed his name to U-Kid in Ho, which is confusing because there's a Brazilian player called U-Kid, which is different to this U-Kiz. So man, I'm just, it's, and look, let's not even talk about fish like his name is also didn't you know which is I mean I've had enough of it I've had enough Oh why why why is the keys? I don't get it. And they all have the same issues as I where you had forest called FR or FRO And it's like it is hard to realize when you're in the heat of the moment I was who and what's happening. I think it's Jigsaw and Touhan as well one enterprise in OCE have completely unrelated names a lot of VO's players do some of the Asian players. It's just too much. It's too much. Of course the working theory here going into this, not the up coming round, round number four, is that SCARs are trying to force out this clash for the sole purpose of an obrida ban to then have freedom in the obrida ban selection going forward. That's why we're seeing it once more here again. It's a top floor attack It's actually a very similar lineup what we saw before. Yes, it's no ying, but they got the capitol They got a flank watch it downstairs. They got the doka be This could be one of those rounds again like you know, sure They do something out of the norm and it has to just catch stars by surprise But this time a gated being in the solid snake means he can go for a bad play around the building with that scanner And maybe make a play happen elsewhere as well Loving the amount of Xero that we're seeing from Kawao being gathered from these Samcams. You can also clear a lot of Util with it as well, the laser. Now comes the logic bomb as Kanatrop start to make their way forwards. Fischer Guy being the first line of defense, gets the fire from behind him, he's gonna take a hell of a lot of damage before he can escape. Yes, it cannot escape great usage of the Capitao's fire to prevent him from retreating, but unfortunately Akai immediately then team kills his teammate up to KineTrope to now bring back the numbers advantage that they squandered. That might make the plan more difficult because that was the two players out at Akai's window who one can plan one can cover, now one can plan but then there is no cover. So either you rotate the entire attack, wait for a player to rotate, or just change the plant position entirely. Because you see a clear, once again like Twitch before on our Flores, is holding that C4 downstairs. There's a very clear plant, yellow ping, sort of in this area. Can't quite hit the mark though. It's a sound call I guess. Yeah, sound call from Agate on a window here and it's tough because there's no utility and there's no real vertical potential there from a clear downstairs. But Akai does eventually find the kill onto Washoy, which is a thorn. I thought that was almost gonna be a kill there for AyaGate and Akayu is forced out thanks to the thorn trap But thankfully Gatorada has opened up a hole on the bomb site by entering into archives Advantage KineTrope as Yuuki is a Nina. Oh, that's a good read from Yuuki's there Sees the player gets the down under Gatorada 2v2 and now this looks winnable Akayu isn't a really rough spot actually caught between these two scars players with 15 seconds He doesn't have a lot of options He's got to support Akayu for this execute, and there's barbed wire to walk through as well. Eclair has to come up big here, but Nina's got him. He's found him with the shotgun in close range on the castle. And Akayu will surely not be able to find both of these kills. The first there, but no, not the second. Good retreat there from Skars, and they lock in at round. I've seen a little bit like Kimura's Robots hanging with three or four people in this round. I mean, one there was a team kill, that I think was the biggest problem. The second one is that Clare spends the entire round downstairs in the workshop, then he spends half the round after that on the main stairs, holding a passive angle, not baiting in the 2v2, but certainly not really calming fully into Helby's teammate either. You could just put a drone in the workshop, and then that dead player who dies, Kawa in that case, can watch the drone, and then Clare can go do something else on the map. I do feel that they could utilize the players was a bit more there To a massive surprise. It's a thorn ban actually, so they say half the clash We don't think you played it very well. We won two of our attacking rounds against it Let's bend the shrub operator of thorn my my guys my guys They understand ball, huh? They they know ball attack. Oh look even if thorn isn't the strongest operator ever I just hate playing as to she sucks. She's not fun And she tilts me like no other operator. Like for some people that's clash, right? Or Blackbeard, or Blitz, it's like you die to one of those ops and you're like, ugh, couldn't do anything, whatever. To me, it's thorn. I just, I hate it. I hate it. Get rid of it. So I'm all about this together. I mean, it does also open up a whole new avenue of play, which is maybe a bit more fast paced. Obviously the thorn trap, unlike Milusia, you can actually do damage, right? So it doesn't slow you immediately, but the hits you, you'll get like that lind debuff, same with thrusters where your legs are broken, so you can spring fly a good 20 seconds. But, phone traps, they just make you a bit more aware of like we can't go too quick because if you go forward, a phone trap pops and a player swings us, we can't go backwards and the phone trap kills us. If you go forward, the player's pre-firing you, so you kind of just die. Now I want to see a player like Kawa, and Eidgater, so Blackbeard and Solid Snake, actually get a bit more tempo in the server, right? Fasten the building, cast it for the room, clear it, and just kind of change the pace up a little bit. On the wires, I feel like the thorn bangles a little bit wasted if you're not going to change a little bit around there. Yeah, you're right. I don't know how Nina's just found Agate so early, but that's goodbye to the Solid Snake. Solid Snake's really good on board, and Nick, because the map is so small. So you can really see so much of it at once with your gadget on the Solid Snake. So good operator take down early. I don't know how Nina did that. I can only assume it was vertically perhaps with that TCSG. Yeah, I mean he was in Armory so this is a vertically or was like Armory balcony repellent had to be one of the other and there's no body out here so yeah maybe ventilation window main door that's have a vibe yeah that must have been. And but losing a solid snake like you said is a small map we can scan so much that's probably going to impact everybody else as well because look at the top of it there's somebody Jones left alive towers the soul shield he finds another one out of nowhere seemingly he's just faring from Armory he is all the way from Armory. Ready to peek anyone he desires. Kinnotrape looked to not try and hard clear these positions instead they try and sneak away. The paths of the map haven't been contested by scars and now it's a bit of a rotation here. Three scars plays an armory desk looking to try and drop downstairs perhaps but they need to be careful because Gadotrata does have an angle, half an angle onto that drop. Almost catches a wreck. Some people will say bad aim, but we say R4C. It's okay. You're allowed one of those. It's not the easiest weapon anymore. Plan wise, this is a cooked round. You gotta get at least one kill here by my count. They got C4, they got Goryo 5, and you're not gonna find any kills. The 5v1 leaving Eclare outside the building. Last man standing. Waxioi has always been an MPX demon on the Valkyrie. I'm just gonna save my 2 cents on that. sense on that. I love to see Washoe back on the Valkyrie. Scars, back in the day when they were the best team in Japan, one of the best teams in APAC, it was the information gathering, it was Washoe always feeding opportunities to his team, taking opportunities themselves. That was a large part of their success. And I tell you what, Scars today are really impressing me. I think bringing Nina back onto the roster is an obvious choice, but I hadn't necessarily expected the Yuuki's pick up especially when Ayaka is performing so well but yes it's a clear now just baiting against his former team and it's gonna be a tie of the scoreline here for Skars the question is will they feed him a pick and jump out I think they might look at this one rec is tempted oh this is the save the KD Even his teammate of the Claire Gatorada was a AFK by the way, please respawn. I mean it has felt a little bit like a Claire hasn't really fully been activated yet here on the border attacks and Granted he's being put on obvious like florist who has to spend in the first like a minute of the round maybe more Running out the building using the the florist stones and blowing up certain things in the map But by the time he's done using his gadget, the round is like 2v5, 3v5, and it's practically over, right? And as the issue with operators like Ravage, Twitch, Floors, and Attack, and like Echo, Maestro, and Defense, seems to be a very fast pace and very dynamic these days. It's rare that we see the full time being in a rank setting, and it's rare that the pace of the rounds are slow enough to comfortably sit on cameras, feel like you're wasting your time or that other people are fighting in battle that you could help them in if you weren't on that drone. So it's one of those cases where maybe something else of Flores and play more proactive operators, because with CA Gator playing like the Valk, the Sonic Snake, he can help his teammates quite quickly. Whereas in Claire being a half support operator, it really doesn't seem like he can do much in these rounds. Two more rounds left in the half and skies. I feel like they've kind of gained control of the flow of this map and border. They had that flow control for pretty much all of Nighthaven labs, despite a couple of good rounds from KineTrope. I feel like they've finally garnered that as well here on Border. But being the most attack-assided map in the pool, this is really KineTrope's opportunity right now. They can't squander it, they have to go big, and he's filed two rounds in the half. Yeah, that's something we haven't discussed is how a tag or favorite border tends to be. I mean, going 2-2 in 4 rounds is actually phenomenal from Scar, from a statistical perspective. Of course, like every border game is the same, like every border game is the same. Oh, okay, that's our wall back in the house. He saw his toes, shot his head through the wall, and looked the wrong way going towards customs. And they see the diffuser case also on the ground, so they know that a second attacker has to come around sooner or later to pick that back up because that's gonna be necessary. So KinoTrip again, all four saiyors outside the building, two of them practically still in spawn, meanwhile the fuser is on the ground, cold. Yeah, not great. Not a great start for KinoTrip. And it looks like they've just taken the wind out of their saiyors. where they want to go through. Nice shot from Iagata. Not only is it Reku got the first frag traded back, but the smoke going down, that's a lot of good late-round U-Till now eliminated. But KineTrop do have to focus up on taking map control, because you look at all these players on the top floor. In fact, it's three of the four remaining defenders. Obviously, KineTrop are not going to be able to execute on the site while that vertical dominance is being retained by the defense. So they get to work pretty quick to clear out these three players. Yeah, it's about just tempo and pace right now. Yes, they got the kill like you mentioned But they have so much time to make up for that They lost early on with that loss of cow on the case But the god things we got in the 4v4 60 seconds attacking top floor prog never said the man like I've store Once they start pushing forward they got a cannon guys three two one and push together But there's no doggie be there is no shield. It's just guns placing here on top floor Good fire though does restrict some of the peaking potential, but not for Nina whoever on a stairs It's just found Katarata. I believe that might have been a swing from outside. Meanwhile, Yukis has also held down the fort inside of archives. So no chance here for Keena Trump to get the job done over on archives. Yukis now found a second one against his old team. Ayageta 1v4 against his old team. Diffuser in pocket. Skeleton key in hand. He needs to isolate once. And I think it's gonna start with Nina up at the top of the stairs. who scares him off he's gonna fall back flashbang over the top sees for a brief moment wash away a main lobby but Nina's hunting for that kill and scars do take the lead defense is not a worry at all for this very proficient team on border it's not and went that awesome the first half we got a half-time vibe check as well it's we don't all my guys really all my god James I did it I was so worried about not remembering it. Oh my god. You know, on a previous day, I messed it up really badly. Okay. We do work in a scale. You've been working for a long time. I have for three years going out, right? For me. And now we have this new thing. We'll call it half time back check break after six rounds and a half. I thought it was two three into a three three. I thought that's what happened. It wasn't that's it's okay, man. It's actually a three two. I know which is even Better because it means that of course scars that have a chance to win the half out ride for two split It's alright. Take nobody notice. I won't tell anyone You know maybe so that we have the iPad again, it used to be an iPad cluster We were taken I was yeah, and because of that I was tracking everything manually So I was moved down like over the bends the bombs that every round etc Well then I found out that when I was an iPadcaster it was kind of taking me out of the game sometimes because I was looking away from the screen to my iPad and not look at the action like this on peak right now from the email for it. Oh, at least I didn't have an iPadcaster for example, right? And I thought I'm going to start casting out the iPad for a full year and I think I think this kickoff stage will actually be that full year doing that but sometimes I lose track of the exact round count if I don't check it every single time. So I thought you'd just hit a piece of paper and just tick off the rounds as they go. Right to scramble right after every round. Not a bad call, not a bad call, but obviously also a very good start in this round for Skars. You mentioned that Nina found a spawn peek. Goodbye, Gatorada. It's funny, Gatorada of course returning to competitive play after kind of retiring since the CAG days. Unlike Ayagaya, he didn't kind of stay in the scene and play on other teams after being dropped from CAG. I had a feeling Rex gonna die here. Just look at him. He's being watched, he's being covered. He's gonna go for a swing till you know it, it's right baby. He's gonna be like, oh there's a plant down here, I'm gonna fight him once, it flies into my dive. Maybe he's gonna have a pop-off moment. He's being pretty good right now as you talk to the base, stalling for time and not overexposure himself too much, being able to second elsewhere, though denying everything here when it comes to King George's entry. There's a run-out as well, and it does go for a third, finally shot down by the Blackbeard. Now this would be big if Agator is able to take down that plant, stays in for a brief moment. Finally enough, he's just too far away to see him with the gadget. Flashbang goes out, it's the only flash he's got. And he can't really use the other windows because they've been barricaded. This is a great setup, really underrated as you said on the previous map, the ability of barricades to give freedom to the defenders. And Wreck has also gassed out that position to prevent Eagator from marching on forwards. This has been such a stall out, finally Carwell finds Wreck. At the exact same time, he's getting run out on from break room by UKIS. as he restabilize into a 3 on 3. Actually very winnable round here. Got intel, got BB, got second innocent pocket. And they actually have decent time as well, it's 64 seconds. So let's make sure we're off office right now from the east stairs. The break room is in clear clear clear, don't worry about it. But I feel like we need to either see how I get towards the bomb, start to help get the plant down, or get Iakita with the flag to go for a kill. Oh, it's a big one. V1, what a shot from Yuki's. He's been firing up big time on border. Akai and Ayageta cannot push for the refrag as if yet Flashbang goes out, but they're so worried about all the other angles from the other Scars players. Finally, Ayageta takes the bombsite and it's goodbye to Yuki into the 2v2 with only 15 seconds to play. This like and wash, I have spent most of this round sitting back relaxing, sipping peanut Kalada's on the bomb side, and now it's just Akayu left against two players. He's got no time, has to tank it, and it doesn't matter, there's nothing to be done. Skars looking back in peak form, and on boarder, they dominate in the first half. It's a 4-2 split, heading into the halftime vibe check. I For you nose and jeans But you know, you think it'll make me wrong And it's a bit too low Yeah, yeah, still, I got my eyes on the bottom They'll site this tunnel vision If I got comas missing, I don't know who might come But missing, I don't know who gon' be the dude Thought you were that one time and got proven not to be So true, I got left halfway out, my mind had to get With some days, rearranging what really matter Keep casual fleas, set the goal and something After that, I had to take a risk Bet on me, cause that's what it will Before you fantasize it on me, you should dream Of a better self-finance for real I dreamed it up, changed all my lifestyle, no money, nice house, I cleaned it up, and it seems enough, but one thing really made me think enough, and I see, I see new scenes of it, did you need to freeze, no strings to cut, but I don't know what you want, you think it up, it makes me wrong, and it's a bit too long. of the dream start on border for wrecking the boys on scars 4 to at the end of the half on the most attack a sided map in the pool. It's a shame really, if you're a KineTrope fan because man, we really expected a lot out of them after that first game against help us. So they looked so good. And even on not having labs, they looked all right. What do we expect so much more? Yeah, and honestly, I do think the map video here is quite challenging for KineTral, I think, going up against cars and night heaven labs into board or into bank. You have not made it easy for yourself. That's what I want to say. But this is also the thing, when you have new roster with some new players, and maybe even when you have some inside information, Even that you know players that go from teammate or team B and TB to teammate and so so on You might feel like oh, we know them on this map. We know how they're gonna play But then what if it seems to shuffle? What if they don't play the way they used to because they also have new players What if they just have these excellent gunfights where they're just winning every single time? That's how you get these four two sort of house Also, they've been very chatting we each other in game on both maps actually both discussed in the operative bands, calling each other baiters and their EFTs. They're building all these kinds of things. Obviously, some vibes between these two teams given that they have former teammates across the board. Of course, of course, yeah. Very much. It's funny, I would have expected that KineTrope would be able to read Scars a little bit better just because it's not just that they have former teammates, they get a bit... They have their former coach, obviously. Claire, like you, he wrote the book, The Scars, if you will. And now he plays for Kinochok. Do you think that would be such a significant advantage? No, not to be. You know, I've got to wonder, like, how awkward would it be? This didn't really affect you, perhaps, because you spent almost your entire career with the same roster. Yeah. There's often drama, like a player or a coach or an analyst leaves a team and, you know, they take the whole Google Drive with them, or whatever. There's a little bit of politics about how do we separate, like, Like all of the notes and all of the strats that all the documentation that we have especially for a Claire Leaving scars right like yeah typically it's the it's the coach who's in charge of all the documents So this is the awkward thing because obviously we didn't make many of us to change between Hard of ways to do this and shachi and you know go get later on We would remove the Google Drive access before telling them that they got benched so that it wouldn't just copied out a spy and take the strats with them, but then one time a player would check the Google Drive for a straddle, like, uh, why not have access, and it's like, uh, well, stop watching, you're getting dropped, and then they would know that because we had done the same to a player before, so they'd know the trick, right? And they'd treat it to a very awkward conversation. Again, politics and checking care of yourself before others, it's a tough one, because there's so many moving parts in these boards, and they know... Yeah It's a bit awkward So who to drop that caught it beforehand? Who was it? I think it might have been Junes where it happened with I don't remember the time but I'm pretty sure it must have been Yeah Poor guy Poor guy Look, I like what I'm seeing from scars this round Which I feel like I've said a lot of the times so far in this series But I love the fact that we're using Heart Breach on boarder The Ace and the Kibana But it's not in your most typical way No, it's to flush out Locks out some of these core positions like break room. It's not just over breaching the main wall and executing on the side They're using this very creatively. It's leaving area to be exposed It's led him to fall and though Kao is able to trade out wreck Skars might actually be able to pick up fish like this. It was info but Gatorada on the back of a Valkyrie camera This is a tough call now for KineTrip for they look to get re-aggressive Or not hard Okay, wow impact from below finishes off the downed player meanwhile a car you come through and swings That's very nice from Keena Trope now scars in a 1v3 of you kids up against this former team I swear the whole man has played out in break room though. We've seen almost nowhere else on the map again Libby in his chat get that under camera killed out Can you make a play? It's 1 vs 3, C4, Val'Kam, Crossfire, and Val'Kam lurking down below an impact win. He's impacting him from below all the information. It's beautiful, tower swings off the contact. Gino Trope. He said he started looking good for scars, but that was a good adaptation there by Gino Trope to counter the round. It was. I love the impact from below from Val'Kam. It's kind of like this little ego move where it's like, hey mate, if I had picked C4, you would be dead. So just just know that just know that Well, that actually is it's funny cuz if you took if you took Valkyrie and poles and look at them historically higher You play the info you play the C4 beneath But then we also have the conversation of we don't want operators who have too much self agency, right? Like think of Yeager with the purple shield you can put down the shield and put up the ads is I feel like that will be in balance because they can protect what he brings. And that's not fair. But then Paul's and Valkyrie's whole feel is that they bring in full with a c4. And if you took the c4 away from them, they would be a much weaker operator because you'd have to play the Valkyrie on the Paul's for somebody else's c4 to do the job, right? Yeah. I feel like that's a funny balancing discussion where sometimes it's fine and sometimes it's completely the opposite of fine. totally yeah look it's not a hard and fast rule that you never want an operator to be independent because sometimes it works and look an operator that I see a lot of at the like kind of solo queue level because it's like we're saying like it's not as big a deal when you have comms you can coordinate as a team but as a solo queueer being able to hard breach and have your own EMPs is huge. You can actually see a lot of striker. Wow that was a good shot from Iagator and Washoi but it goes to show that the boss It's not all it's cracked up to be because it only does about 80 damage on the washaway at long range there Yeah, but it's also about strikers obviously he's got the MPs and the secondary hybrid gadget now The MPs are as good as thatcher and the secondary hybrid gadget isn't as good as thermite So he's just got a worse version of both and I think sometimes the self-sufficiency is just about you know How how good is it overall? It's about balancing the whole kit looks like scars going for a bit of an aggressive play the blitz supported by the nomad goes in The verticality from Akayu watches out for fish like, wash away able to trade, and it's now awkward for KineTrip 1, V3 with you kids on the grounds. Babs could be picked up at some point in Lobby. Scars need to try and isolate. Whereabouts is Akayu? We know he's up on the mezzanine. Once Nina has an E1D, he might be able to detonate it. The drop should have been heard. The E1D comes out, Wreck goes for the swing with the glass, and the round is put to bed, good round from Skars, and with that they are once again on the verge of finishing off this game. Quite like that push actually, I mean obviously it works as good as it did because they had the opening pick and they had significant confidence because there's those angles that they can be watched against them. But they blitzed down the bathroom hallway with a glass mode passport because Easteos was already clear? Very effective, highly lethal, and it forces the remaining players of Kino Trope who are not by the bombset itself to come sprinting back to try and save that round together. And as it makes these rushes of direct attacks so effective, is that it says Scrooge will run upstairs, they have to respond to us attacking their home, and then sprint back into action. So I quite like that. And the funny thing is you mentioned that Striker in solo queue is an upper that sees a fair bit of play because it can be a self-enabling operator. But you can also make the argument at the same time that Striker could be one of the best attackers in the game for any round, in theory for pro league, right? Because anything you want, like the most common one that we saw in the beginning was Consulate Top Floor Attack. You know they had a bandit or a kite in the meeting wall, they pre-placed it and no one's gonna bring fast or it's hard to nade it. You can just bring in P's and the Ken opener, Nade or Ken opener and use Solo can deal with that position while four people take admin offices. Phenomenal operator and it's actually FaZe Clan, one of the best teams in the world, maybe the best team in the world, right? Who has the highest play rate with that operator. That's a really interesting fact, I didn't know that the FaZe had the highest play rate but yes, great operator. Obviously also got a phenomenal primary in the M4 and the secondary shotgun so just such a versatile operator. Now good early spawn peek there running it outside, wreck will go down, that's goodbye to the ash which means one less counter to these mirror windows. When I say one less I mean well that the only counter is gone. Aside from knifing those mirrors. Or still bashing them technically, another knife. Sorry, melee melee melee i've always been a melee type of guy but i think it's melee it's definitely one it can be both right i think is that a said word i feel like uh i'm gonna go you should say it's accent slash dialect base yeah like the american versus uk english type thing exactly i think britain melee i don't know like i say both that's the benefit of being a foreign for an English speaker right or not not an English speaker. Just keep it fun you know keep something. Yeah. Meadows with a tomato, garage of grass, I'll teach it up. Here we go. The shield bash comes in onto the mirror window. It's time to go for a plant. Wait hang on a second. That's awkward. Fish like is run straight outside to try and chase down Kawa who managed to get away with his life. What the hell was that from Keena Trope? Thankfully for scars they managed to find two kills back again and they get deep in the box side. Now it's time to try and look for a plant opportunity here, but the Blitz needs to get around it. Meanwhile, the logic bomb rings out. Is there a plant denial here? I don't think there is. Nobody's in position. Nobody seemingly knows about it either. This is going to be a tough retake here for Kinecho. That's cold. Chase outside, straight back, your human scapum so controlled, post-unabled, smoke from glass and pocket as well, and a Blitz alive. This post-unit should be practically impossible. The Blitz can't do a lot from outside of that window though the glass still has one smoke grenade left that could be big here the bird though comes through as well from you kids up above with Nino on the glass going down it comes down greatly to you kids now he's the last one standing the solace up above he's been taken down DMR comes out all he has to do now is kill the player on that diffuser doesn't need to worry about the second player who's covering just find that player on the diffuser Gatorana sticks it and wins the round! The Kena Trope! Yook is just needed, one kill and he could not find it! No match point just yet for scars! Kena Trope are still battling on boarder! Oh, he's got a few bad about that one, you know, he was upstairs for so long, didn't double check if the vert was done for the post-time, but also he didn't want to give up his positioning, right? They thought to themselves, hey guys, the win condition is we're hiding a player up above, they're not gonna know about it. They think we're all downstairs by the bomb site, so just don't make a noise He didn't feel like he had the space to use his weapons in the post plant to make sure the holes were there And you realize a little bit too late The crazy thing is I think Kino's have started diffusing with like seven points something seconds left or eight points something seconds left Meaning had they been one second slower, it wouldn't have mattered It was literally down to the final seconds of the round for Kino to win that post plant Phenomenal stuff and it didn't waste any moments like the second that bomb went down Tyro will run and he's forced to build the thing. Costumes check, bombsite check, turret check. Now this is a big round, Nick. It's either match point scars or it's even scoreline. Big chance for Kinejoke now. We've had all the bands come out Valkyrie eliminated glass eliminated Leaves the mirror in leaves all of these traps in moments a triple threat right Fenrir Ella and the Thorn Mutur is not half bad as well. We've seen a little lion play here. So I'm not surprised to see that Amos as well counted a lot of these positions where the new was Placed notice the mutur often placed in power positions. We want defenders to be playing Yeah, to try and protect them against that utile instead of just for drone like the old days I could also really see a clash around happen. Just want some key to Kobe like this And we're going to overtime or a 5-5 or a 5-6 like I feel like that's gonna be a clash moment right there with these Operator bands being able to also banning Valkyrie was saying Valkyrie impacts every round is kind of cool Because it's been Valkyrie impacts every time not a C4 batting an operat against gatorada is pretty cold as well as like this guy retired respect the fear hmm there's always the question oh has this a trade and god bless the damage on that ar from nomad i mean if he didn't have that level of damage that would not have been a trade he did not get the headshot iagata lamb of the headshot with a scorpion it's Kind of worth it though, for SCARs I'd say, now they can focus up on clearing the next power position, which will be CCTV and that's Gatorada, playing for Thorne. I don't think trading a body on board is better for attackers, because you get map control with that. There are some maps for a thing, the defender trading is better because they get less gadgets on the attacking side, but this map is not as much about that as the CCTV topcalls for example. The SCARs get a bit of this deal, but the hardest battle is yet to come. If you want to clear CCTV and break room, I think that is going to be the tallest test for them. There goes the fire, the DMR watching the angle, but they got to push somewhere else, so he can't just be wrecked doing all this work himself. They got to see Nina and LaShaw like it in the action. Second fire's gone out, but actually there's still a lot of playability here for Garurata. Wow, that fire is fucking by such a huge radius these days. Garurata's a bit of an off angle, and if he's peeked from the window at the same time as he's pressured from somewhere else, He is surely gonna lose the fight. Why should I? Takes a bit of damage and grow down. Fog at Arata, but he goes down. And Skars have a chance now. Into the 3v3. 45 seconds still to play. How is the key pillar? For a key player, he's on a pillar position in the middle, right? If he dies, they lose access to Armory on the retake, and the plant can be enabled by Skars. It's important that he stays alive, and that's declaring Akaio to the first work. first work in there. Of course Akayu taking down Rek, now they've got man advantage. Big gap that Akayu is able to shut down. Kawa, great shot from him. Goodbye to Washoi on the bomb site. All up to fish like now. They know exactly where he's coming from. That's an easy swing with the MP7. My friends, we've come all the way to just be tied again. It's five rounds apiece. Kena Trope are battling big time. Scars are put onto the pump. Good use of trap operators. Defend rear, the thorn, I think three or four separate gatches went off in that round, giving either information and advantages for the defenders. All outright was the reason for why a kill occurred. So really good stuff. If you're not making scars at the rethink the attack and approach here, I think either bring in more shield interaction for safe passage Or just taking more guns in the same area off the map. In that last trial, there was a 3 on 3 for example, we saw player E stairs, a player on breakroom door outside the building, and then we saw the A's pushing down out of the CCTV window also very much on their own. So it's three people and sure they're all trying to attack the same player, but they're so far apart, they're essentially taking one versus one gunfights, and they did not come out victorious in those. On KineTroll, they counter-stroll in their hand, right? They're playing heavy traps, they're playing in the mirror. That's where you see them time and time again. So it's up to scars to truly find a counter that works for them, and then it's up to KineTroll after that attack to then counter the counter. Now they bring out the Brava and the shield. It means they can deal mostly with the chat operators, and also they can deal with the entries as long as we follow Fishlike on the Blitz. Brava's a lot easier said than done on this map, though. Yeah, it is. a lot of ways you can counter the drone work and rather unlike twitch it takes a few seconds to activate that gadget it's not just like a twitch drone where a quick zap and you know the gadget is destroyed you have to hack it so keep that in the back of our mind for Nina this round hopefully he can do his work with the drones as quickly as possible and then just focus up on being a fragger for scars Perhaps taking it a little bit steadier and slower would be a way to win the Viscars and I think it's also what Brava gives you, like guys wait, I gotta use my gadget, guys wait, I gotta use my gadget. Instead of sprinting face first to a barricade, you know, if the stars can get like closer to the bombsite than that 5v5 or 4v4, we seem to be so leafless, so successful at getting the plant down, it's usually when they lose the players early that they get stopped. I feel like the Brav is actually really overloaded here like looking at the lineup bulletproof cameras. You've got four thorn traps You've got four or three Fenrir. I forget how many Fenrir minds he has these days plus the ban sheets Like yeah There's so much utile that you need to count it and that doesn't of course deal with the kaii electric laws Which you probably want to counter as well So maybe a twitch and bravo combo could have helped the twitch could target the mirrors and the thorn traps and the fenrir minds It's gonna be a hard round for scars that's for sure so many layers this defense Oh yes, if I stay at the picket apart that goes ooooh careful, second nothing through my clear and this might be a free kill James. Oh come on, maybe not. That drops down, they need to try and use the Blitz to try and expose Gatorada here in this position. The Blitz is playing him so well, Brett he can't reload in time! Another knockback, still hasn't found the kill but does bait Kawao into it and Fishlike is able to try and find the kill onto Gatorada itself. He is self-sufficient as the blitz in that moment for all the three now scars finding a massive numbers advantage Looking to convert it now. They put their focus on malusi Rick had the Heart destroying cannibal there is no fratern is that's why that awkward moment happened He get a strike by onto rack who's not dead. Oh my god The thorn trap popped blitz injured probably from that effect on All of a sudden that 4v3, it affects you. 2 vs 3. Maybe it's your 2v2 here. Oh yeah, it's perfect. Very critical kill there for Washe. You're gonna die! The Thorn Trap again! This is why Skars banded on their own defense inside, down into the 1v1. Iogator, must look for the retake. Nita knows where that diffuser is. He's got to get it in plan. Straight away. There's gonna be two full seconds here where he's not gonna get... What is that? How he go? I negated from all the way up above. He's got the bird. He threads the needle. And he finds map point for Keyna Trope. Oh boy, it's gonna be a bit of anger if you're a Scars player. The Blitz gets injured to a Thorn Trap and less than 10 seconds later, your ace sends it straight through a window into a barbed wire and will die to a Thorn Trap. It's what I was saying before. When you're playing with a Thorne in mind, it really isn't that bad. But when you're not being conscious of it, these things can happen. The other aspect is that there's gonna be a barbed wire on that window specifically to slow you down because of the Thorne trap. So if you jump in and see a barbed wire, your brain should go, look for the trap, look for the trap. Because you're not gonna make it out alive anyway. We saw that. Even if you vault in and vault out, you still take damage to die. Scarlet's gonna call the tech timeout, take out our thicker things out. It is due or die in terms of this map of folder. They did win the first one, there will be a third one if they were to lose, but ideally it's the stars they want to get it done in too. We have thorn, hashtag we have thorn, you saw that? You said the first team, so you started today's broadcast with, I really dislike thorns not braider, I think it's super annoying, it tells me I don't like it when I get rid of it. And then we've seen a thorn ban, it's like the 5th thorn kill today, at least 4 or 5 kills for sure. It's been also like a foreign interest that blips for example to me as a phone kill because the bits isn't gonna get revived He's effectively dead even if he gets shot by a teammate of yours, right? Yeah, so like you can't do this as well the highly valuable I Am disgusting I was having a win about phone the other day while playing some pranks And I had an idea of an earth that I think still makes her really powerful Can't hear it. Yeah All right, what if when you're caught in the like the red radius which at the moment kills you instead of killing you It puts you down to one HP. So like no matter how much HP you have you can have 100 or you could have five No matter what it won't actually kill you. It just puts you down at one HP I've heard the same argument happen to operators like Capcan where it's like you don't want traps to be lethal because it takes all the fun out of the game as the person that gets you know that's tricker them But the flip side is that it's all the fun are playing captain and thorn if you can't get kills in the gadget, right? I don't know that's true. Thorn, like you can do so much without getting kills and still like use the gadget to get you. You can do so much, but does it feel good James when you see that? Yes it does. Boom! Top right on the kill feed. That's what feels good. So I think it's hard because you're taking away the dopamine from the player and they're not gonna want that. They want that dopamine hit. Maybe you'll get more barbed by kills. Oh yeah, so the thorn trap gives him some HP and the barbed by kills him more. Exactly, exactly. I like that. Yeah, look, I see what you're saying. I think Capcan, he can be the one operator that gets kills. But even then, one Capcan trap doesn't kill, right? But one thorn trap does. Capcan's got five traps, thorn's got four. Capcom needs three traps to kill someone, but it needs one. I mean, Thorne could technically kill four different people with four different Capcom traps in one round. How insane is that? True. And five bullets in the magazine, you can get five hints or two fine players, but they're from both of them. Yeah, but what's a very OP, I think they should not. I think they should have been wallbangs, shouldn't you look at that shot? I'll see it. Yeah, I know you do. Chemin-chan by the way. It was kinda nice. I don't see any gamer much. What season is that for? Is that the last season? Or this season? I think it's last season. See you later, Rek. Is this his third map? This might be it. Yeah, I think. It's gonna be all done in Dustin in a few moments. Unless if Eclair can fumble this for Kiritrope, he's at a really rough run, hasn't he? But nope coming in to save the day. It's mr. 16 kills himself car well going absolutely nuclear again UQ is and fish like the last two standing for scars two versus four doesn't look pretty Scars started so well. They had a what five versus three league I think it was they had such an advantage here over Kirito a big nitro cell comes through Rehagator, but fish like managed to survive only for a brief moment before getting injured again Yukis have to stave off Kena trope pushing it to a third map I don't think it's likely he's trapped here in bathroom gets the res car. Wow It's not a guest in swing. You're right. There is no rotate doesn't need to be bomb site is over in vents Carwell a triple on the round his 17th kill has been claimed and he finds an 18 That closes the map for Kena trope bought a strat and so roughly four of them scars looked so good and yet Kinitroh manages to bite back. Map 3 of Bank is coming up after this. They come out wind-billing like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the poor king of a scrap! Tino! If he goes up contest, the kick goes cold, that'll be devastating. The grenade goes through, that's a swing! Cyber and Buddha are able to get one piece with the kick so far away, and Canadian down upstairs. Leaver! Wow, that was special. to 1 vs 3 to hold, and they're pushing from behind, he's found 1, he's got to get the vertical as well, they get pulled off since, we're down to the last few seconds, Ryder's got another, he's held on, he's going to do it, and PSP, take the 2-1 win. Both players spotted, but the Ranskin he makes excessively. Oh! Got a lot of the solid tone, information from the bees, he goes, He's going to get cooked alive, Ollie, but he's using the stem of pestles like this from the dark. Surely not. Brilliant! That's Clay the year in my book. Place the game, hits the old buddy, doesn't go and catch it. There's the- OH MY GOD SINCE! The Dallas, he doesn't have a way to solution! He's going back, he's not quite sure. He, don't need a few seconds to get Nassal's ticket. This is an angle that he might be able to contest. No, of course he takes just a bit of damage there. Walk against the second one, he clips the Wukid 1, turning it into a 2v2 9-day push in on the site. The bandit will lose out on this! He clips the last alive on the ally. Spots the hand and takes the base. The ace for Waka. He wheeled down BC, Canadian positioning to pick up, but that's going to result in a double base. Vertical left corner, bringing them around. Necrox the final defender against Vertical. The ace, absolute domination. I don't believe it! Magic, Michael! T1 dies as they win the Mexico Major. I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going, so I'll hurry and run out. You can catch me, I'm breaking down to the bottom now Listen to what you want to be signing out I'ma keep it going, so I ain't gonna know I'm breaking next and I'm finding out Oh, I feel full of stuff in my money now Cause I came to get the hands of this money now I'ma keep it going till the end of the night Going till the end of the night looking for a scrap, the whole king of a scrap, Tino. If he goes uncontesting the kick goes cold, that'll be devastating. The grenade goes through, that's the swing. Cyber and Bullen are able to get one apiece with the kit so far away, and Canadian down upstairs. Lever, wow, that was special. It's a one versus three to hold, and they're pushing from behind. He's found one, he's gotta get the vertical as well. They get pulled off, Tic, put down to the last three and four seconds, Ryder's got a gatherer, he's held off, He's going to do it! A BSE! Take the two-one win! Both players spotted with the rest, and he made six just for the year. Four! But another one of a sort of information for the Bs! He goes, this! Come on, guys! There he is! Seven runs! They cement themselves as one of the greatest of all time. He's starting to get cooked alive, Oli, but he's using his dim pencils. Look at this from the dark! Surely not. Brilliant! Let's play the year in my book. He plays the game, hits the old buddy, doesn't quite catch it. Oh my god, son! He doesn't have the motivation! He's going back, he's not quite sure. He's going to have a few seconds to stick it, Nassal, stick it. This is an angle that he might be able to contest. No, unfortunately, he takes just a bit of damage here. Walk, I guess, to the second one. Eclipse though, Wilkhead one, turning it into a 2v2. 9v2 pushing on the side. The bandit will lose out on this. He clipped the last alive on the Ella, spots the head, and takes the ace. The ace for Waffa. He will down DC, Canadian positioning to take off, but that's going to result in a double-defeat. The vertical left, for Nippin' the Round, neck rocks the final defender against vertical. The ace, absolute domination. He gets it, Jeff! He's done it! He's the son of a bitch! He's the son of a bitch! They are the best that this region has got to offer! Well we did promise that this game would be a banger. We promised that scars and Kinetrope were both in peak form after their quarter finals and look what's happened, Bengi. We're going the distance to map number three. Yeah, and honestly, it's very deserving. I thought Kinetrope, I think most of us was watching that border game. It's not a 2-4-2-2-2 half for scars. I think it's over. It's 2-0. Kinetrope did not have that level of consistency that we thought we did, we were wrong. Defeat on defense and defend us at a border. Third map needed and spank, a map that both teams historically have always liked. A lot of big hero moments as well, our Kar-Wau 18 kills to 7 deaths, Akayu 10 and 5. It's funny because a team typically makes big roster upgrades and the new pickups tend to be the Star Fraggers. But no, it's the two classics, the two who have been there since the very beginning for Kino Trope that really led the way, Pave the way to the mail on board up for Kinnitro great showing from them But as you said bank as our decider is going to be a challenge for both teams no doubt Do you have any inkling just based on form? I think holistically map one scars like that was a convincing win map to Kinnitro was a convincing win It was a great comeback win. What do we think about the map 3? I Still think the scars have a slight fever there just because it's bank and how they will be pleaded last play So it's my favorite system, but if Kino's are bringing out something funky like those four traps again, and it goes unconditioned by scars or uncounter, Kino's are going to do some fun stuff to bring it back. Yeah, we're about to get into it. It is Bank, Kino Troop and Scars. It's been a long time since we've seen Kino Troop play this map all the way back in September last year where they lost it 7-8 to Emsa Force in Japan. Japan. Of course, prior to that, they've beaten both Fyrex and PSU Talon on the map, but it has been a very long time between drinks for Kinetrope on bank. It's certainly not at all since they picked up three new players. As for Skars, they last won this just a week ago against Fyrex. It was a solid 7-4. Now we get into it today to determine which of these teams marches forward into the upper bracket final. Skars and Kinetro both desperately need this win. Over at the bands, over at the pigs, we've seen a lot of different things already, right? The shield bands, the shield pigs, the clash, the munchies, the blitz, the thorn all of a sudden. One thing has stayed consistent throughout this entire journey though. The grim band just keeps coming through as a very popular double electro bros also was seen earlier on Night Haven left from Oh, Mira, Kaid and Grim and Dulkaby, so some looks stay the same, some a little bit different. Of course, the nature of banks that's going to play quite differently than both NetHuman Labs and Border, so we're going to see different operators within play and of course in the end phase. You know, it's funny, we talk about Attacker, Defensive, Favourite maps, obviously Border, border skewing more to the attacking side compared to the average map. But off the top of my head, the most attacker-sided map at the Six of Evitational was actually Bank. Like, what is it do you think really sets Bank apart from a lot of the other maps? Because a lot of the time we talk about what makes a map attacker a defensive favorite. Well, obviously, the bigger the map is, the harder it is to clear as an attacking team. But Bank is a big map. So why is it still Easy to attack. The more hard breach you have to do, the harder it is to attack. Well, there's a lot of hard breaching on this map, a lot of hatches. Why is it so achievable to attack on this map if you're a good player? I think the symbol it explains is that actually the top floor is practically unplayable, and this kind of affects all bombsites of the map, right? The reason why you can't play Taylor's Naka's bombsite into a level play very commonly is because you need to kind of hold upstairs, see your meeting, to hold the bombsite vertically. But holding C.O. meeting is practically unholdable because there's no safe positions from the C.O. in the Raquel. And that leads into the top of C.O. bomb site, the open area bomb site, the base bomb site, and C.O. Sarkas bomb site. Because banks' bomb sites themselves aren't necessarily super strong, you have to clear the map. You've got to clear the extension, the holes, kind of like Chalet. But on Chalet, roam is kind of easy. On Bank, it's very hard to defend there. So I think that really bleeds into this map being so attack our favorite. Long answer applies at the building. DMR is being so prevalent as well. And as you said, you have so much heart destruction. Back when you only had Thermite Hibana, you could ban one of them more, spawn kill one of them, whatever, and you'd limited breaching. Now you've got to see if there are 10 openers. There are two of those, in fact, in this round, plus Hibana. They can breach every wall, every hatch known to man, and still have spare. Yeah, very much the case. Looks like a brawl has gone out on the roam game. Unfortunately though, Wreck, while he did get injured, got injured close enough to that hatch inside open area that he was able to drop down and he'll now be revived on site. So definitely a win in terms of the roam battle for Skars as they've claimed the lives of both the Sen's and Blackbeard and not lost anyone themselves. As I say that, Yuuki's almost goes down and then is finished off by Eklia. So finally, open area control taken by Keenitro, but not without a huge cost. And Rek is still very low on health, so this is still winnable. Akina Trollies need an opening somewhere, a good capitol fire usage. The thing about Scarry's use is that they've had a very aggressive roam upstairs, running out of building, having to be reinforcements. But look at the bombs at home. Shunka and Smoke doubling down, and then you want a triple of a Goyo fire. We can sit here for the next 60 seconds, aka the entirety of the round, and we'll never see a plant go down on default plant location right here on this wall where it is looking because that's to shun against Wukshi's job to deny. So Kino Trot, Kino Trot then I'll see this, either you push deep or you go for kills, you cannot plant on that default spot. Akai isn't a bit of a pickle as well because he's running shotgun which means all he's got for a long range weapon is the Reaper and being in server it's all long range gunfights so he needs to get up close and personal, he ideally wants to be dropping down the hatches so following up It feels like it's got a rider in a kaiyo kaiyo kind of opposite spots I don't think you're planting like you said there's so much plant denial It feels like you have to go kind of deep here push for a kill class. It's just really decimated Not sure that whether that was gunfire or elsewhere, but that's really mad at scars can easily Lap up the final couple of kills in the end. It was actually the ying of a kite who did try and go for a plant But not to be at all scars off to a solid start defending the basement Yeah, now the thing about the basement roam game is that it's kind of unplayable. So what most teams tend to do, what we see very often also here in APL, is we just see you'll play like three people or two people in the basement, you know, one holding garage, one holding server. That's like your two weaknesses that you can rush to the bomb site as an attacker. And the third one playing main stairs, kind of assisting the roamer. Then you have the roamers actually in open area with the corner hatch open for fallback, which we just saw last time as well. That's how you make the roam work. You don't often see people start top 4, get kills, fall back, etc. As I said, because of the window rappels, the cutoff rotations, and how many drones you can get in prep phase that sees all those different areas. So scars, what they do really well in bank, and why they like the map so much, is that they are fearless. They just don't have that part of your brain that goes, oh, this is a bad idea, I'm in trouble, I shouldn't be doing this. That brain just doesn't turn on sometimes, and that is your biggest strength as a team in the most positive ways because they will take a really hard to roam kind of map like bank basement and they will start top floor and they'll not care and they'll take the fight in the beginning, kill some drones, fall back, take the fight again, kill some drones, fall back and very often they will get one or two kills and even if they trade so Kino's will gets two kills and Scar's will get two kills when you only have three attackers alive you very often cannot go for the plant and they execute that you actually envisioned in the beginning so you'll be forced into problem solving on the fly, and that's going to fear the defenders every single time because they started that round knowing that's probably what's going to happen. So I think that's why SCARS can actually make this map work so well in domestic play, but this probably wouldn't work as well internationally. And like you said, of course, the weakness of Bank as a defensive side, a Bank as a defensive map, is that the top floor is pretty much unplayable. Yeah. That's the same alongside choice. That's right. So that's what we've got for this second round. And obviously if you're on either of the ground floor bomb sites you want to hold on to the top floor For as long as possible. So how are scars really simply going to try and defend this bomb site? Well, I don't know to me. I'm thinking about things like the Aruni ideally you want to try and beat people play aggressively Yeah, but aside from that. I don't know like I think it's going to be tough there's a lot of rappel angles here at the kinetrope And Nina was on a roam downstairs and gets caught off guard So the way that you do this, as you said, you play a DMR on Aruni, that can fight people. The second one is you play a Warden inside a Janitor's Closet, because then they can't just smoke to see a Windows and Drapelin for a plant. That's like what every team tends to do, and you fight for stock control, you fight the people in their repels. Often this bomb site of top floor CEO gets defined by the small gun fights, the small details. For example, Nina getting caught in the roam. Nina dying and Nina getting a kill is a huge reason why this round will be won or lost by these three teams so it's very tricky to make this a consistent bomb site into the outcome because it's a very close with heavy one and then okay that's free dummy yeah that was a decision from fish like to play in a completely exposed position to the hatch very strange oh well it will fall again the elevator's open right he either plays in the elevator or he leaves the elevator on top some of the hatch because kali's watching this angle as well yeah i mean maybe Just not seeing on your drone exposed to an angle with help here. Here we go That's what we were talking about before contesting these long angles with a DMR That's the play here for wash away and it's all he needed. He's also just seen a second player now He defend or the sorry attack of kawa doesn't know the wash was spotted him because he didn't elect to Fire any shots off here comes a fire out from a kai you up to them. Yes. I saw him take a little bit of damage I don't know where the fire actually managed to land, but Selena looking good for KineTrope and Lesser McClay could find an opening like that. Now just Wreck and Washoi stand up, Washoi traded back after he's found his second kill. Wreck up against the world now in a 1v3 and the repel is going to come in from Makai. Defuses now outside they need to hunt down for this kill. Wreck doesn't have enough bullets. Ayagator will take him down. Far too close for comfort for KineTrope but the round is theirs. And you just see how tough that top floor bomb site is to play, I mean, again, that's what we say is unplayable. There are so few safe areas, you're always under pressure, and we spoke about how the many different operator bands can play into the strength of weaknesses of a team or a bomb site. What some teams have been trying to do in recent history with this new operator band system is you ban the Kibana and you ban the Ace. And all of a sudden you can play top floor defense, because now there's no range path destruction and they can't beat open that elevator wall which means you can play the general hallway and stock hallway and Elevator and you have much this pressure on you But then we spoke about the munition return of banning the same archetype right by banning two harbors You leave open so many power-ups in the attack like in this case the grim or the gulk of the the same two of them It's like there's no real winning because it takes so much and operate a band selection to make that top-up on site work And then people often will go what about playing the fourth bomb side? Well tell us I Christ is worse What the worst bombsite in the game's history in tier one never loved play it always has been You remember back in the day when it was the secondary bombsite off the basement dude, okay? Let's take it once the further you remember back in the day when clubhouse had a one cable bombsite And then you play bar second was just unplayable and then there isn't even a third choice because they were so bad Yeah, yeah, that was good old days for those who weren't playing back then the entire of connector or construction on the top floor that connects cash and Master bedroom didn't used to exist when yeah, hot house first came out so both Cash and gym had external walls that you could breach open the attack aside. It was just absolutely a death wish to play Yes There's a hatch in the roof at the high bomb site. There's a CCTV window at the other bomb site. It was super unplayable. Yep, so bad. So, top of our speed work, dudes. Best speed work in the game. I have no doubt about it. Opening kill for Kar-Wa, the guy who went unbelievably big on boarder is coming up very nice early on in bank. Big kill on the ramp. Very important operator on any of these ground floor bombsites to tear up that floor and and put that vertical pressure on the defense. Bit curious in this rotation, they started on the roof, they do the ram vert, they get a pick, and now they're going back to the roof to, maybe just change the entire approach, maybe that whole play was just to get that kill, maybe that was like a predetermined, kind of set strat, and now they got what they wanted, they can go back to plan A, got to see what's short downstairs, looking for a final server, there's one person waiting for him, and the benchy being there to guard him, if they were to push him deep. He has no info. No, he doesn't. There's a good gap, though, found by Akai. Now, two player advantage. Great read from Ayagata on the flank from Washoi. It all comes down to you, kids, now. From up above, yes, realistically, no choice, but to drop the hatch. And there's no question about it. KineTrope will be waiting for when he does so. Kar-Wow is in perfect position to just actively watch that hatch. but Ayagata comes upstairs, beautiful work with the F2, the FAMAS, the return of the FAMAS vertical grip as Kinatro established their grip on Bank. It's a very solid attack, execute as well. Again, get the first pick, reset the round, hit the server, hit the side, watch the flank, solid snake also being utilized greatly there. Good optime off the gadget. I'm curious now about the bends here. Sunstein could honestly be a target band, I'm not even gonna lie to you. It's gonna be Ying and Clash. Okay, so Clash being sticked as a counter-missure. Of course Clash on top of Obamasai can help you with those long-lasting side and hallway, so that's kind of a nice pre-fire. The Ying, however, Ying was stayed a little bit on border, not too insane effect, so I'm not sure exactly what the fear factor is there for scars. Unless you're fearing a warden band maybe? Of course the yin was played on that basement attack, it was just not effective. The round was a... Yeah exactly, but I think maybe scars are backing on the fact that look, if Kinetrope do have a better start to the round, if perhaps Kinetrope win the round game or scars don't get to for zero essentially on the round, which is what happened in that first round, then yeah, the yin will be very deadly and come into power. there were fearing a warden band to come out from Kino Trope as well you kind of have to get on the front foot with that yeah I know how I feel about the Clash Band I know that Skars we play a little clash and it is scary to go up against a clash but I just don't think that's a priority here for Kino Trope so much but still that's good on the defense and yeah it's a problem you know and Skars shown anything that was like oh that's the problem they honestly get rid of Mark will go here and attack this basement with only like a tachanka to worry about I don't know. I feel there's Two types of siege right there's the version where you say as an attacker We are going to lose every single primary bombs that attack But it's fine because we we win the secondary and tertiary attack and we will get it two ones two twice That's a four two. That's pretty good, right? So you can you can fit this question to kirochro remove an operator that makes the other bombsets weaker open area and top floor or if you remove an operator that makes them weaker that is the strongest by far. It's actually a great point. I think it's not even like an argument. Like my instinct right is to if I'm KineTrope I've just lost one out of the last three rounds. My instinct just the way that my brain works about the game is like okay what went wrong on the round we won. How exactly. Right but I think you're dead right. KineTrope kind of just needs to not care whether or not they win I'll lose basement because if for example a clash might make one of these less good bombsites playable for scars Just get rid of it and destroy scars on the other bombsites They can have this round look at all the bloody utils scars abroad to the table here Doesn't matter a kina trope win this what matters is the next two rounds following But you may give the point about how your brain works about oh we gotta figure out the problem is and there was one problem That was the basement attack so naturally you're gonna want to fix that problem It's a completely logical way of going about it, and sometimes it can be a great thing, but sometimes it could also be a bit of a trap. Again, the four side here, both these teams, again, Scar spending a warden, maybe fearing a Ying, fearing a warden ban. Them two also trying to think ahead. The question is though, with the Monty being born into this ground, I'm thinking, Rome clear should be fine. Getting 5v5 to the bombs should be fine. Where the hell are you gonna plant because like you said maestro go you to shotgun smoke What the hell are you gonna do? I think best case scenario here for kina trope is you end up with a 5v5 in the late rounds and You drop Monty in volts or blackbeard and whichever one you're not dropping They're going server and going for a shield plant and so you just have this pressure on both sides at the same time because as you say between Goyne's smoke to the chanker and Maestro for that matter and look Thorn who by the way has one trap Silent Pocket There's just no way you get an easy plan So the thing is right Maestro has to use the evil eyes actively on cameras to utilize them to shangha has to swap weapon to the Gadget of the shreemann launcher to actually use the fire launcher There are Possibly two people not what guns up so like you said volg elevator hatch drop flank would be good They go for a plan. It's a fire misses. It's gonna count in snow. There's something Wow Why did he stop it at the last moment because the clay wasn't taking any damage? It was only a car you that was getting damaged there now the fire comes out but fish likes taking a hell of a damage himself He's on fire. I think yeah, no, I think it's gonna rot as fire. I'm a towel. Sorry. You're right. It comes off by from server Okay, it's a bit of a trade-off there. Oh, no, he's not always distracted. I'm not behind Yes, it couldn't have been his fire. You're right. It must have been a fish like who fired himself off. Gatorada though, this is a good move from him. He's both used the smoke and the fire to put some pressure on from the vault side. Ginniterra by doing a great split push to try and execute, but still the plan isn't down. That's the concern here. Claire's just taking a hell of a lot of damage from the thorn trap. He's forced to go deep. He's found a big pick and it comes down to Akai to try and force this diffuser on the ground. But it's a Claire to clean house with three big kills. PENGO, I don't know what you're saying about giving up on the basement and focusing on the other sites, because KINATROPE, they've got what it takes to win on the unwinnable bomb site. Oh, this is where SCARS is going to have a tough time, because you go back to basement, you just lost, you know, go to one of the worst bombs with a Tychebender Clash, this is doomsday. This is where you have to go guys. We might just have like a 5-1 if we're a little bit good, a little bit lucky at 4-2-1. We need to absolutely pop off on side-slop, but we're gonna stop this game from behind and we have to accept that. Because the idea of thinking of a 3-2-1 now seems so far gone. I mean, Starz, the default to this thing is they just fight you and they peek you whenever they're down in numbers. That could benefit them here. If they get like, you know, what's wrong there, rune again, get open in peak 5v4, that can be the one that turns the tide. But I also see him break down the bandit and they've been low key hiding the operator. He's been in COD the entire time, not exposing himself to any of the drones, he's hiding by the windows. They're gonna hide him and they can actually trick the elevator walls. But look at the Kali attack a re-pick. That re-pick can do the same thing, it counter this bandit without even knowing. Because you can Carly lands the ball, and you put down batteries, Rains your Pete, use the cap as a fire, and you can guarantee to open it up. Kinochrope, they have paid respect to the possible counters, and they have the right tools for that counter. Look, I'm a simple man. I see a Carly, and I'm happy. That's all it takes. And this is probably one of the few bomb sites where people really do like playing the Carly, because it's funny, most of the time people think about Carly, they don't think about her gadget, they think about her sniper rifle, because that's in a way even more unique than her gadget. So you see this bomb site, you're like, well, Kali, I guess I could play the long lines of science, maybe repel from lobby with that sniper. You forget that the gadget is the real value here. The problem with Kali's gadget in this round is that wrecking the bandit can actually actively juggle the Kanto walls and protect these lobby side top floor walls next to the elevators from being destroyed even with the Kali. The Breed Skylight. Again, every single Selma charge here from the ace is so valuable. You have three in total, it's the only half destruction and only ranged one is one of that. The breaching and the walls shows kind of their hand and what they're planning to do. Now, the group plant here on the CEO wall is the right-hand side of Blackbeard. It's totally possible if they get window pressure. But then you gotta worry about the warden, see if he's smoked, he has to see four. So then you gotta try and kill genitors, but that's where the Aruni gates on all the window are possible to play because they deny the Camitile from using the utility. So there's this like a lot of layers from both these two teams They already saw the warden, spotted out by the members of Kinnotrope now they know They smoke and they push. I get is a big position here. It's got the ACOG as well and they comes out a little bit of pressure, but no kill Where's the execute gonna come from? For Kino Trope here, obviously they have that breach on the wall, but look at two players drowning at the moment for Kino. Just trying to figure out if the execute is palatable here. They got time to double check to measure one more time before they execute. No one nation BB, going in line the Ashes, great swing there, a little bit of good trick from Kawa back to a 4v4, but they lost that shield, they lost the entry. And the other members of Kino Trope now got to step up and do that entry work themselves. Carl is stuck in the rappel. Only three people are inside the building. This is not great with the clear going down. Someone needs to revive that. I don't think it's possible at the moment. Carl out needs to rotate to square. He's done so now retaking the position of his fallen teammate. They're worried about someone down below. Who could read though on the flank? Oh, Nina doesn't manage to go down. At least not without taking one with him. The clear is finally finished off and you kids aggressive inside of janitors using those keeper barriers to protect himself despite the wall being breached it's beautiful the scars and it leaves Akaiu and Gatorada sitting around With nothing to do. They're sitting back and just hoping that their teammates will be able to execute without them while they stay on Repel and it simply ain't possible a great defense from scars They might have failed on the basement pangu, but that top floor is maybe a little bit more defendable than you might think Oh, so they trade blows Kyojo win the bomb so that they're no business winning but then scars do the exact same thing and now of course we're going back towards that base in bomb site. I'm not sure what to expect from this upcoming round now, because we're seeing Kynatron pick it apart so well, the only thing scars can really do to go basement again is roam a bit heavier and not give them full map control from the very beginning and burn down that time a little bit, or they could take the Snowden Silver stairs maybe like we see some teams do, and try and stall over time before they get into server. That's the few adaptations I could could see it from scars or they're just mad men and if they five people on the bomb site but instead of having the active use of maestro camps they have to fin your mines for those hatch drops instead. All in the net it's completely open for this half this could actually become every three halves. Could well be backed out of the basement and KineTrope have to do what they did once prior but it would be so impressive I'm really surprised to see the nook pick here look oh I'm even more surprised to see the nook with the FMG nooks got a DMR now by the way there's not a lot of places in this game on any map where you think oh yeah nook that's that's the operator that I need in that scenario but ever since she first came out Pengu is one spot that everyone thinks about and it's garage because on bank garage you're typically holding it with a bulletproof camera or some other kind of information which is what they are doing here right wreck is going to occasionally face check it but for the most part it's the bulletproof it's going to be holding down so nook is perfect for that what gun do you want to be fighting long range angle like garage the fmg which is a tiny little crappy smg what do you want to do you want the dmr come on bring the dmr for goodness sake i feel like it's a strange choice i personally prefer either dmr knock or even a black bit. I think black bit is so good for taking garage. So I'm going to play Osa and you'll walk in with the shield as well. You can put it down and fight with like a fully AR weapon as well. Good work. I like that. Well you're right though. You make a good point. Obviously maybe they plan your Aston's a little garish and go somewhere else but then we have to wonder where does the nooky gadget play into that if you're not going garish. Like that is the spot that you mentioned. So then you can just play any other operator instead. to blow up and attempt to blitz but does not connect it should block the bullets. Ghidorahda has snuck into lobby partially and thanks to the gadget but also the lobby camera can actually be shot from outside the building so that probably has been the case. Full man control 1 minute 30 seconds this is just about the average benchmark that we look for when the pro team has to roam clear bank. Having one minute 30 seconds left when you get maestros like established is just on track. Soft tech popped by the gong 6 they got thermite, they got cannon openers again KineTroll they have all the right tools to pick up after this round it comes down to how well they can execute on the strat. I get it so tempted to just make a swing isn't it? There's actually no one actively watching. If he hides deep enough he might get a free kill! Goodbye demeanor! The smoke grenade goes out as well it might pretend to threaten and execute a plant But of course it's Kar-Wau who's all the way down in elevators that actually has a defuser and Gatorada and it's the chaos has snuck in behind enemy lines He's taken down wreck and now there's a gaping hole on the bomb site No information for Washui and he's cut the side in half Gatorada, fight of the final kill. It is indeed Pengu, a 4-2 splits for Keenachope as they close out the half Can I tell you, so my mind is lovin', thinking about it for quite a time. Yeah, hey, give me a moment to take care of my life. Can I tell you it's on my mind? Can I be the chance to let you down? Yeah, my heart is desire. Can I let you down? With the same brandy, yeah. Oh, will you write me, if I tell you it's on my mind? I'm not with modern friends, I'm not that lover This is not the end, there's much not to discover And this is the end, will you promise to get me, if I tell you it's on my mind? Can I let you sit with me when you're hanging out? Or will you just break me? I just need to know when you're hanging out I'll tell you what's on my mind Another day will come the Despite fumbling their second attempt onto that top floor a double defensive Breakthrough on that basement from Kina trope finding two attack round wins on what is quite a fortress down below on on Bank. Nets them a very successful first half. And it kind of turns the conversation for this entire series that Scars have been the bit of team and they've been making the right adaptations and counter-plastic services. Oh, that's like, how it's... So what was that, sorry? Smoke and the Chanker Band! Smoke and the Chanker Band! I just... You sounded so excited! I thought your dog jumped on you, so I was like, what's happening? My dog has been getting very excited. She saw the Chanker as well. But yeah, it's Smoke Chanker Band. but please let please finish what you were gonna say before we dissect these bands i was gonna say now we look at the current landscape and go chinaturo guy got it all figured out but and this is the but the smoke into shang er ban might just change the entire conversation because we spoke about the value of making the strongest bombsite a weaker they are not supposed to win anyway or weakening the already weak bomb sites and make them undefendable scars have said Haha, plant denial, haven't heard about that. Smoshishan getting only Goryo open for any sort of actual denial forces Kinnotrop's hand. Heavy roam game on a very hard to roam map or a much weaker bomb site for plant denial. So I'm very curious to see how Kinnotrop can never get this one. Well it's interesting because as you say, the only plant denial operator available is Goryo, aside from the C4s of course, but they're not even braindeads, right? They are really going in heavy. In fact, it's Valkyrie impacts. Yeah, which we saw on board at Gatorade. It was great with the Valkyrie so much So that Skars decided to ban it. On Nyhaven Labs, the first map, we saw the teams bouncing between Valkyrie and Pulse. Now KineTrap double down. And Pulse, I wonder if he'll be playing primarily on the roam, or if his intention is to fall back to site because if you remember, which I'm sure that you do after playing it for many years, Pulse was the most iconic plant in our operator in bank for the longest time for Canadians Well, Canadian popularized which is playing inside a vault with that cardiac sensor. Yeah No, that is an iconic old-school position And we do see it make the occasional return and he's playing the shotgun So it could be a room early fall back and play that Intel game But we saw right before actually was a gator sprinting into a lobby and killing you by now on the CEO repel Well, that is going to change how this round is played with scars because the only hard destruction is the double 10 opener on Deimos, which means they can open up two hatches or two walls. They have two total things to destroy and they still got a very active roam clear as well happening. And this is why Gitterbite is playing those impact grenades, right? A C4 Valkyrie that's roaming is about getting one single kill and then probably falling back or playing a loose gun. The impact Valkyrie is almost like playing stuff like the Solace. It's about rotating and being everywhere at the same time. Impact is wobbling over here, you see someone, you impact them, etc. You can also fight against the shields with it pretty effectively. Practifying as a clear though. So Sami gets taken out by a yellow ping and a swing. It's a freebie. Very much needed. Now they do have a crossfire onto this bullet. So he wants to make his way forward. Wreck is standing behind him. That just might come out in a brief moment. This is pretty awkward. It's a bit of a standstill. Mexican standoff for both teams who's gonna make the first move Has to be the attackers surely oh Elki runs away tries to bait the angle being safe Maybe I remember it was air gate who got both kills and lobby so they should say guys I saw Velik you run away, but what about the mute? Well, we don't know so let's assume that he's still lingering somewhere here towards lobby You think it don't now it's gonna cost a lot of time. You're not one horse. Oh, what's what is going on? I don't know, again, it's just been afforded the flexibility to go for a third kill and now his nitro cell over the door frame prevents the blitz from making his way forward, but Wreck will take him down through the wall. Now they're acting like they don't have anything to worry about, but we know Gatorada was in lobby that whole time. He's now gone back to site down the hatch, I believe, and it's a three versus two on the objective. This will be a very tough plan for Skars. Two C4s available. The smoke might be able to help out a little bit. The plant spot's also been opened by Wreck. And it looks like fish likes to try and look for a plant. One C4 shot out of midair. The second C4 though, it does land. It finds the player and Wreck now forced into a 1v2 that he is not capable of winning. Kinatrope extend their lead. Five rounds to two. Very well done again, the communication, the problem solving, kind of criminal. The three kills that he got in that round, springs into lobby, kills the gunner up hell, gets the yellow ping, walks into lobby, you see, first kill, freebie, second kill, yellow ping, freebie, third kill, Deimos goes on drone, he pushes right next to Deimos, kills Deimos, his team middle and back again, and sure he dies in the end, right? Like he got three kills for God's sake, he got more value than needed to win that one. Beautiful stuff. Big round for Iigata, it's 9 kills so far in the 7 rounds we played. And Gatorade is going to keep on playing this Valkyrie. I can't help but think that after the next set of Operator Bands come through, Skars are going to have to get rid of that Valkyrie. A lot of the info game that's enabling these plays is thanks to that Valkyrie. Wow, what is this setup? That's a big hole. Wow. That's a big hole. Thermite stand aside, Mira is coming for your job, this is a strat, we're about to see a very unusual Mira setup. Mira window, yeah. Wow, this is very rare, I've never seen a setup quite like this before. I'm gonna be honest here and say, I don't know how the angle works in regards to like lobby rappel, elevator rappel, and Spiderman rappel and kind of lobby. I feel like this mirror window, if they don't specifically go forward and counter it, is very very crucial. But I feel like it's very easy to counter with certain rappel lines on the sides of sight. So, you see, these windows are normally barricaded, but not by a castle, just a regular good old barricade. So, nothing's gonna stop them from protecting this mirror, really. We'll see. I get his second mirror in pocket to make sure that he doesn't get Twitch drone and just that it won't be revealed too early into the game so they're not going to be already talking about the problem solving and how they're going to deal with it but realistically what you do do you have to clear the mirror? Well obviously this U-Kizz is ash but aside from that not really much unless it's like you said that you've got an angle. There's no protection so this thing often you see mirror being played out on my Yeager or any electrification so two as charges all you there goes a counter bomb yeah it's the same because at that advantage on a Rony or a Yeager or my anything really this mirror window would see a lot of play or require them to spend a lot of time dealing with it now it's just middle mouse button left mouse button form I still don't mind it though because I'm still gonna get a say the long angle we Notice the tube about opened up the mirror after it was destroyed. Yeah, so you can still open the long line of sight Now wreck is in a big position here Obviously the Valkyrie has been an instrumental part and because it's all been cleared because the barbed wire has been cleared because he's enough He can walk straight past it to be a free kill the trade will come through from car Well, then plan is time to go off the impacts down below force wash right off the plant And Carl Al making his way over from Lobby, I mean he's taken down, it's all up the gutter rider now, they know exactly where he is, they know he was playing down below, and now the E1D will ping him out as well, it's a tough round for him to try and come back on, I think the Scars picked us apart perfectly, I mean phenomenal job, you know they're saying okay they're playing you know the Echo, the Valkyrie, Heavy until no trap operators, and originally Req was actually playing IQ and then he attacked a repeat from IQ onto the nuke so that he could make this play Because why destroy their intel? We can use it against them and it was very predetermined because the second he got that initial push in for Top lobby stairs everyone else ramp up didn't push the bomb aside and I mean this is around five four round over Practically flawless at that got around it's kind of if he downstairs probably seem like guys. What do we do next? No big deal. It's still five three in favor of keynote rope Another underrated moment in that round for me, obviously we saw Nook going up the lobby stairs, but he walked through barbed wire again and I noticed all the barbed wires actually already destroyed. That was because the Flores early in the round is just standing those Rateros into sight and clearing a lot of U2. Now, obviously if you're playing as a defender, let's say you're playing in front desk, you're playing in elevator, and you hear a don six or an ash or a grenade or something clear your barbed wire, because there's a player there about to walk up those stairs. You're immediately ready for it. If you see, at the start of a round, Florez comes through, clears out some of your tool, you're like, oh, okay, that's Florez. He's probably off on the roof somewhere. You don't then clock that there's an active threat. It's just something you have to always keep in the back of your mind. Okay, if someone wants to walk up the stairs, they can because there's no barbed wire there anymore. You don't know there's a player there because there wasn't a player there when the barb was cleared. It was cleared by Florez while he was on the roof. This is why it's so important to have stuff like barbed wire traps in areas that you can take a mental off it because you have to be worried about Let's say every hallway, every stair you can take a window, the entire round, you're gonna literally just explode, like it's so much pressure, right? So as a defender you go, hey teammate, you watch this angle, you know you have barbed wire in these other angles, now you can worry about much less. But then if anybody clears that utility, like you said, you gotta now bring it back into the front of your brain. But there's so much happening for these proteins in communication according out what's happening what they need what they think's gonna come next What they hear what they see? Communications and time just gets for people just yelling into those ears And then you have the game sound that it's here and accurate at the same time and that player that was exposed to the lobby stairs was on echo Which means it's probably on his drone when that Ratero cleared the bar blight. He wouldn't even know that's gone That's also very possible actually So new tech though, Castle of Barricades brought into action to ground some shielding, so fortification here for Kyle to play acro on the double windows. Now if he gets a kill, phenomenal, and he has a primary shock and he gets his exhaled power to descend it for one-to-one trade, but instead airgator strikes first, it's Dalneena. That's Lion, remove from action. And sense. Wow. What a long angle from airgator, that is huge. That's, I mean, that could be round. I mean, if you just play nicely off each other and don't expose yourself to these rappel angles, you're playing 5v3 on top floor with nice relive. Like, you're chilling. Yeah. DMR, dude. Oh, he does jump outside, and Karlo finds one with the shotgun before he's traded back. But of course, when you have this bunch of another advantage, one for one trade is well worth while. Yuke is in rec separated, rec will actually find the gap, and finally put that Iogator. Also, a Kaiju's on the floor. What amount of repel for two kills here? For Rack, and now a 2v2 looks extremely achievable. The scars. Kinatrop cannot afford to farm, but Guadarrada finds one. Now a 1v2 for Yuki's, diffuser in hand as he's managed to sneak into the bomb site. One more frag in pocket, but I don't know if he'll be able to find a safe place. He's managed to find Guadarrada. Where is Eclare? In the hallway. Can Yuki's find a safe place to plant? Castle Barricade somewhat protects him, but he's worried about the Valkyrie cameras. evil eyes he knows how much the opponents have brought those two operators and for a brief moment he sees Eclare's shoulder but he doesn't have any info he doesn't have any time to drown him out either nade goes out last piece of util the yukis Eclare continues to just peek for information and then fall back so for wide angle oh it could be a wall bang for the wild horse wide open as it rolls in there Clare wins the gunfight in no surprise because he had full HP. He's opponent only one single point on his half bar But that was such a free round right 5v3 Into a 4v2 turned upside down by race spider-man repelling on lobby skylight Again stars might be down in terms of round count, but they have ways to bring it back once they bit of time Yeah, you're out of never should have gotten as close as it did but But KineTrope managed to achieve match point. This is series point now, Pengu, for the first time in this matchup. What are the final bands to roll on through? Wow! Flores! Flores! Oh my God! I'm so glad that we talked about it, Pengu! Yeah! Okay. This is like super uncommon. That's got to be one of the lowest band-rate operators on Bang as well in general across all the years of play. But you can see why they did it, right? Not only does the Flores counter the barbed wire and other traps set up on site on the top floor, but in this particular round, and especially on the basement, should we go back to the basement, defense for Kino Trope for too long, the Goyo's. Imagine the way that you set up the basement with like what, four Goyo traps within like a meter or two of each other. That's open season for Flores. Yeah. Now of course you can kind of substitute for the twitch for like half the gatches, you know, Fenrir mines, Goryakannas, there's mirror windows, but that's banned the way. Even Valkyrie camps and such. But it doesn't have to seem fake for like let's say barbed wire or Mellusi banshee. So it is going to change things a little bit around. I am a little curious as we don't see different operators who are here by KineTrop giving the floor a ban, but also they need one round victory. They get three shots at that before overtime. So this floor spend might not really be about this current round. We see a visual roaming. It could be a bound to found after this, if it needs to be there. Cannot believe I got it. It was rocking the boss G. I am such a hater. Not only because it's tilting, but like I just think it kind of sucks at long range because of the damage fall of change. range. We saw this border, right? I can't remember which player was part of actually being I get a he managed to land a shot into the chest of someone while spawn peaking and then still died and he only did about 80 damage. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was again and restore actually, but I could be wrong, but it was border. Yeah. I'm CC door. I mean, the bus is one of those weapons that in the right radius, like range, it will one shot you. So it's a phenomenal weapon. But across that threshold, I'm not sure if it's 20 or 3D or whatever, it's probably gonna lose you most of the fights, where regular DMR will do the same job but you have 20 bullets and you can shoot much faster. But the gadget's good, you know, he can strike himself from all the stones, they axe him on the roam, he's got impact grenades for a flamethrower, but right now he's by the bomb site, which will make the drones think, where is he actually? Oop, almost a chance there, misses it for you kids, but doesn't matter, cuz Nina's found his gap elsewhere much needed now for scars. They need three in a row otherwise it's down to the lower bracket for them. Yuki is sneaking up towards these tempting hatches he wants to make his way up. I think they know where Aquarius is as well. Is he gonna go for it right now? He will! Up goes Yuki's and a big kill as Washoi opens the equation a collapse from scars onto the bomb site and the Plant is down, Kar-Wow and Gatorada now need to make a retake, but it's gonna be difficult while Gatorada finds a kill upstairs. There's still so many players for scars on the bomb site, a shotgun and Yuki's hands as well as Fishlike. All but finishes off the round, Kar-Wow locked in place. I think this is just a save at the moment. Talk to the team, figure out what you're gonna do next round of defense. Now they are sitting pretty after them, sure. I'm not sure that was miscommunication from but when Eir Gader accidentally swung the double door and got shredded by the hng-11 instead of stairs you know you can make the call guys hng-11 equals ammo they're gonna go from basement hats plant it didn't seem fully ready for it but to be fair if they were the shots were just hitting their marks there for scars again so good on the entry and not wasting any seconds in that round that's a pocket strap that's gonna win you an individual round and it's not easy to do that on a secondary and tertiary attacks On Basement, the primary site, that's where those kind of want to just get a bit more tricky. Because it's just a naturally hard bomb site to pick apart. There are less options often, and you know, it's either going to be a server attack or a lobby frontal attack. That's kind of your two only options on this map for Basement, that is. So I do feel like this is where KineTrap are looking to lock it in and just be done with this game. Basement bomb site so often comes down to wow here's a nice evil eye it's too far to easily knife which is the critical thing also stacking utile in blue stairs yeah a service stairs holds always challenging to clear now blitz might actually be the perfect operator deal with that also the thatcher is a favorite of mine wow we're doing an old school a runy on the hash to try and Destroy any gadgets. Wow gone crazy with you till in blue stairs. I'm really excited to see what kind of trailer cooking for this round So it's really gonna be a gator who's gonna plan the service there It's no because he's being thorn shotgun and he has like active you too. We can use I'm just trying to think to myself Who I sacrifice because let's be honest. It's a sacrifice spot like you're not gonna survive it not my intention of a sign Yeah, I'd probably be running Iogator with shotgun if it was me. Yeah, that's what I would do as well, but what we know is gonna happen or can happen is what scares me. With that you're being brought in a glass, you can literally just EMP the ADS's, throw a single or smoke grenade, and just walk in with glass if it's guaranteed when the gun fires. There's no counter play, there's not gonna be an AC-4, there's no shotgun, throw a You can also EMP that, or you just jiggle the door once and then you pop it, then you go again. So I do feel like if Scars can figure out all these puzzle pieces and then put them together correctly, nice and slow, this could be the freest kill of the series for them. It's actually going to be a Clare on Tenari that's going to play there. Maybe he has pre-placed lasers and can pop them and combine them because he has three in pocket. So quiet. Yeah, this is very slow round from Skars. They're just slowly clearing every little piece of you till they need. You kids might be able to burn this gate with his excess exkiros. I think that's just burnt the gate that's on the hatch. Is it clear falling back? What are you? The slobbers are foreign. Yeah. That's a good move. Alligator now has a shield a shotgun and ADS is you're absolutely right We need me to come over with the EMPs here from the Thatcher 100% EMP send the blitz and honestly that should just be that You see my spitnik grenade gets tossed. I mean so much value that's one trap somehow live actually go for them and I'm not sure if they are aware of the thorn trash, but if they are and this could be dangerous to the blitz layer That's been played so well by Fishlike and by Scarce, then Hayegada manages to find the feed shots on the Blitz low HP But now he knows he's got the diffuser on his side 12 kills for Hayegada on bank And he's keen to close the map right here and right now Should he just smoke it and throw the glass and then the second glass bang is Oh! How does he find another one? Finally traded back! But IA Gator has been worth so much to Kena Trope today! Skars now desperately in the last 20 seconds must find a way into this bombsite. Why should I from up above? He's got smoke, but he hasn't had a chance to use them yet, and Eclare is still undelped with inside a server! What a hell of a way to close it for Kena Trope! They might have fumbled the second map, but in the third they finally get the job done! and they get a leg up over scars into the upper bracket final they go! And the way they do it as well right? The men's solver Cillians alone starting this series all the way back on Mighty In The Lapse and kind of getting just tossed around the building no lack to stand on looking like the inferior team they're saying you know what they got it they will figure it out on boarder and they do it's comeback they figure things out but then we go or bang and all my bang was by farther this map today or they have the pogas drafts the counter is and I think just to confidence as well to make it work time and time again so many ideas there for kina trope on both attack and defense and that round is a perfect summation of the cook absolute cook with the aruni and the thorn I still hate for the record but it was so so good I love to see and Kainatrope are well deserved wins today. Yeah, I mean what I'd love to see there was actually that yesterday the Sylvester is saying about so it was actually Claire starting in that position with the Nari and we're both questioning like why is he the one playing there and then when he makes the call guys are actually going to go for it, Aikido comes sprinting and it takes that position and I think that literally is the round winning play right because he got the 2 boosts to shotgun and probably only Aikido himself could make that play work that he did. You know, it's funny because Eklia did end up getting two kills afterwards anyway because After the thorn was finally cleared Eklia is still playing behind the server rack. It was so well played there from KineTrope You said it. I mean bank was just so much better than what we saw on both lives and border It's under here from the horse's mouth. It's Okamesh on the line from KineTrope the coach of the squad welcome back in my friend congratulations on your entrance into the upper bracket final how are you feeling about that win over scars yeah I'm very I'm a very very very happy to win because I've never been against stars since 2024 I mean 2023 yes so this is like one of the biggest moment in my arrive thanks so much wow congratulations um i guess the question is then not only are you taking down scars for the first time who'd you rather go up against because it looks of it right cag or d plus is there a favorite there do you think one is easy or is it more honor maybe impeding one of of those guys yeah yeah um what I said but like we need to um sorry can you change the question I'm like my brain like stop that's all good I've got one for you or commish if you want to think of another one thank you I've got one for you or commish obviously it means a lot to you to beat scars you haven't beaten them for over three years now but there's not just that there's a bit of rivalry between Kinetrop and Skars because obviously they have one of your old players, you've got one of their old players and you've got their coach as well. So how much did having Ayugator and Declare on the team give you an advantage in this matchup and how much did them having Yuuki's on their team maybe give you a disadvantage? Ah, okay. Yuuki has the best, one of the best mechanics in Japan, so like some rounds he did a super for fire round and then we lost some round. But Iogator and Ekraer can have very big brain to talk, and we can make a system to win against such as big mechanics or the individual team. So we built system with Iogator and Ekraer. That's our advantage for this loss of change. Yeah, that's awesome. That's phenomenal. I'll make it simple then. Are you guys going to celebrate this victory or is it just get back to the drawing board and work for the next match? Yeah, we need to work on the next match because we need to get into the major. Yeah. Oh, okay, so I is in the major It would be phenomenal if you guys qualified to be honest I know that death maps and I we cast you know He didn't drop all of last year and we're thinking these guys are really good You know they're gonna go big places, etc. Last year was not you guys this year. So it'd be amazing if it could be now Yeah, yeah All right, well, that's all we have time for tonight all commission go and enjoy your victory go and get ready to to practice for your upcoming game, it's going to be a huge upper bracket final against either CAG or D-plus. But of course, I'll give you the floor, one last chance before we close up the interview. Anything you'd like to say to anybody watching, could be in English, could be in Japanese. Okay, first English, thank you for the supporting us. Like when, like even the Australia X-Team made, or the Chinese X-Team made, Thank you so much for every reply or the messages. And I'm talking in Japanese. Thank you so much to all of you who are always cheering for me. I'm really happy to hear your comments. I'll work hard to make a better, better, and even better in the future. So please keep cheering for me. Thank you so much. Thank you, Alchemist. Good luck in your next game. Go rest up. Yeah, thank you. I love Okamesh's energy, always have a big win for KineTrope, 2-1 over Skars, would you say Pengu, can we call this an upset? I feel like it would be wrong not to. Yeah, I feel like we kind of have to. I feel like for the sake of legacy between the organizations and as Okamesh said himself, he hasn't beaten Skars since 2024. Like this is a huge deal to these players individually and yes, KineTrope had gotten and roster upgrades perhaps, some more experienced players, but it's not about how good the players are that you're getting, it's about what you do with them. And it's about the system that they're building internally and how it's all coming together. And I think that's the real success story, is that they got good players, but they're also enabling each other because of this. And that's beautiful. Yeah, what a beautiful fairy tale story for Kino Trope taking the win over Skars. next up, man, next up. We have to say goodbye to one of the most historic and well-known teams in this region, but we don't know which it will be. It'll be one of the two Korean rosters. It could be Fyrex with their roster, Reba. It could be Help Us LFO, the former PSG talent roster. This Korean derby begins after a quick break. So stick around for the first elimination match here in APAC North. He might be able to contest no, unfortunately, he takes just a bit of damage there. Walker gets the second one, he clips the Wukid one, turning it into a 2v2, and they push in on the side, the Ben will lose out on this! He clips the last alive on the Ella, squats the head and takes the ace! The ace for Walker! He will down BC, Canadian positioning to pick up, but that's going to result in a double base for Vertical, let's hope for even a round! Necrox the final defender against Vertical, the ace! Absolute domination! believe in magic Michael team what does as they win the Mexico major I'm gonna keep it going, I'm gonna keep it going, I'm gonna keep it going, so I don't let it go They've come out windmilling like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the whole king of a scrap! Pino! If he goes uncontested, the kid goes cold, that would be devastating. The grenade goes through, that's a swing! Cyber and Bullet are able to get one apiece with the kit so far away and Canadian down upstairs. Hyper! Wow, that was special. That was special. It's a one versus three to hold, and they're pushing from behind. He's found one. He's got to get the vertical as well. They get pulled off, Sid. We're down to the last three and four seconds. Ryder's got a givr. He's held off. He's going to do it. And B and Steele take the two-on win. Both players spotted, but the Reds can be made successfully. Oh! Oh! Right on the line for Son of Joe. Information from the Bs. He goes, Ditch! He's going to get the best of all time. He's starting to get cooked alive all the time, but he's using the stem pistols. Look at this from the dark. Surely not. Brilliant. Let's play the year in my book. He plays the game, hits the old body, doesn't quite catch it. There's the end. Oh my God, Sam! The DOS! He took it out of the DOS! Oh my God, Sam! He's going back. He's not quite sure. He could only have a few seconds left. with your second stickin' asshole stickin'! This is an angle that he might be able to contest. No, unfortunately, he takes just a bit of damage here. A walk, I guess, to the second one. Eclipse, though, will get one. Turning it into a 2v2, and then they push it on the side. The bandit will lose out on this! Eclipse, the last alive on the Ella. The spot's ahead, and take the case. The ace for Walker. He will down V.C. Canadian positioning to pick up, but that's gonna result in a double-dead. He's perfect for left corner, for K-1 to the round. Necrox the final defender against vertical the a absolute domination Team what does as they win the Mexico major I'm breaking next and I'm running out, don't let them blow stuff in my money out, cause I can't take it down for this running out. I'ma keep it going so I ain't nothing left. the they come out wind-billing like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the talking of a scrap! Pino! Test the kick, there's cold, that'll be devastating. The grenade goes through, that's the swing! Cyber and Bullet are able to get one a piece with the kit so far away and Canadian down upstairs. Eever, wow, that was special. It's a one versus three to hold and they're pushing him from behind. He's found one, he's gotta get the vertical as well. They get pulled off, sit, we're down to the last three and four seconds, Reiner's got another, he's held off, he's gonna do it! A PSD, take the two-on-win. Both players spotted, but the Rage committee made successfully. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! The Solitor! Information from the Bees! He goes, Ditch! Oh! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! The old buddy didn't quite catch it. There's the other guy! There's the DOS! He doesn't have the ability to roll! Shit! He's going back. He's not quite sure. He took the other goal. A few seconds, stick it. That's a little sticky. This is an angle that he might be able to contest. No, unfortunately. He takes just a bit of damage there. A walk, I guess. The second one. Eclipse though. Wukid one. Turning it into a 2v2. 90-day pushing on the site. The bandit will lose out on this. Eclipse the last alive on the Ella. Spots the hand and takes the case. The ace for Waka. Ace, the ace for Wacom. He will down V.C. Canadian positioning to pick up, but that's going to result in a double base for Vertical. That's a four for David the Round. Necrox the final defender against Vertical. The ace, absolute domination. You'll believe in Magic, Michael. T1 does as they win the Mexico Major. I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going so I ain't nothing else You can't stop me, girl, I'm breaking next to the bottom Check this image, I'm never signing out I'ma keep it going, so I ain't nothing else I'm breaking next to the party now Go on hell, burn the stuff in my money now Cause I can't get down from the running up I'm a tuner, going to the main line Going to the main line So, one team through the upper bracket, final, but, sadly, the other side of the special We have to find out who's going home first here in APAC North down to the law bracket. Obviously Last weekend we got to see the first rounds of the quarter bracket finals Yeah, sadly both of the Korean teams lost their matches, which means that now one of them will go home PENGU it's your old PSG talent boys on help us LFO going up against a very different looking The team that has been in this region for such a long time back in the days is Sandbox as Mantis is cloud nine very different roster that being K fear X has now and of course help us LFO on the other side It's gonna be crazy to think that no matter what at the end of today. We bid farewell to one of these teams It is it honestly such a shame that the two Korean teams have played each other because it goes through the big question What does Korea have to offer right now in members exceed? There was a big issue for a long time about, you know, a lack of up-coming talent, new players, etc. etc. Fyrex and the old PSG roster, HELLBUS and F-O, were supposed to be, you know, the guaranteed first and second best Korean team, and they were supposed to be as good as the best team in Japan. That's not the story. Now they've woken through roster iterations, and they find themselves in the worst spot than before, the worst spot than ever, arguably. Let's really hone in on help us LFO this former PSG Talon roster. Of course, they made some roster changes Coming into this stage. They've had a bit of a sad couple of months, right? Like the last time we really saw them on the international stage was at reload in Rio about a year ago And Pengu that was just because they're a Ubisoft partner team at the time. So they got the direct invite It wasn't like they had to qualify for it last time We really saw them and that they qualified for was way back two years ago at the Manchester major Where they went very deep but since then and of course since losing their old coach Fabian It's been a very different story most recently Obviously Misa and Gotti the party from the roster Harper and Demet coming in and really the only read that we have on this new roster Is their fumble of their 2-1 loss against Kynotrope from last weekend And it felt like the loss of Kynotrope actually was the same reason why there's so much before which is that some of the fundamentals are still a little bit lackluster. They find themselves in a spot where they have a really good position around and then they'll throw it on a defense or they'll fail to problem solve correctly on the attack. Dongwoo could be a former manager and current coach. She was also there during Fabian's time. She said a tweet after she lost to Kino Trobe that says something along the lines of we did not get exposed this badly in the scrims. Now that we have been exposed by Kino Trobe, we know what to fix. Of course, kickoff is a very unforgiving format. You lose twice and you're out. It's either going to be those no-home LFO guys, or it's going to be BNK Fyrex who say goodbye first. A very different Fyrex to what people would be familiar with, of course. Your classic players like Good Boy, Methi, Rin, and Cody, even their old coach, Dark, who have been on the roster for such a long time, they've all gone. The only person on this team that's the same as last stage is Woogieman, the iconic Woogieman. Everyone else is different, of course, NL, Stetzl, Romantic, very much more unknown quantities. But Misa, joining this roster from that former PSG talent, now help us LFO roster, that's an interesting pickup. You know, arguably the best player from help us LFO now actually runs for FIREX. And this is actually a story that was running domestically in Korea for a long time was if FIREX were ever going to pick up a new player back with the old roster. It was gonna be Misa. Misa has good friends with those guys, they put together a Ragnum whatnot, and Misa was, by far, the best player in the former PSG talent roster. It would make sense to pick up a strong enemy on an opposing team because you make them weaker and you make yourself stronger. Unfortunately, all those teams have to kind of, you know, evaporate for this to happen, but I'm actually happy to see Misa getting a shot here in Firx. Yeah, of course. Look, Misa must be the saving grace because Firx had had quite a fall from This is their record. Historically, domestically and internationally, and really internationally is what we're talking about here. Of course, 2021, the Sweden Major, 2022, they made every single event back in the day. Invitationales, majors, and then gradually dropping off. Eventually, we really saw that happen at the Six Invitational. They were first-rounded. They were one of the weakest-looking teams at the event. And crazily enough, that was only less than a year after fear ex made top eight at reload they looked incredible in Rio less than a year ago and today they are looking at a very different roster and the question remains like can a new era of up and coming Korean players make good on what this old roster did for such a long time all the achievements of this old fear ex team can this new team full of young talent hold a candle to Well, they're gonna have to because it's still all died right now in elimination But the pressure right the last thing you want for a new roster iteration of an You know all really good team is to go lower bracket me like guys is to what dies now never on one hand This could be shaped them into the form of the other performing and you really like make them work hard and practice So this one week that they've had off stream, but on the other side, you know So you have players accessible, up and coming, Rookie, if you will, tier one debutant. Does he need that kind of pressure? You know, playing alongside all the big names saying, you got this, you got this, you're better than this. It can be a tough situation. This could actually literally make or break the entire, you know, kickoff for them. Like this is where it all happens. Yeah. Of course, we need to find out where we're going to be heading for this game. So let's look at the Mat Vito. Of course, we're playing it best at three. Like we are for every single game here in APAC in the kickoff. So we'll have a couple of chances to see who takes it, help us Elifo, BK, Firx, it's help us Elifo that picked the first map, and man I am keen for some fortress. Yes, that should be so good. Also I think help us Elifo, I mean picking up a new map against a more, you know, veteran enemy, players like me, so I like Wukiman, I think he's a very smart choice in general, because they're going to know all the other maps a lot better. I think Foyle should be a pretty good even ground to start off on. Yeah, FIREX on Shelly next up, but first of all, we go to Fortress, it's going to be a tough slog for both of these teams, but there are no second chances here in the lower brackets of APAC kickoff here in the APAC North region. BNK, FIREX with all of their history, countless LAN appearances and countless achievements within Korea and on the world stage. Going up against this august help us, LFO roster, both teams fallen from grace, only one gets a shot at redemption. Monty and Bandit, target banned away. Now for Fierix, to get started on defense, they can kind of sit back and just kind of see what happens in the folder, cooking up on the attack inside. Fortress is one of my honestly, all-time favorite maps personally. I think it's really well balanced. I think it plays really well, it flows really well. And I feel like both the ranked scene and the competitive scene have really taken to this map right off the rip, which is crazy to think about because if you, you know, the old Fortress was seen one of the worst maps ever found out on my people at least and to go from that kind of map to this loft and this plate well I mean you too James right you also have a good uh liking for fortress no I love it um you really won me over nick when you were describing fortress to me at the invitation because obviously that was the first time we really saw it at the very top level it's the first time I had to cast it and I hadn't really played it much it definitely not in rank like I played it a few times but very much like casually and I didn't know the map very well I remember you sent me this document with all the call-outs on it, and I was trying to learn the map as fast as possible, and you gave me this like five-minute crash course in how teams tend to attack and defend it, and it blew my mind, because I'm still stuck in the old fortress, which played so differently. And ever since then, like obviously I've played it a bit in ranks now, and I've seen a lot of it, I've casted a ton of this map. It's easily become one of my favorite maps in the game. Now, and I love when that happens. I mean, you know, we need to one day replace, you know, the bang, the clubhouse, the Oregon back in the day, and I feel like Forge's rework kind of ship us into a spot where I have faith that we're going to get some maps in the future as well that can actually rival those titan maps. So very excited for the future, seeing what's going to happen next up. For, how was it before, you know? Former Dong-Ruk, or Dong-Ruk former manager, now coach, has with Dong-Ruk Fabian for two full years and has gotten a little bit of a taste of how to make strats and do counter-prep and everything else. So I am curious, is this going to be a fortress that's stylized around Helper's interval's own plate or perhaps if they're expecting some amphiax that they want to specifically target counter? could be an operator band, could be of course a strategy team in the server. Right now, it's about getting in the building safely and not losing anybody's early. Because as I said, how about some of the folks who started having the issue of having some weak fundamentals and then kind of losing the grip of the ground very quickly. In saying down below, now this is one thing that as a new map, a lot of people are still getting a handle on the verticality, especially because fortress, the floors and ceilings look quite different. So it's hard to tell what is actually solid. For example, where that player is residing at the moment, that's concrete. He can't shoot through it. But directly above where Yinsang was standing prior to that, where it looks kind of like a ribbed ceiling, that is destructible. It's quite hard to get a handle on, but really important to if you want to master a map. Look out the old tower. You can drop one down and just kind of walk on and take game space for free as well. The in case here is a plane of layers. They're falling back slowly, but surely Again much like many of the map you kind of start very aggressively on the room very you know front forward kill it You're on fall back to the room fall back and you just meet on the bottom of it five defenders live impossible It will come down to execute Look at the current landscape of this being a back portion kind of room clear It should be a bathroom quadrant attack most likely with some pressure here on horse to the left here Blitz. Horace is kind of like officer in club houses. I get back, bone of the inside bomb. If you get a Horace control, you have an insane advantage. But getting Horace control, it's also very difficult. It is great usage of the Grimm's B's though. Come out and force back. Wookiee man. Wow, what an angle. I don't know what happened there from the Blitz, but Romatic is able to find down two players trying to enter into Horace. Looking at a ban in the position. They tried to lap it up. Now 20 seconds left to play. Diffuser is on the ground and the chromatics found a third kill, and NL finishes it off, that is a very dominant start for fear X and a very messy opening for helpers LFO. And it goes back to the problems that how much has it been having for a long time, right? Fundamentals, for example, should you push into horse first and then breach the bathroom wall, or should you breach the bathroom wall first and then push into horse? There's a reason why one of those two options is much better than the other. If you breach bathroom wall first, you can actually cut off the player that was falling back to Finvier by cutting off the entire rotation because you see the door. The other one is that Romantic who got a triple kill on Kai, he wouldn't actually be able to help his teammate had the wall been opened up first because he's literally in front of the breach, but the breach was closed. So Romantic kills two people in the horse, then the wall gets opened, then he gets the third kill. So again, super super cool here, we can see how this is going to kind of get a little bit more. Step one. Okay. I would go step three because if you go one three two, I feel like that's kind of how you get that previous run Hear that to chan cause LMG bring out and I get excited doubling down on the areas now with woogie and an L Interesting I wonder what the plan is is it around this? No, they are gonna reinforce over the external The Kai'i claw goes down, yeah I don't know, is there a specific place where they want to use the Fuchanka's smoke, cause it doesn't seem like a heavy investment. So the Shanga I think of this map is actually very effective on both of the top floor bombsites, because on this map, or this bombsite right here, you have three ways in, they're all single doors. I'm not sure you can breach the walls obviously, but the main way is in, the Shanga can cover a single door practically forever with this room at launcher. So you can just start firing off the shield can push you because whenever you this is kind of funny when you're a shield operator Let's monty like beard, etc. And you walk into fire Let me do the gas pipe to capitals of shangha. You actually get stunned like when you get melee your shield kind of goes to the side Was a bit of weird interaction So the shangha can heavily counter any doorway pushes and shields also a popular fortress So again, you can deny one whole point of entry The green forest of the bathroom will fully bugle away, and the kiteclawed it, so again problem solving. What? Yeah. Yeah, we see this tanker really come into action. That's how I mean it. This king of barrier is so funny. It's such a little sliver to hide behind, but a very unusual shape. It'd be quite hard to battle against. Yeah, look. PSG, PSG. Help my telephone. I'm still very separated at the moment, which puts them at a pretty awkward spot. Whereas being K through X guys, they can just sit back and continue to burn time with the smokes and with the tachanka It does feel a bit like fear just saying hey come problem solve I'm we're testing you we're testing you again. I feel you in the past And they don't have any easy ways to deal with this kite right there's no Maverick They don't have any imps in the board. They have some fragmentation some map control Righto is just at the building. Is that a worthwhile one for one? I'm not sure it is of any play to take down. I don't know if the Tuber Al is a big target, righto though. I mean, it's so much information with him dying. I mean, if he was still alive, the Solid Snake can just stand here completely safe in this room and ping out where the players are, and then extra give a lot of call outs to the rest of the team to try and figure out next to him. If your fire goes out from the tachanka and this blitz while the smokes have gone out He doesn't really have a lot of choices. He can't run through this fire. He will get guard broken It's what happens. He tries to sneak on through. He's looking for the checker. Hello and goodbye to the smoke and with that The round is done at the drop of a hat. Help us LFO and wrapped onto the bomb site And much better look there as well right? It was very important They had three Frank grenades and pocket in that 5e5 they had to find the kite claw for the exterior wall and they did one they found it removed it and the very important thing here they breached then they smoked then they pushed had they pushed before they opened up that exterior wall that around probably plays out in a very different fashion so that was supposed to be voting the right step by step and yes it was the one for one there for rider was worth it I'm with you James I don't think it was necessarily worth it for the one for one but it did kind of start off the round and theoretically here it did give less guns to stop that big push later on who was very successful. Important round in the back for help of Cilevo and being a fear to go to tertiary bump site downstairs in kitchen slash dining and just play the vertical game go upstairs for a bit of roam. Even the fact they have the kite here they're probably gonna reinforce the hatches fall back and then kite fall them later on in the round But you can still start pretty actively. It's one of those sites that you can play the whole map that you decided on. Yeah. If I have casted a couple of rounds on this bomb site where there's been a real lack of vertical play from the attacking side, it makes it very hard to isolate these positions on site. Now, Ram's not banned. Ram's not picked. Oh, sorry. I must have... I'm crazy. I did see the Ram. I don't know. The Ram's picked! The RAM is getting the important operator. When I looked before I didn't see the RAM. I went crazy I was like they didn't bring a sledge. What's going on? I got the breach in charge. They have a little bit of Verticality outside of the RAM in the breaching charges, but for me the RAM is really the important operator here with writer It needs to make sure that he gets maximum value out of these boogie joints. It's got three to deploy and The pivotal thing is not just getting in the hallway of the basement Which is where they would be credmers line the site should he breach it open from that external wall He needs to get aware that drone just might actually inside of games room itself That's where you can expose these players on the bomb site. Yep There's the hatch right after that room as well in meeting Like the Akai claw to electrify it Willkeman is roaming a master bedroom which could of course go for a flank But I think it's too early to want to take any real gunfight at the minute just hold on the map control and one the time is right or so you want to flank. When is the time right? It's when the attackers are distracted. It's either in a busy, you know, doing the bird, fighting vertically or right before the start that the bombsite execute. Because that's not going to be calling and communicating to other things, but look at this. And nice people are showing spots to feed at Malusie. The thing is you can't really sprint across the map and go for this gunfire, so I'll just hit the prefire off the rape here, just air jab it off. We'll give you mentioned be completely safe and then air jab. I'm very sure it can just be shot here as well Yeah, thank you still take it the open You're right the question is if Alpicello foe do they send a player all the way around to try and kill him from the other side Or do they just leave him be because they'd need to make sure that they make good time here when it comes that vertical game now He's dead near the air jab and he's just fallen away. He's really wary that someone might be hunting him down I think this is the right call from Alpicello foe. You don't need to over complicate things And they're worried about it, right? This is the thing, like, they have to respect the fact that Air Jab is gone, so that does apply a fair bit of pressure, but here's the real attack. Medic, or Medbay. They got the Candelaus ready and Prime getting tossed on in. There is the warden, so be careful. He's been impedant, but... Yeah, you're inspired. Die, Strob, with the Thorn Trap and the Shotgun from Stetzel. It's massive, and it's gonna lock this round in, surely, for B&K Fear X. Help us sell a phone. go big. Now, Williamann finally goes down. I think he persisted a little bit too long on that roam game and he'll be punished for it. Now, verticality has not achieved what help us LFO we're hoping for. And now Ryder has to make a big entry. Oh, no! That drone is also not going to achieve a lot as he tries to make his way inside. The thorn traps continue to keep them at bay and fear ex. Just need to deny this plant and the round will be over. is sticking down and Harper's the last one standing so the round is over and Fear X, I mean it's pretty easy for them to just cruise on through that. Not enough achieved in the early round for Alpes LFO. This is often how Fortress ends up being played out in Ragnoswell where you kind of have like a one-pump goal on the attacking side. The moment you lose two players in medbay to the Thorn, the round is like statistically over because you don't really get that kind of freeway into out the building again. The Ying is dead, they got cross-fights established, you know, there are two attackers fighting the roamers upstairs in Woogieman. Either you kill the medbay player and you come out of that fight alive, or you die and that will likely be it. So it's also why we're seeing these rounds naturally go very late and get into like a 5v5 bombs that execute. The attackers they desperately need as many guns and utility as possible to make this work. It's very similar to a clubhouse or a country in those aspects where you're really not going to fight two for nail necessarily on the roam. You're fighting the initial extension, which last round being a theory you didn't really have, or you're fighting the bombs. There isn't a ton of squirmishes, 1v1s across the map very commonly, due to the nature of the map. So I think theory should do a good job of respecting that, and really not just giving any free openings to opponents at the phone, making it difficult for them every step of the way. So what's half of the course here? Help LucilleFoe obviously trailing behind. Is the second round enough or do they really need to go through? Obviously this depends on how good fear is going to be in the attacking side. If we're going to assume that they are, I don't know, as good at defense as they are in attacking to the skill level, that they will meet the average round outcome, I would say a 3-3 here would be needed for Help LucilleFoe. I don't think it's a map unless you are, I don't know, a weaker team or having a one-off. We can say, oh, it's fine guys, 5-1 defense, it's a defense side of map. I very much think this is actually an attack side of map, the higher skill level you go to. But it's still being relatively new, it's still being played by two teams that have lost the changes. That's a bit harder to predict, but I'll say 3-3. Oh, there's probably no way to win. This round, is it all about the roam clear? Because there's quite a bit of presence here. Theorex, Misa up against his former team is the one in the most aggressive position, just near old Power. He's an ending machine, but of course he can also continue to burn time. I think that was a gas pipe, not a Goya charge, you know, should catch it. But regardless, Misa will be caught off guard as he tries to retreat and Ryder takes him on down. It does take a bit of damage to Romantic on the long-angle DMR. The DMR battle is always a challenging one You're not expecting it if you're attacking side to be battling a DMR all the time I like this it's time to just detonate the Goya's and fall back remain maxing it right you and I would just run back Pop it reinforce the wall, but they start up a 10 seconds extra Waiting for the drone then pop the fire because they know that they could have fought too late They're not gonna walk in before the drone does right that 10 seconds might not mean a lot but if you buy 10 seconds here and there a couple of times in a round which pro players seem to do, that will make a difference. Especially when you're doubling that down with like more pandanile in a smoke, pre-played scurry canisters, etc. The wallpick get reinforced, there are two Selma charges in pocket and there's no wallpick denial on it so it will get opened. It comes down once again. So how was that at all? Can they problem solve it execute correctly? They got in the dream scenario, got 5v4, they got time left remaining at full minute and they even have a shield and black beer to restore that diffuser in. This should be a virus for the bouncer. Yeah but it's all about just making steady progress in here on out because a minute feels like a long time until you waste five seconds here and five seconds there. Great usage of the flores, the Ratero catches NL. It was caught in the Grimms Bs for a brief moment. Now Romatic will find one to trade it back which gives help, Bacelofo, everything that they need to enter the bomb site. Stessels the last one, they know exactly where he is. He can be covered not just by the Blackbeard, but also by Deneck outside. Deneck goes down. Yunsang outside, vulnerable, but does find the kill and help us LFO. Tie up the score line. Beautiful. Again, they actually take it step by step and they kind of just take their time. The floor should get the kill. I mean, that's the complete cherry on top because it simplifies so many moments in that one. Blackbeard as a second, score in the diffuser, the cover is there. And also, they were playing pretty accurate with a 4v1. The moment the first player died, everyone took a step back outside the building if they couldn't, took a more safe approach to that fight, and just kind of stalling the time to enable that plant to go down. That gives them the second attack, and I said they need a third, but they're in such a good spot to go for it. They're also victorious the last time they attacked their stuff for bombsite or form, so anything really is possible. The Inkey Feverix at most of the time was the same strats, the same similar setups. Again, Toshanka being brought out, that's for the denial obviously, no more playing around the wall tricky with the Kaid, they kind of gave up that aspect of the game despite the fact that they banned Thermite. A little bit curious, but yeah, to be told, the issue with the head of the Kaid last time is you can't really protect the claws, and I think the issue there is the map is so new that, you know, one thing is known the angles and in the very character as you alluded to earlier, what about those really tricky Kaikour placements and Asami barriers? That's not been figured out fully yet, right? Because I'm sure there are some that are bonkers. We haven't found them yet. Yeah, and to add to that, another operator I would put in that conversation is the Denari, right? Once you throw out some crazy tripwires, it's just, yeah, it can be GG for the attacking side. another thing just on the kaiid conversation thatches really good like thatcher with the rework not only do you have the ability to imp through walls but now you can also spot you till as well you know exactly where the core is and once you start it you know that it is a kaiid core could you not imp things through walls before the rework James you could you could also only can you do that through the wall but now you actually know where it is. I'm just making sure you know as a avid pro league watcher I'm sure that my cast and nose on that should be worked for the rework that's all. You expect way too little of me. Just checking, just checking. For a second there my foreign brain was like hmm he couldn't impede the wall through the wall before that's hmm that's pretty bad you got it this is a good old solid snake on the good new so snake just pops a scanner sees to position walks in knows that most of that area is free then we got the blitz museum hall is walking down into a horse looking to help him fight this bathroom player but a Sami pretty strong annoying operator pops this I mean on the keyboard runs past the angle is safely back towards the bomb site, but then dies to the outside window. Oof, nice second kill. For help us LFO, Ryder can now go deep. Careful. The shotgun though is big for NL, no need to overextend here Ryder. You died in this exact position on Snake before and now wants to go swinging, but Ryder reads it well played! Solid Snake, three kills in the round, traded back by Stetzel. And now it's just him and Woogieman left in a 2v4. They should be locked up for help us LFO. They just need to be careful not to secede any singular kills. And indeed, they get the crossfire on the Woogieman. That's all, all alone, but he finds one kill. Now, help us LFO know exactly where he is. They turn all their guns in that direction and they can find the closing kills. Great take of the lead now for help us LFO. Okay, so they've officially entered the area of success right the three attacking rounds And they can actually go for a fourth here, which would cause a little bit of an upset The Enki theory I don't know obviously it's hard to judge on a new roster But I always thought that when they started really slow with the old team They would have a hard time making the comeback, you know, and it's not how some teams are like that Some teams think of an old Darkseer with Troy Canadian always started slow but always end up in overtime and then probably win most of those matches but this moment being confused down like Arnold 2 4 2 4 2 5 I Feel like in my memory. I'm always I'd always lose those that they just don't make those compacts happen If they have still have the same tendency with wiki man's leadership I mean that could just slowly suffocate them here in fortress. So they need this round right now. They need to type a score I I noticed that Soldier, for help us LFO in the cameras just there, was actually wearing a sandbox gaming jersey. Obviously the organization that was the previous before Furex rebranded. That is a throwback if I've ever seen one. Even Harper way back in the day actually played with the Furex guys, so I thought it was in the Mantis era. Yeah, Mantis era, I believe. Yeah. Because there's Mantis in the sandbox into B&K theories, right? It was Mantis into, well, they had a weird name for a little bit, and then they were Mantis again, and then they were Cloud9, and then they were Mantis again, and then there was Sandbox. I forgot about the Cloud9 era. Yeah, they were Mantis, the very first APAC pro league. They came second, and they were known as Mantis. None of the players are the same from back in those days though unfortunately. My first? I played against an SI, honestly 19? I think it was, my first interaction with those guys. Mr. Grimton quite a bit that event. They went to SI 18. I was 18, ah good 18. Look at this from Nid saying, I just love seeing how these pro players are using Snake to take so much free map control so quickly. Mesa's on the left there. It's a bit of a cat and mouse game, right? Mesa can see the Neutronics, but Yuzun can see the heartbeats, essentially. What are we gonna call that, as long as we don't want to track it, to be honest. But somebody's here. The whole thing's right up, as long as he's left. Yeah, he thinks it's someone ahead of him, but it's actually the person behind him this whole time. If Mesa, oh, Mesa's got the info where the Blitz is. That's what it shoots, which is a good move. No one's watching his position, SOLDIER EXPOSED HIMSELF! Right, it turns around to get the response, just in time. But the Blitz going down is a massive, massive loss for Al-Pasellifo. There's a really great split-second decision there for me, Survived. He could have gone for the Gunfire Rider, maybe gotten both kills, but he said, in case I die, it's better I confirm the Blitz and have a lower chance of beating the Grim, than simply not getting the Blitz at all. Good chance that by Youngson and Central Staircase, if they can rescue Harper outside to reach out of the building this could be a 4v3 but in a low on health it's not got a full minute and this scanner is getting so much value yeah it is pretty fluffy yin sang I believe it was woogie man that was actually spotted he's in her arm at the moment he's trying to make his way forward also try and get back towards the objective which is a good move here of course you need to fortify positions on that site so they can't just flood in and steal it from you I mean and her mom is so far from the objective, you don't need control of it. So, Opus LFO starts to flip their pack just like Fyrax flipped their defense. I mean, time is ticking, boy, it's 20 seconds, right, and they're still looking for these roamers. Jung sings a floor buff, them going down for the back step, so they have no info on that scanner. I probably feel like they wish they did at this point. They gotta just take their guns together, 3, 2, 1, and push all at once. Yeah, it's a quick moment for Fir-X, but help us LFO have the advantage here. They've been so slow They need to make good on the time. He comes down a stash it with the shotgun and he finds two kills Harper can't find the final one and so Fir-X to tie up the end of the score line as we finish the second or the first half And move into the second after the half-time break Don't you know I'll fall, that I love you only? Just leave us, and I'll be yours forever. We don't share teeth So pay your head back So no one can make it Make it if we try Just be mine And I'll be yours forever Just stick together, the little one You'll never be here Come and have closure You'll be right here with me So just be mine There's nothing else to learn Don't be sad, help us to live for what's okay that you lost a round, is living in 3.3 makes them more exciting. Where did we get this like absolutely bangin' bright music like hey, alright, it's funny because I pulled the curtain back a little bit. I was involved in some of the music choices for APL, and we did not do any of those tracks that I've heard tonight with this kind of like jazzy poppy stuff, so I like it. So when you were glazing the soundtrack choice last week, were you self-glazing? It was a meme. It was a meme. Oh my god. I thought you were actually praising someone else right after that. Oh yeah, I'm so high-fiving. I was mostly doing like the wind music and the tactical time-out music. But yeah, for the break songs definitely didn't get any of that kind of like Olivia D. Nesca stuff, which I It's quite a vibe. It was funny though. Like I mean We need that kind of don't be sad music like you know after someone has a heartbreaking loss or something Well, that's the thing we went from like super hype moment high intensity to the break So it was like kind of fitting because like, you know, how was the vote lost around don't be sad But imagine they're also like you absolutely threw the round into the half-break and then that song plays I mean that's comedies having a new level So production as a keen eye on how a team would lose a round you could toy with people with the sound the song choices But here the second half now, it's exactly what you said Nick best case in our football teams three three Yeah, certainly wouldn't be too unhappy if I was either of them right now to help us LFO of course they moved to that defensive side. One thing that we didn't really talk about yet so far, obviously we talked about the stakes for these teams, this is an elimination match, you're out of kickoff, you're out of contention for the Solic City Major and let's be real like if you're fear ex, it's a pretty embarrassing loss to be first-rounded in a league that they usually used to be the champions of. Who do you think is actually going to win it? We know the stakes but who's actually favoured in this match? So, in this match in particular? Yeah, I mean, like, not as a fortress, but the bigger three as a whole. Who are the favourites? Is there a favourite? I don't think there really is a favourite. Look at how both teams they lost last week and how they lost last week. I would say if I were to pick one team, I would pick BNKV Erics. I think they have a higher ceiling, maybe, or maybe just higher expectations. So, even Thetzel, who's the new pick-up, has been pretty hyped up by you, for example, is performed quite well individually. This is 3-3 here, we can make going Spirit forward and then going 1 and 4. Like, I feel like BNK and Therix are still fighting tooth and nail despite having every player show up. Whereas in the helpers at the foes side, I feel like we have seen everybody cast above in individual moments and they're still only tied. So, slight throw of a Therix, but not by much. Just in terms of the fewer players, Phyrax obviously fighting with far lesser known players on their team. They took a chance on up and comers like NL and Stetzel and even dramatic to some degree as well. Helpers Elpho, much more accomplished players obviously, formerly of Helpers Elpho and other teams. But Stetzel, I want to be too critical of him because he's just found the opening kill, down Demik and the smoke as well. Big play to take down especially while Blitz and Blackbeater in play. In a tricky situation to pull away here a soldier is hidden the deck and trying to escape. Harpets he's demromatic though else they're back to the 4v4 but trouble's common. Yeah they're going big for it. A sliver of kills double for Mesa and Yin Sang now must retake in a 1v4. They know exactly where he is. Good shots on a Woogie don't bother finishing it off. Come on This is gonna punish you for that and make you look silly a much needed win there for fear X to in a row as they finally take back the lead Just a nice little direct attack Whenever I would describe fortress I say it's kind of like shell lay in this it's sort of like simply describe it You have your direct attack where you know if you're attacking your master bedroom and she'll a you go solarium you go solo repel And you go big window repel that's your very direct attack They just did that same thing here. They went lobby stairs or eagle stairs, you know what kind of cause that you're using here. Then they went to the tower, that's when Lisa dropped down on Blackbeard, and they just pushed down the hallway into the bombsite partitions. Essentially they fight one diamonds, there's usually one guy in the tower, and that's it. Now they're at the bombsite walls. The opposite attack is actually where you just attack the roam clear. So where the current bombsite is, kids' storms and games, you're the roam clear After that, work your way up the building and end by the bomb site, so you're doing the opposite. You're never touching that direct portion of the map in main lobby and what not, you're simply going for a full sweep. So that's like one of the other attacks that we see on Fortress, the vast majority of the round. We don't really have the middle of the map, like we do on Villa Red Stairs or Shared Label or Staircases. It's a bit like Skyscraver, either you're attacking directly or from across. There is no real middle that's playable by the attackers. The central staircase is beat. You'll die there every time you go there. I guess that's the main difference between Fortress and Chalet. Chalet has so many external doors and windows where you can really put pressure inside. And Fortress just doesn't quite have as many of those. It's not as many ways to just quickly get inside. It is, ironically, a bit of a fortress in that regard. Oh. That's the impact. Come on. It's hard to land those these days since the impact's range reduction. Oh, let's get a say. That impact range reduction changed everything. We used to impact your Thermal Charges by processing a buff to reinforce them with ease. And now, you can play all you want. You can throw as many impacts as you want. You're not gonna hit the Thermal Charges. I missed that. Bring it back. Hashtag buff impacts. Okay. I mean, on low-key, with all the Heartreach buffs and changes, you low-key probably could go for it and make Thermal Bands more appealing. Maybe there's a world where that happens one day, but for now I think you would sort of like so we can actually Open up the reinforced walls because I think if you're soul-heating especially There's no way to lose the game and not even to play the game because walls are locked in. Oh boy Don't trust buddy. Oh get it get rid of him get rid of him Not happy anything not happy about it. They make not at all, but the ground is taken. Nonetheless by fear X and and blitz and now the hybrid continues really putting under the pump harper's position inside the bathroom but he sent his army so he can continue to create extra fortifications for himself whether he is to contest or fall back oh that was a miss oh that was a finally a hit eventually got the job done akibari comes out so critically But the Blitz will surely finish him off now, Demik! And Harper to save himself! Beautiful from help us LFO. Misa is still on the ground, needs to be picked up. BNK, Fyrex. They've bitten off a little bit more than they can chew, trying to clear Harper out of bathroom. And he's done more damage again. On the Stetzel. What a laugh. He's just made Bathroom his own. And now Woogieman is the last one standing for Fyrex. absolutely ridiculous how they pulled that off there was a blitz pushing grip like behind them like the triple double crossfire that they were everywhere and someone harper is still alive with 20 health look at that final gunfight get shut down by hedge from wukerman we'll get the rebound to me perhaps i mean we're gonna have to be forward 20 seconds to that diffuser on the ground this should be completely over there's just no way to win this look at the hp the three if your ex-player's good flash from Woogie, but this isn't even the bomb site man. They can just lock it up with the smokes from Ryder, a good attempt there from Misa, but Demik shut him down. It's going to be around on the board to tie the scoreline once again for help us, LFO. Ridiculous turn of events. I mean I was thinking there the entire time, surely you just throw out your QB barrier and just sprint, you just get out of there, right? No, he stuck around for so long, and we didn't really see the full picture, we only respected Hopper and we saw all the silhouettes of his enemies, that was not a good idea. But I guess there was communication, because Demek was in the hallway with the phone and said, I got you, I got you, don't worry, just stay alive and stay in that corner, I got your cross. And they picked up three kills and an injured Alphalad, I mean look at this, that keeper right there, that saves the round. The white swing, the crossfire together, they've fully blinded Hit-File with a deep headshot, nice. Big round from Harper. And here we are again, 4-4. An even scoreline again, and these two Korean teams are very hard to separate. 10 seconds to insertion. I'm sure it's what's the determining factor here because I don't really have a grasp on it like when we saw the stars match early against Pinochro but not even labs you know we knew that the training form was gonna be that third operator band because if they bend the mirror they'll play the class and then the class will play the mirror um and that's exactly what happened like that was very predictable look at this right now and how BlinkyFish are approaching the attacking sides I'm not sure what's gonna break the cameras back you know are they gonna bet a Sami because something can hold bathroom and just wander around for them are they gonna bet the Nari because the tripwires have been super troublesome to clear I don't know and I don't know what's gonna make the biggest the differences but it's been these small details of individual heroics and small moments in the round has been defining the outcome or if I'm not The double shield continues though, for fearx. I'm not sure if I love or hate it here. Of course, the blackbeard is very different to a blitz. They're kind of the polar opposite shields. Blitz is the dominant shield in close range, the blackbeard the dominant shield in long range. Is it the right play here on fortress? So, fearx, when they should have been the first team around, they would be the first team I think in the world to do this. They would ban the lesion, and then they would play 3 or 4 shields on Consulate, and they were running down APL teams with it every single day. And then they stopped and they would hit again. And so he said, yep. Beautiful opening kill for the Blackbeard, that's why you want to run that Blackbeard over a Blitz or a Monty or a Fuse, you've just got that extra firepower with the rifle. Now a slowdown and a restabilization for Fior X as they try and figure out how to crack open this bombsite what is the point of weakness here on help us LFOs defense oh Wow, they sure go for a swing go for both get to at the price of one You betrayed. Yeah. Well unfortunate for fear X They found the opening kill and then it just goes down the toilet massive couple of kills and a big flank from rider Taking the lead once again Help us LFO looking very good it. That's what I'm saying though, right? It's these small moments that create the entire turn for the round. One kill gets into three for Ryder and everyone pushes together at that exact moment. How do you stop that? Well, probably not the upper to the end phase. Yeah, I mean, what do you get rid of here? Because if I'm helping so far, I'm not getting rid of a shield, let him have it. Oh, yeah, you might just give it to them. We're getting better at it as a pause. It's like 30 seconds or a back to see it. I might be rebooting or something. That's alright. But yeah, it's a worth banning a shilt here, they already banned the Monty. Monty is obviously the one over that kind of stands out because you're super safe, diffused, the black people in the lids are not going to have that same shelter. Not sure it's worth it. The X guys looking schmick as ever in their team now, so you can see Nova in the background Wiggy Man's camera. Of course, for quite a long time now, Dark was the coach of FIREX, Dark Helik from Brazil. He's now gone over to Virtus.Pro. They're undefeated in the EML at the moment, and it means that Nova has stepped back into that coaching role instead of being the 2IC. But what a big advantage for FIREX, of course. They've got one of the biggest organizations in Korea supporting them. On the flip side of that, help us LFO Just that they are looking for an org. They do not have representation They went through a bit of drama last year of course of the PSG talent organization pulling out that would have been a very hard time for those players And now they are all glist but I noticed a couple of them are wearing jerseys I'm not sure what the jersey is that riders wearing right now I think it's a football jersey of some kind, but I noticed two things though two of the other players are wearing jerseys Which I thought would be very exciting to talk about. Oh you're saying You should still have a like. Yeah, flashbang me for a second there. Here we go, so Soldier, he's wearing a sandbox gaming jersey. Of course, sandbox gaming was the organization that this current Fear Ex roster represented from 2021 to 2022 at so many different events. Sweden Major 2021, Six Invitational 22. Of course, that was before they kind of rebranded to B&K, Fear Ex. But funnily enough, the soldier actually never played for that sandbox gaming team. So I wonder if he's done a jersey swap with someone, because soldier himself, he played for the old Talon roster, then he played for D plus, and then he played for PSG Talon. Never actually played for sandbox. And Harper is the other one who's wearing a bit of a throwback jersey. He's got the cloud nine jersey on man. What a throwback. Harper played for Cloud9 back in 2021, represented Cloud9 at Six Invitational 2021 in Paris. Of course, that was the old Fear X boys, the old classics like Envy Taylor and Static and Nova, of course. So, yeah, funny to see two players from Help Our Sell the Phone running jerseys of their opponents, former organizations. It's also pretty good branding saying, hey, your org logo could be right here. These guys' logos, if you sponsor a team, it's always the same when you have a tier 1 circuit and you're all playing for the same stakes at the same level, but under very different conditions, right? You're either going to have to work a full-time job or have really good family support back home, or a lot of savings, I guess, you just burn off while you're trying to make it in pro league. While you have some teams, because look at the play games, right? We have team house on the left-hand side and you have five individual rooms on the right-hand side yeah it is it's hard scenario and if you get a word really hard while getting the funding to then go even against your opposition yeah it's a hard game obviously you can still you know get prize money for winning tournaments yeah placing in tournaments when you're augurus but you only get your prize money you know however long it takes for that prize money to come through after the stage is completed whereas if you're on a salary team you just know every week or every fortnight or every month that money is coming in pay your bills in the case of a team house often your rent is essentially covered because you're sleeping at the team house sometimes food accommodation all these privileges that you have afforded to you when you have an organization not to mention the supporting staff and the management that comes with it it's a huge advantage fear exer kind of the last bastion for career in a way, but if Hope Arcellofo do away with them here, perhaps they would take the mantle. Here's a question for you, Peggy. At what point does Phyrex completely abandon the roster and just go and pick up Help Arcellofo or a different team instead? Oh boy. Oh, it's the thing, it's right. No matter what you do, okay, no matter who you are, you need to give your team a start ceasing of where the result does not matter. It's about settling into the competition. I think for kickoff right now with B&K, you do not care about the outcome. Of course, you want to qualify as your player. Of course, you're allowed to qualify as an org owner and as a sponsor. But realistically, give these boys a few months together and then stage one in a few months from now after the Salt Lake City Major, I think that's your real skill test. And if you place Pauli in that one, then we can have a conversation about what's the changes. But it's so often that teams and orgs, They make changes faster quickly. Yeah, they might. That's true. Of course, I guess the other side of the conversation is FUREX are a partnered team with Ubisoft, which is why they got invited to reload a year ago, and that affords them all kinds of extra privileges as a company. You know, as FUREX the company, they get skins in game, they get revenue generated from the game. That's the goal as an organization. That's one of your primary ways that you make money. And they have to make sure that they can Keep that Ubisoft partner spot safely because if they lose that that's a huge revenue loss as well Yeah, make sure that their team still performs to a level that's acceptable of a Ubisoft partner team It's true As most days a fine line they have to navigate and no one knows how come until you're standing You know at it within your hand this team right now can't be slow start But you could make a lower bracket run and go all the way to the to the major in theory that is take to be possible But a comeback has to start right here right now, you're down one round, four to five, trying to float back, but damn it dude, this guy keeps swinging, keeps picking up kill to kill. Oh, looks like one, looks for a second, he's getting tilted by that blackbeard and coming in from behind, it's the boogie man on the ying, he finds a 2k before he's traded on back, it's not unloosable here, 4 help plus LFO, 3v3, no more gas remaining, Ryder's gonna try and create a little bit of a fortress for himself using the final key of barriers inside of med bay that does succeed some of this bomb side control over to fear x we have 40 seconds to look for a plant opportunity I think there is actually a panda ball though the swing from the in saying that's a little bit too much though and leaving harper all alone it's now up to stetzel to plant that diffuser or rheumatic looks for the cover but he's He's got just a pistol and he swings only to find Harper waiting with open arms. It's a big 2k and that point for El Baselifo. Where are you looking? You know, I was sitting here thinking, can you not plan in this position? Because Blackie was sitting there for about 20 seconds straight. He reloaded, he was looking around, he was waiting. Obviously there was some communication from B and K Furyx that they weren't ready perhaps. But I was just saying to myself, you had the upper hand, you had bomb site control, how was it if over at no position to strike back? But then they planned way later and they didn't have proper cover, they didn't really utilize the smoke grenades either. Also should that give you the one plan thing when he can just walk in and get visual information on where the players are playing from? I have all these questions. Sadly, with PNKFear, they've been struggling since that sideswap. Yes, they had a one good rush round in the beginning, but ever since then it's been How was it about clutching up time and time again? It's an important moment now for Fear X. Two map points against them. They've struggled on this attacking side. These last couple of rounds, the defense has cleaned up. How was it if although they have this tendency to kind of chug on the pressure a little bit? And this is actually kind of when the pressure is on because it's match point. It's your game to win, you're the lead, you're rolling them, you're winning all your gunfights, etc. They have to kind of break the curse of the past and just cleanly close out fortress. Because what that can happen in this BO3 series is, let's say it goes to overtime. Whether it elbows in the fold, they win or lose, there's gonna be some frustration if they stop bottling a couple of small moments. That can then bleed into Shalay, the second map, and that can change the course of this entire series. I know these players have a positive role. It's really important to them that they can get this map over the line cleanly. I don't care if it's a guy 1v5 clutching and you're sitting in your lost round but you clutched it, or with some flawlessly like winning the round and everybody paid, you know, a bit their pardons, but they need to make it clean. Not start slowly choking. So, it may have just come down to this last defensive round here for Helper Cellefaux. Two chances for Fear X to push us to OT, but if you remember how the last time Helper Cellefaux defended this bombsite and how that panned out, Panky, it was calamitous for Fear X. It was really up to Harper, who held on for as long as possible inside a bathroom before Helper Cellefaux peeled back the layers of that defense. This could be a de-opening kill, though. Yoon Sang, his position is red. Thankfully, though, he did not die, he survives, and if he's able to support Harper in his bar turn position again, Fear X will have to be extra careful on that run clear. Also small thing to note that might be worth mentioning, if because they lost the run-to-me attack and bar through on the run clear, they actually never really saw the bombs that setup. Like, not really. Which means they're kind of walking into unknown and unfamiliar territory. Had they been there last time, it's okay, we know that this guy loves to play in this corner and there's like a thorn trap here and in the mind there, whatever. They're not going to have that full picture. Which means once they do get to that thorn side floor, soon as they get that room here, they're going to have to spend some extra time scouting things out and El half-elf and Blitz in the thorn trap. What are we saying, James? Shame on you, Demik. Shame on you for playing thorn so Well, they've been doing damage to the player of Vanille. Hey, the game, not the player they say. NL is so affected by it, though. They lack the ability to sprint for such a long time as the debuff finally subsides. Harbour is once again the man of the hour for help us, LFO. That position in bathroom is everything for this defense. Why did he cop this earlier? What I would like to do here, if I was in the server, because I'm scared, I would cop my mouse early here, fall back, reinforce the wall as possible, because that bottom player can either get you a kill or be a free kill. But if you get the fat result this time around, just kind of counter it, you're starting off this potential final run 4v5, less than ideal. Good info for Woogie Man on the snake, he sees everything, but Hopper swings and finds romantic good trade from help us LFO. 4v4, they find themselves in as they start to force these defenders back into that bomb site. safe now to go for a reinforcement. I don't think it will be. And Wookieman shut down Demik, aggressive on the door. Wookie doesn't have another grenade to try and get aggressive here and now surely Soldier is a dead man walking. The Blitz is watching his position. Somehow he manages to get an angle and L falls. And maybe there's a way back into it to hold on here for the defense of help Passello foe. Wookieman needs to have a big impact. Good flashbang to come through from Misa, but then he hits the deck. Stessel, the only full HP player left for Fyrex has to go big. But Ryder and Yin Sang just fortify and fall back and hide on the bomb site. Yin Sang for his 11th kill, number 12! He goes big, but the clock will be the killing blow to Fyrex and help us LFO Polish off Fortress. Map 1 in the books and Therix will need to come back on the second They come out wind-milling like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the talking of a scrap! Pino! If he goes uncontesting the kit goes cold, that'll be devastating. The grenade goes burn, that's the swing! Diver and Bullet are able to get one apiece with the kit so far away and Canadian down upstairs. Leave her. Wow. That was special. It's a one versus three to hold and they're pushing it from behind. He's found one. He's got to get the vertical as well. They get pulled off. We're down to the last three or four seconds. Ryder's got another. He's held on. He's going to do it. A PSU. Take the two-one win. Both players spotted, but the Ransom he needs extensively. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! The information from the bees, it goes down! Oh, here's seven eggs! They cement themselves as one of the greatest of all time! He's starting to get cooked alive, Ollie, but he's using his dim pencils! Look at this from the dark! Surely not! Brilliant! That's Clay the year of my book. He plays the game, hits the old body, doesn't quite catch it. Oh, he got sent! The dare! He's going back. He's not quite sure. He has a few seconds to stick it, Nassal's stick it. This is an angle that he might be able to contest. No, unfortunately, he takes just a bit of damage here. The walk, I guess, the second one. He clips though. We'll get one. Turning it into a 2v2 9v8. Push it on the side. The bandit will lose out on this. He clips the last alive on the Ella. Spots the hand and takes the ace for Walker. He will down BC Canadian positioning to pick up, but that's going to result in a double net hit from Vertical. But for him to surround, Necrox the final defender against Vertical, the absolute domination. We all believe in Magic, Michael. as they win the Mexico Major. map one in the bag for help us LFO it's a beautiful classic when you see a big organization playing up against a bunch of players who are down on their luck with nobody to represent them they're wearing a mix match of different jerseys but they are a story team I help us LFO and they've really made a name for themselves across their careers and today they're certainly continuing that form. This is a battle not just to save off elimination, but it's a battle to determine which team will represent Korea throughout the rest of APLA pack North here and kickoff only one can march on forward and represent their country Yeah, when you put it like that the more you think about it the more how was it a goal? They there are so desperate for this picture, right? Because what better way to help you find an organization than to be the best team from your you know, domestic region of Korea and be the only team to continue that lower bracket run. They need this. They want this. That they really do. And look, it was a tight game. DRX actually managed to really bring it back, even as we can see the scoreline right now. 4-3, it was a very solid showing from DRX on that attacking side to keep that pressure and help us out of both. But then a flip of the switch. And to me, that decisive moment was that round in bathroom, with Ryder support. I think it might have been Ryder. I can't remember. Supported by Yutza. It was Harper. That's right. Harper supported by Yutza. And Yutza had such a huge couple of rounds as well. Big game. I think 11, 12, 13 kills at the end of it. Exactly what help us LFO needed. Like you said, so much riding on this. The pitch to any potential organizations out there To survive and continue being in the battle for Soul Lake City and of course to carry the torch for Korea But moving on a map to its fear axis map pick I can't imagine a world where this is a 2-0 either direction. I think coming into this We always knew this would be a rivalry between these two teams Yeah, I think a 2 and victory one way or the other is the most logical thing to assume before the game started And the thing is if you look at how the fortress map played out so many rounds were individual are just in big moments from how much they live, if they don't have that same shine from individual players getting 2k, 3k, etc, that will change the story of Fortress and it will affect the rest of this Destiny 3, so I really do think we're going to go the distance. I think Chalet, which is up next, will be taken by Fyrex. This is their moment, a debut of four new players on this roster, for Misa up against his former team and now Fir-X must make a comeback to fight for survival here in the lower bracket of APL APAC North and so we get into Chalet, Fir-X have chosen to take us here and they need to have a big impact. What do they get rid of here for the attackers now that they start on their defensive side which is not easy by the way on Chalet it's a very exposed map especially with that is army band up against them what do they get rid of on the attack Mira Deimos okay I'm all for it actually I am all for it I could see Solis naked and brought out though we saw how the set of foe played what two three separate rounds on fortress so both teams bring it a couple times actually I think Shelly is quite fitting it's good for flank watch good for or Intrigue, or Solo Play, and also mind you, a small feature about Solus Link that we don't actually get to touch upon that much during commentary is how his secondary utility works. Essentially, you will choose your starting secondary utility. You will choose the Flashbang, a Nade, a Smoke, or a Soft Breaching Charge. I don't know if you can get Claymores, I know for a fact you cannot get the Cannon Openers to Heart Breaching, but you can choose one of the other ones, right? Whenever a player dies in the lobby, except when you team killed the Missilesnake because they thought about that, they will drop a pouch on the ground that will give you the opportunity to pick up one more secondary utility of any other kind. So let's say you start with a Frag Grenade and you haven't spent it, you cannot pick up a second Frag Grenade. You gotta pick up a Smoke, a Flashbang, or a Soft Reach. However, you're gonna throw this Frag Grenade, go back to the pouch which drops from that dead player and then you get another frag grenade but only killing one at a time. You can in theory throw up to eight frag grenades in a roundtrip. Eight frag grenades. Theoretically. But I've never thought of like that. You realize the map flow to allow kills to happen periodically, right? A lot of maps, let's say Consulate, Bobhouse, even Fortress, you kind of get the 5v5 and 4v4 fight weekly. But Shelly and Border are maps where you might get some early kills so you can actually get more values on the snake. Yeah. So yeah. A little bit of tech here that's changed in recent history soldier running the iron sights on the blackbeard. He's actually going to spot the solace who's tempted to run out down below. Help us LFI. Do you need to find a way to bait me to run outside? I was saying about the iron sights on the blackbeard. Fast ADS time. Here we go is for it. It's being watched by Demik Incredible that a lot of damage was actually done on the soldier regardless But James how much faster is the iron sight not much not much I ran it for a little bit and then I gave up. Oh nice day there from soldier. I Love that so medically a barb wire man. That is genius. I 100% guarantee there is a thorn trap underneath that window as well Which is why the barb wires so deadly would he takes a lot of damage on his retreats? Yeah I'll out the position from you saying as well It's got the read on stencil. He wants to try and peak him outside. No a cocky if he insane with a DMR It's a bit awkward. I don't want to overly aggressively contest this angle Yeah, it's just a lie. That's most important part of your diet in that bathroom balcony the pressure is gone they can kind of retake that area for maps. So it's important to notice a player in the server when your job is to go for a kill, and when it's the same as just be there as presence. Now there's a bit of a reset on the round. You're supposed to go towards library, harbor going back to office, balcony. They're gonna flip the entire thing, leave one person solo, or just take the map so you're free. There is a player five upstairs of wookie man. I don't think they know or expect him to be there. That could be a huge flank in the moment's notice. Jinseng should be aware of it. Oh, yes he was. He snuck into library and Woogieman left all alone, has taken down, but while Stetzel finds one, he's left all alone. Three versus one now. The L plus L are further isolated. This final pick, they should know where he is. They need to make sure to use the leverage of this blackbeard to gain information. Info here for Stetzel onto Jinseng's position. Was there a camera of some kind? Was that surely not the default? Jinseng goes down. Very winnable 1v3 now. now the Stetzel as he makes his way forward the upside down repel here for Demik is deadly and soldier I mean he's gonna be careful because he's already low HP one shots the leg from the DMR he's dead but if he just tries to play a little game a cat and mouse that should be it Stetzel needs to try and take these fights one at a time but soldiers got him and help us LFO looking pretty solid on the attacking to start on Chalet. Very impressive post plan right They planned in such a spot that you can be on solar and rappel outside the building and see the diffuser entirely It is a guaranteed round victory and it doesn't matter if Jung Sang died on the flank on library Because they got the information that he was things out of office. They can say guys he's so far away The planet will go down GG nice try good round And it started off being a little bit. Oh, okay They didn't get that first initial pick but then how about the left fold just really figure things out in the mid-round and it's thanks to Soldier on the Blackbeard and It's why these shield operators have been so beautiful so long, but look at this Mesa in a 5v4 went for the impact grenade run out and this one of those things that is so hard to value as a player if you're playing the 4 versus 5 aka you're down in members You can go for that impact grenade run out and if you get the kill you're playing for before X then you're even But if you lose that, then you play in 3v5, round is certainly just lost. But what happened here is the opposite. Pinky 3 years were in a 5th versus 4th that man advantage. Some would argue that Misa didn't need to make that play because if you lose that play, now you're back to a 4v4 and you've lost your advantage. Why make a risky play if you've already gotten your advantage in the first place? Obviously Misa made that play thinking there was only one guy repelling and knew for his teammate communicating with him that he was shooting at his teammate. So in his mind, there's a complete free kill, and that's how that round cannot turn upside down very quickly. It's all those small moments. Man, somebody called a shield police and said, okay, it's open season, Demek and Soldier doubling down. Blackbeard closed up the last round and Hal has said, okay, let's bring everything else, except for the Blackbeard Blitz and Monty Combo, it's scary. Monty is great though, we don't often get to see it played because it fanned so frequently, but the ability to just get so much information and play slow and safe and call out to your team is huge here for Soldier. It's going to enable the Blitz to actually jump up inside of Library and it's going to allow Soldier to get so much info. Problem is he's isolated here and he has the defuser, so if he goes down, that's a huge detriment to help us LFO. If he doesn't get dealt with, look at what he's able to achieve, but look at those thorn traps! They're actually destroyed, I think. One destroyed the other one. Now, Soldier is so tempted to go for this kill. I mean, again, if it's not fine, you know, you set yourself a case that's gone to ground, the smoke comes up and it comes in. There's gonna be a push. Here it comes. You've been saying in the blitz, have to make this workout for El Pasellofo. Great teamwork there. The flashbang, have you sang to come in? With that assault rifle, our top floor control dominated by help us LFO and Fyrexer once again on the ropes. Honestly, a very impressive shot right there, picking things apart in a very different way. And I think the only months you could make that play have walked into Fireplace and up the staircase because he's so safe with that extended gadget shield, nor the operator can replace that kind of position as why he's often banned on every single map in the game. But what now? What's the second line of thinking here? Harbour gets a pick on Tamisa, Stetzel and Woogieman, both on one build worth of health. This round is completely falling apart and they just drone the guy on five big stairs as well. And they see the guy at Blue Space, they got full isolation. It's just so well read isn't it? Fyrex trying to get aggressive time and time again but help us LFO. They've been slow, they've been patient, they've got their number and a big round for Harbour on the Capitao as well. Two kills to close it and help us LFO look even more convincing in this second successful attack. That was good. The big thing here from HBL to LFO from this week to last week is partially the discipline of not being like soldier stressing. You know, there's two guys on this, one guy below, and just sounding very much under pressure. And I can say this because if you look at every other player around him, they wouldn't worry about soldier being in trouble. He was likely saying I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, and then you count down 3 to 1, you smoke, you flash, you push. Nobody was stressing the urgency there in a bad way, that's phenomenal. The second one is, they're also not making any mistakes. The second they get the first kill on the MSN player, they instantly flashbang for the Blitz, so they can push small blocks, they smoke off the crossfire angle, and they get bluestar control. The moment that happened instantly, BOOM, on flank drones, and they see the guy flanking them on fireplay stairs, then they get off the flank camp, they get a free beam, Lids of course, they've got to score it into blue stairs, sees the blue staircase flanking her, and they get a formation as well. So everyone is doing their individual roles so well, and they're taking turns on flank watch. A lot of the time you'll have a guy watching the flank, then you go, hey buddy, I need you over here. They go, okay guys, I'm off flank watch, 10 seconds later, so he goes, oh my god, I got flanked by someone watching the flank watch, Like no one else took that responsibility as something that often happens in the heat of a round So the fact that they're all taking that responsibility together is phenomenal I hope I sell over a lot of ideas here on shallow, which is great It's exciting to see especially considering Verus is my pick right there the ones that you'd expect to come into it Really practice and fresh stuff help us. So before they've showed us a cheeky blitz Monty combo push now Now they're showing us the Monty returning, but also a glass. They've used blackbeard as well. A lot of different ideas brought into the mix to help us out of fun. I'm curious if the Erics though, it seems a little bit default for Chalet. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but if Hellos of the Void are keeping these funky things with one-off pocket strats, usually defaults don't work very well into it, because you're doing these pocket strats expecting them to do what they usually do. So it could be a one point if you're gonna take that strat hook, flip it upside down and start doing some other stuff, maybe give players like Misa, like Stetsu, like Romantic a bit more wiggle room and freedom to go for plays, cuz again this is good on paper, right? They're gonna kite trick, two-barrel trick, what happens once they bridge this wall, if they bridge this wall? Well then they have a single of the probably children piano that is supposed to stop with the glass and the munty push. That's probably just not gonna happen. But if they deny this all successfully, that'll of course just prove my whole thing wrong. Yeah, sometimes it just comes down to being patient though. Foul Pacello foe, just wait out the Tuber Alps, and Firx looks to just fall back. NL doesn't want to over commit, so they're gonna fall back, but they're still gonna try and play this crossfire for as long as I can. Yeah. One thing that help us with what we have is the window pressure. Nobody pianos are out from a big mass ritual or hell. They want to be exposed to a single gunfight which is risky, but also enabling and allowing rather being if it's just fall on back, but they keep finding the picksteams. Yeah, this is unusual, though. You don't often see an attacking team look to actually dominate control on the top floor. They usually just try and poke it, prod and then focus up on the box. I don't know. But no, the insistence from help us LFO to commit to the top floor to eliminate every last fear X player that might be trying to hold on to some semblance of a defense upstairs and now help us LFO they've dominated the entirety of the second floor they can focus on just converting that to an execute onto kitchen and dining itself and the timer is less than 20 seconds they're not rushing they're not sprinting they're not giving any free piece of what I make this round clean But with these last few seconds of games, one C4, he's got all his entire time. It could, but not if they go for kills instead of the play. It's all after-o-matic. They know where he is, and Ryder finds the final two kills. He's riding a wave for help us LFO, and it's three rounds in a row on the attacking side. Get the Monty gone. Right here. I'm saying Monty, Ben. Yeah, next topic. Let's talk about something else. Not even a conversation. Not even a conversation, they are single-handedly, Monty has now won them two rounds, right? You walk up five stairs, you peek out the room, round over. This round, you walk into the piano, with the glass and the smokes, and you again, completely tear it apart. There's someone's band of surprise. The warden band here is really cheeky, because now you can play ying and you can play glass, and you can play blitz for X instead of smoke in his or her fuse shield, and still has his It just means you've yielded with one problem, here's another, and this time you cannot come up at it. Yeah, wow. You're right though, that Monty just gives him so much, but of course they've banned that out, they've shown their hand, they're happy to play Blitz, and Blackbeard as well. As we go back to the very first bomb site that Fear X tried to defend, it was the very first round. That didn't work out so well for them if you remember, Pengu, help us LFO, it was so good on that top floor attack as well with the Blackbeard with the Ying. Oh man, what do you do here if you fear X? Yeah, as I said, I think you gotta go off the paper, off the defaults. We're seeing them playing behind their shield and hide, two-bring the wall, and then they fall back like they're supposed to, and then they lose. And then they start lashing out, they jump out the windows, they throw out the C4, C6 and gun 5, I think they gotta get in their face. They're playing, look at their second lineup, right? They're playing for Executor. You know when they shoot his warden band that the glass neem would come. I said that the second it happened, and I hope PNK here is also in realises. What you need to do here is fight them on the roam. Look, they have no roam clears. There's no shield at the minute. They must have target banned by PNKG itself. They're not playing solid snake. They want to get to the bomb site. If you give them the path to the bomb site, you will probably lose. Fight them early, fight them often. Yeah, you're damn right. That said, remember last time on this bomb site, Mesa tried to embody that exact mentality and he died running outside. He tried to take the fight to... We need more people to do that thing that Mesa's doing and do it together, right? right if you say hey there's a two people roaming library and a guy roaming bar we're gonna have the roam game then we're gonna have two guys watch the bombsite rush now you have a playable round but if five people are by the bombsite and they play utility you get forced back actually kind of unlucky that the help of cell phone didn't find the kill in the retreat from me so but i guess they'll find the shotgun kill where was that is that thanks door what how must have been there's no way main the big window no wasn't basically the guy inside a salarium like two seconds ago? Or am I crazy? No that's NL. Oh okay okay. Yeah well aggressive play from Mesa doesn't work out just another time. Good kill go from Stetsul leaving a lot of that pressure from the Ying on the main window but Soldier he's carved his way into the bomb side with that glass. He's to get up close range but the shotgun will best the DMR. This is a lifeline now for Fyrex that has been cut loose as NL is decapitated by Ryder, 3v2. Stetzel and Woogieman don't know whether they need to make a move or whether they can buy their time. I think Stetzel's, no, sorry, Woogieman is running outside. He doesn't have a good read, and Stetzel just peeks into the waiting arms of Demik. Yeah, it's a complete obliteration. Oh, Firak's round after round by helpus LFO. They have carved a mark into Chalet. It's four straights and Fyrex are left with far too many questions. This is definitely acts of desperation and I think a bit of mental tilt settling in. Fyrex keep making individual plays and losing on those individual plays. Misa has now died two times solo lashing out somewhere trying to be the hero. And I said this myself you gotta fight them and you gotta fight them often but you need to fight them together. It can't be Misa on Solis using his gadget, seeing there's no drone, then going for a ground fight 2v1. It has to be Misa and one of these teammates that make that play happen so you have a higher chance of success, otherwise you make a bad situation or worse because you just lose a player. Then you play a 4v5 instead of a 5v5. It feels like Therix from our perspective, if you're top-down, neutral, no voice comes, that they're a bit divided on how to play this game right now, because one part of them is like, fall the paper, fall the prep, fall the analysis. Right? We prep for this. The other half is saying, the prep is been working, we gotta play off instincts. And both of those strats can work, instinct can work and the paper can work, but they cannot work when you're doing both kind of half-hearted, with different players thinking different things. They need to align on how to approach these rounds now and just play together. Obviously both teams maybe also changes, but fear X changed four players Whereas I was on the phone they changed two and you're right a lot of the like no None of these five players were on the same team last season for fear X They're getting used to so much woogie man and Nova their coach are trying to kind of Bring forward what fear X already had at the back pocket He's just trying to bring the stuff that he had when he was with help of cello phone appears to Talon and all these other players like Stetzel and El and Ramathic are trying to bring their own ideas as younger, fresher players into the mix. How do you blend that all together? Well, sometimes it just comes to playing individually and going for Brode, going for your own individual plays and that's what Ramathic is just doing, he's playing quite aggressively actually. Just on the West Main Stairs, he's found a player earlier, Insang trying to enter But aside from that, you can see it in the evidence that Misa, who's one of the best players in the game, the best players out of Korea, is 0-4 at the moment. Hasn't even gotten assist. And Woogieman, one of the most experienced players in Korea, is also 0-4. Romantic, the young gunner stepped up going, he has talent of one. And he's actually slowed down, he was a little significantly for this one. They're also up against that base in Bombsite, which I think plays quite well for the Thierryx here. There's those angles to worry about, there's threats. You can't really rush the Bombsite, you can try, but it's very risky, very dangerous. So they're going for a full clear or half clear, doing the bird. But see this, they have no real roam control. So this is a channel right above the area that Romantic isn't dining. They're on for a flank, and timer's ticking. it. This is by far the best round for BNKFerex thus far and there's also a bulletproof camera on site from Misa which can see through the smokes. I feel like we need to see BNKFerex threatens on the plants on the basement but help us sell a foe fighting from a man behind feel like they can't do that until they get a pick and Romatic is such a deadly spot inside of dying on the other side of it Harper is trying to figure out whether There's a player in that position. A flashbang goes towards blue. Wukimang can keep them obeyed. Impact goes out, but still romantic. It hasn't been properly cleared as of yet. Can they hunt him down? That's my question. Indeed, they can. And the plant starts to go out. Demik's gonna be able to get the plant down. Soldier is covering! Nobody is home! The Therax! The first round, Pengu, where it looks like they might have a chance. There's absolutely none whatsoever. help us LFO. I've got that plant down in a soon post plant positions. Wookieman finds his first kill and NL needs to support him as Wookie finds a second. It's up to Soldier in a 1v2 with no util. I think there might be info yet. Now they know where he is. He needs to jump over and go down to the main stairs but he's got to walk through barbed wire to do that but NL is not being covered! Wookieman finally traits him back and he can get the clutch up. A much needed clutch for Ferex and a 3k for Woogie, the first round on the board, the Fyrex. That was such a necessary round for them and their mental, but the fact that it took that much effort to win it, I mean somehow the flank was successful. You know you had two separate players in the football, locking down the flanks, the ram on first four and then there was Ryder and nobody on top four, one holding Solis and one holding Romantic and they were doing such good job of locking things down, but there is a final small gap. The ram was busy watching every totality right when the plant was going down, and that very small moment of weakness. They got exploited by B&K fear, it's finally. They get one round, but I mean, if that's how much it takes to get a single one, how many can they get? They're desperate for a second and a half, so they can go on to the attack and side having an actual realistic shut at this. The 1-5 is unacceptable. We need S-9-2 for split. That's it, I mean that's kind of the end of the conversation, that's all there is to say. We need to see Furex win this next round, otherwise it's pretty much done. Pretty much over. So, how does he pull it back on a shoot-do-these soldier? He has been phenomenal, but he was also the glass player, and it does put you in that box of choose one or the other. It's by having multiple flex players in one rush from one lineup can be so valuable. This gives you many more opportunities to go over different attacking strats really. You ride a back on the solid snake and see there's a player holding the jump in and dining had that being clear You just send it now you're in diet now you're in with um Entropy rather you get to be the map control the fact that it's not clear. No big deal. Go somewhere else There's gonna be a gap somewhere for these entries Help us a lot foe just need one more round and And surely you just ride it out on defense to the victory you ride it out You put fear ex away And you march forward in this lower bracket good made idea for soldier good coverage from rider That's good teamwork riders trying to pressure from the bathroom window, but he'll actually get in jits. That's all does a lot of damage Because he's got these storm traps. He can cover himself soldier needs to check this corner in close range It's an awkward spot for him. He gets it down under romantic We can't finish off Stetsul and Mises come over to support as well. Now Stetsul's found writer This is the best chance we've seen so far for Furex. They should be able to get a second round on the board Yeah, they're stabilizing just watching out right now Shaka on the staircase final five spank shot if you shot he harbor gets it though Romantic is still injured just not been revived actually, but it's the issue They have two players on solarium stairs and a third player outside the building They don't really have any real way of pushing power and to make matters worse. This isn't the bomb site It's bar gaming across the building 3v3 is so winnable. It's a big kill though on the Stetzel We did a re-aggro as well from wugi man into library to re-take that control Such a big roam fear acts of achieve this round But Stetzel finally being put to rest with rheumatic off-site and low on HP This opens the gates, help us sell a foe on the bomb site. Good read as well, Harper. Here's the shots, ring on out. He needs to know where Woogie Man is. Upstairs in library, Demik has the defuser, as now the attackers become the defenders. They've got control of the bomb site, but Demik can't get inside without exposing himself to that hatch, so he has to rotate over into mudroom instead, which is risky because that exposes himself to both dramatic and Woogie Man, who now have Crossfire on both of the remaining attackers. How do they play this? Well, Wookiee Man will shut down Demik Harper. Has to clutch up. Finds the first one, but Wookiee Man again to clutch up for Fyrex. It's a second round on the board and a much needed one of that as we go into the half-time swap. Fyrex, two rounds to four. I'm very much needed clutch and back-to-back rounds of B&K fear except the most experienced player on the roster of Woogieman but if that's what it takes to get around on the board I mean they're gonna need a lot of Woogieman in this one because they're down 2-4 the sideswap has occurred Halberceliffo going to defense of Chalet the less favorable side but they have been the much better team yeah look Halberceliffo have built a lot of momentum not just on Chalet but how fortress panned out especially near the end of it some big moments from Harper, big moments from Demek and Yunsang. Even this round getting as close as it did after Firx killed two players at the start of it, goes to show how good help us LFO have been on Chalet. Now we flip things, help us LFO on defense as you say, and I'm most excited to see how this Denari plays out, especially with how many shields we saw come into play in that first half. They're going to make an appearance in the second half as well Pingu, and not just because of that Monty, but maybe even because of the shield from Woogieman as well. Hmm, I can lie, I'm a little surprised that how was it if I let the Monty go through? I feel like when you're up 4-2 and the enemy's been struggling, like, because they're also struggling on the attacking side, Monty is that crutch operator for the vast majority of teams in the world. By banning it, you're making the attacks much more frustrating, much more difficult you can't skip steps. We'll see what happens with that third operative and maybe they'll go back and rethink that. But for now it'll be Misa actually, who plays in Monty often as the IGL, similar to Soldier when he was playing it for help of Zilevo. He can call the shots because you get so much mental space and clarity when you're on that Monty operator. You're not gonna worry about your own body and you can die and get swung in reaction time. You can play the game as a drone that can park essentially. Boss G. Vigil. That time of the week again, I guess. Just misses his shot. I'll tell you what, Stetzel's had a pretty good game today. He's really come into his own in terms of the frag and capability. Still putting up crazy numbers, but a couple of good rounds on the defense there. He was playing thorn so it doesn't count, but it is what it is. He's pulling his weight, for sure. If anything, it's actually been me that was a bit behind the current of expectations, I would say. I mean, he's had a rough time on the defensive side, but hopefully now with the ITL leaders should begin to shine on the attack. Oh man, these guys are so dead. They're both so dead, well played. From fear X, NL to deliver the killing blow on these two players that will hunter down below the bottom side. There should be a round locked in now for fear X. I mean, it shouldn't be fumbling from a 3v5, Harper wants to get aggressive, he's in a good position, he's also got a bit of info from the default cam. And romantic is low, so if he can be isolated, that should be a 3v. There's also another round, an instance from Munch to Shun. You know, hold middle mouse button, watch the building and say, Enemy here, enemy here, somebody watch him. Like you can't really stick around in the rom game against the shooter operator harbour fighting wallbang 5 kind of through the Softball office was the office balcony is that bridge against one? I don't think that bridge is vulnerable. I think that the Salmas are actually separated and now that's a 3v3 Oh boy, which means if that bridge is not in fact Actually, both are couchable. I think that this round is pretty much over I don't know how fear it like this is very sketchy for fear X You still got the Monty that can walk on in, you have 4 Fragones and Demos trackers. The only issue here is, honestly, romantic being 1 HP, you can't really take a whole lot of gunfights. There's 2 C4s in response, and this is very tricky. Kind of even, kind of not. Monty's in the build, I guess it's Valtable, yeah? No, it's not, but they open the soft wall. They open the soft wall, but wow, that breach, not being properly opened, could have been deadly, doesn't matter, because that's also a big pick. but you're right down below in fireplace. Ryder has a nitro cell, he's killed Mesa, he's made it a 2v1 now and he has to clutch up, but Stetzel can track him down. It's up to Rymathic now to plant that diffuser with Stetzel to cover lots of grenades left available as well as Ryder gets aggressive. Plant is down, there's no Monty to worry about which means this is 2 1v1s and it's so winnable for Ryder. Pete Tengroni in hand, Rymathic so low on HP. The real challenge here would be fighting Stetzl while that track from the Deimos comes out. How does he play this? Now he knows where the Deimos is. He wants to isolate this one. He's worried about Romantic as well. He baits out the first peek, but Stetzl finds him with the vendetta and the gap is closing for Fyrex. Honestly, it's one of those rounds that... How was it before they played it so well until they didn't, right? They sent a player downstairs that has C4 and a C for the default plant location, they kill the monkey. Excellent stuff, there's like 11 seconds left, the round should actually be won. But then the player on the bomb site, they make he actually swung in pianos from our bedroom and dies right here and that kind of loose them around because what would have happened is that the mosses below in fireplace, he can now see the plant spot and the diffuser with the verticality. The guy on the bomb site, it just has to wait until the guy below says, hey, they're pushing deep and that's when you swing Dying before that happens means Ryder is stocked downstairs has to run back up a staircase and he gets demo's tracked He's not supposed to win the post up there So kind of a shame that they got so far and played so well only to lose at the very final stretch of the round But good for Firx. They keep the game running. They get some more confidence back onto their side But that should have been a much cleaner round victory than what they showed us That was a 5v3 off the rip that became almost the 1v1 I'll tell you what, Pangu, three rounds in a row. You never say never. Yep. And now it looks like Helper sell the foe are the ones trying to get a bit cheeky, trying to get a bit desperate. I don't know about this, James. It didn't work. Please bomb me to the road. Yeah, I mean, it didn't work for me, sir. And obviously you didn't say last round tried to deal with the boss G and it didn't work. Also, what's wrong with boss G today? We just talked about how it's kind of fallen off a bit, right? And now it's like five times today. He saw in 4k how bad the boss G is at spawn peeking on boarder because he landed the chest shot and didn't get the kill. That means it takes the exact same number of shots to kill with the boss G at that range as it does with Tugoran or Eruni's DMR. If you really want a spawn peek, bring one of those instead. Didn't go for it though. He started sparing packs in pocket or two sparing packs in pocket. the loot force library, good time, drops down the hatch, they've burned a few pieces of utility, another grenade has crossed the ground, very sparingly here, not supposed to be a warrior I guess, they have smoke grenades in the pocket, they got a blitz in the window, they want a horse and dip, and so when that goes deep, I think it was a nitro cell that got EMPed out of mid-air, and now the gunfire taken by Woogieman, he does fall, but he's done his job, all the Woogieman on the blitz needed to do was try and delay enough time to enable that plant to go down and so it has a fear x problem is they're now fighting from a man deficits and it's up to help us LFO with that clash to try and retake which is not impossible improbable yes but not impossible we've got plenty of utility gas to come through from Demik that critically help us LFO need to make sure they have control from up above the gas is massive Here The retake of their lives and they get it across the line fear X cannot find that plan sir I Cannot believe they managed to get that done seven players still alive in the server Rageous I mean it's such a chosen area because you saw the players white swing in the window right to shoot it to the smoke like surely he's there, no he's there, no he's there. It looks like you can see the player because smoke is kind of covering the shield but they're diffusing behind the clash shield the entire time so it's not panicking at the very end. There's one way you win that it is honestly with the clash shield and to double down they didn't have any throwable self-destruction. You know what's funny right before they jump in the bombsite window they tossed out their final grenade from striker romantic. That grenade had that not been spent before they jumped in the window, but been saved for the post plant, that shoot would have never worked, because all it takes to stop that play is one single grenade. But they probably didn't know there was a clash, didn't think about the post plant, I mean they're more worried about getting the bomb bound than what happened after the fact because it has to go down the first place. Ridiculous to know events though. And finally the win streak from Fyrex has been broken, they got three in a row, And as soon as one goes onto the help us LFO side of the column It's only just two rounds away from putting this to bed eliminating fear X from a pack north and Yin-Sung is again tempted to go for this I cannot understate the gravitas of this moment fear X on the verge of elimination He's waiting for the rap or sound or a drone close You could have typically gone for the run out early when he was these hard right But I don't think he wanted to take that risk. He didn't have the exact sound cue But I like the fact that Jung Sing isn't doing this like for no reason without purpose You can also call the C4 Tossed for Demig actually they end up going on the drone outside Woogeyman injured and confirmed a trade through steps along the rider. So worth while losing the Blitz from Masi Yeah, not worth it at all. Not for fear. That's definitely is fell parceller foe. That is a worthy trade He's just gonna fall as well. You didn't say I'm gonna just a dodge a bit of fire as well might be trapped here, but at least he can hold on and continue to delay time. Fyrex are on the ropes. They have to chase him, I think. I mean, right now they got some minutes. It's worth it. The verticality, though. From bathroom down to one HP from Stetsul, they're going to 3v1 Jung's from downstairs. But again, no matter what happens here, it's still worth it for Helmets and the Volk. Well, Busty comes out. Just a ball of the wind on the Stetsul and he'll fall. But rheumatic goes deep finds the kill a big one He's also gonna pick up a frag rate on the back of it as well with the solid snakes ability Now fear X have evened up the numbers, but time is ticking away and still still on such a low HP How do they conjure up a win out of thin air? I mean if you play around the the solid snake right now and gives them information Information that could be one way. They don't have any Sophia charges for you know verticality for a vertical kill the issue is these tenari laser is One tick and stencils gone. They have one way to burn them two ways actually They can throw this last flashbang some of the only half reaching or the final drone into the laser That's it. So this singular point of laser in the map could honestly stop the entire equation. He's for one player You're not gonna want to go through that Oh, and that shield is going to make it so difficult. Yeah. Track on the Harper from Romantic on the Solid Snake. There's a repel on to the balcony, Stetzl does fine one kill, he's still low HP. The advantage on the health. Square Lee in help us LFOs favor and Harper has been so good today. They can't get in? No. I think this might be the end of the line, surely not. Stetzel and NL have to vault inside. He does and he immediately dies to the laser. There was no choice And the second immediately to follow help us LFO claim match points on Shelly and Put ferox on the verge of elimination. Oh My god, I mean the thing is this could have been over 7-2 as well with that basement post plan I did not work out how was it if all in the 1v2. This is so close The fact that the Denarii laser wins them, the 2v2 is also incredible, right? Window bathroom jumping denied by the laser, the only win to the bomb site on Solarium bridge at door, also denied by the laser, and the third operator ban to nobody's surprise is going to be the Monty. And the Denarii, which is a great operator choice here, actually, but it takes away that final bit of crotchrophurex, you know, they're playing the Blitz that wasn't working out, Now they're trying the few shield maybe from Mukiman who knows but it really was just the Monty and nothing when it came to the shields Yeah, oh man now. Yeah, you're right. I can try the black bit I don't think it'll have the same level of success The Monty was the secret ingredient for fear X and now that the secret is out of the bag Help us LFO ban it away and now three match point opportunities Available for help us LFO and for fear X that means being first Rounded in the tournament if they lose any of the next three rounds penguin fear x are the first team eliminated from APL and Considering that last year in 2025 fear x were the number one team out of a pack north Across the group stages in stage one and stage two. They had ten regulation wins one overtime win Zero overtime losses and only three regulation losses that's a win rate 11 to 3. That far surpasses CAG or D plus, PSG Talon, Skars, Kina Trip, you name it. They were the best team last year. They made top 8 at Reload. And after a disastrous 6 Invitational, they dropped four of their core players that have been with them for at least a year, some of them longer than that. And pick up a bunch of rookies and Misa, Formerly from help us LFO who's now about to be eliminated with a 1-9 scoreline against his former team That one's gonna hurt When you might leave the team as friends But it's always gonna be a little bit personal when you're facing later on when you're on a new journey on your own Almost a little fall again. There's just holding steady on this defensive round and letting being confused make the first moves They hold you all right They're holding up Master Bedroom, a little bit of Solarium sound, they're holding Office Verticality. They even found their drone in the rafters of Master Bedroom, so info denied. I mean it really comes down to NL on the Blackbeard to just push them in the building, be the bulldozer, shock the defenders away and get that map control, but look at the timer. One minute forty seconds, they're only now by the breach, thankfully they brought the maverick because there's a Tuber and Kaid on the wall. So, T'Rio just says, that's a Blackbeard, I'm going to give him a few uptaps just for the memories. It might be about to come out, but we need to see an actual gunfight taken here. The Fir-X, because it should be pretty straightforward for Ryder to dodge this name, put him under a lot of pressure, but that's perfect! He waits straight into Mesa's waiting arms, and two big kills here for Fir-X might alleviate the pressure for now. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that here's a good I write the clear communication Maverick the lion hold it founds the grenade And watch the door run away either you get exposed to black and holding the angle or the Maverick holding the door Either way you get that guarantee kill romantic thing got a second off-screen for just for good Oh, that's a third as well. They may call off guard. They kind of a toxic baby in his hand This should be a fourth of fear. Surely they don't bottle this one 5v2 you certainly got a lot of problems if you lose this round Soldering and saying now try to figure out how they've re-positioned into a clutch potential One of that blackbeard TCSG can pack a punch rookie man wants to jump inside as nl has bought a lot of space here for fear X 20 seconds I was gonna say see if I can end it, but it's gone It's just young son now in lobby fire plays but a single impact and a big hope and dream to win this round It's gonna be the round surely for fear X You sang uses his last impact to just open a line of sight from which he will soon surely die He's gonna be forced back all the way into bar. I think he might just try and play defense in this one Play hideaway see if you can waste a little bit of time. It's okay. They're common Yeah, they are they're hunting for him the blackbeards gonna be the first one in he's got the read spots him No, it actually looks the wrong way. The insane finds one kill. Looks for a bit more, but we'll give him out with a pistol. We'll finish him off in Firx. Can stop the bleeding. But a brief moment. Still two more match points, staring them down. Hold your nerve. Breathe. How was it before? Again, every round they lose, and then slowly feeling a slip away. That victory that they felt when they got onto match point. So convincingly, fear is every round they win they get a little bit more at ease knowing they might have a fighting chance if they can push into overtime and kind of reset this map a bit. This is how things start off the grenade, the swing, the double kill, they may get caught off guard. A lot of varied, honestly, timing as well. A lot of small things is not going the way of hairball to level. But they've got the flexibility to keep changing bomb sites here and with no more operator bands coming through pangu there's one big elephant in the room that hasn't been seen or dealt with here especially when you've got a lot of black beard a lot of blitz being played what is that secret ingredient that always keeps that at bay it's like flash man every time this is honestly one of my favorite things that seems to happen for no reason whenever we're looking at a match point around across pretty much any region When you start loosing it, you always bring a clash. It's just one of those operators that can completely change your playstyle and defense and give you new opportunities of like retaking areas and getting information. And also it slows down the game further. And there's this thing about when you go either into like overtime or you're playing match point from behind. Teamstone plays super fast because you don't want to mess things up and lose, right? Because if being in fear is lose this round, it is over. So what happens when you play slow on attack and you start playing stuff like smoke clash? while he's filled it down twice, and that means the timer becomes your biggest enemy. A lot of info gathering early on in this round as well for help by Celefer, I noticed the pulse at work in the bomb site in half, we're of course repeating aggressively, now he's seen the Blackbeard, the Blackbeard's seen him, and Phyrox have to start thinking about the problem solving at the end of this round. When they have to deal with that clash, what tools are they going to use to try and take it down? They've got the Nomad, and they've got the Capitao plus a couple of flashbangs to boot. They just need to make sure they land on their marks. You can feel that tension building with every grenade, every piece of neutral thrown, you need to get valued to gotta find this kill. The Inkey Fear is starting to feel a little bit desperate, right? If I was able to just let go of the Master Keyboard for the next 20 seconds, what will happen? Probably nothing. It has to be being Inkey Fear's pushing forward and saying 3, 2, 1, execute top blue but if you attacked against this before you know these are such a hard attack to pull off the crossfires the Missing in library box top blue the fallback At the clash and toxic babes into it plus awarding you can't smoke off. How the hell are you gonna pull this off? Every gunfight matters so much and the nurse puts all that much pressure On to one of these players taking those fights That's a big kill there from Woogie Man. A temptation to jump in here from the black beard but it gets a face fall of a nitro cell and with that falling it's one of the key pillars of the attack. Four fear X. They need to spring into action now but critically, rheumatic finds the essential kill onto the clash and with the attack flooding the top floor, it really just puts the pressure back I'd help us LFO with 40 seconds still for the attack to pan out. I think I dropped down those hatches, seconds before they started to shoot at you, sprints on a wave. No one appears above, no one's by the side window. There's time to map out these locations, they can drop down the crosses. It was patience! For Fyrex! Step by step, they inch their way towards the site, they isolate these players and eliminate them. A second round in a row. One more is all they need to push it to overtime. I was curious if we're gonna see attack time, but I'm not by how those are the fault because I thought honestly this could be the time I feel like yeah, there it is actually I was gonna say the way they're playing that round in particular is so scared I thought they were gonna play as I said messin in top blue usually clash fight fight fight But they all went downstairs. It was through just the smoke who died early and then the clash playing blue staircase I was thinking if you play four people library, there's nobody lose that but they're playing that kind of play to lose, right, is a plane to win. They're so afraid of losing the game that they're playing the game incorrectly and they're going away from the thing that worked for them, which is their ego challenge confidence playstyle. This tech timeout, the idea is to bring them back into that old version of playing the game, where they're gonna be fighting back and not giving space for no reason. Yeah, fire back underneath here. It's what we've seen from them, especially on fortress man a lack of fear from help us LFO to make plays I mean Yinsang was swinging everybody back on fortress and he's gone quiet help us LFO have gone quiet in these last couple of defenses that was the first kill Demik over swinging on the bomb site that's a grim side fear X don't want to discredit that they have played really well in his last couple of rounds to a row now to bring it back. One more attack is all they need. And the clash makes a reappearance despite Harper struggling to achieve much with it. Last round, Demarcer seeded me. We're going back to that exact same bomb site. We are. Wow. This is a big gamble from Help Us LFO. Everything is wide open for them. They could go to Master. They could go to Kitchen. They could go basement if they wanted to, but no, back to Bobby's zone. But this is the thing, right? The only thing they have to change was not please. Super scared. If they have stuck to their guns in library and not falling back, they literally would have won the round. And the worst part is, they got gifted that C4 kill onto Blackbeard, that's not gonna happen again, and he's not the same way. So they're granted the exact same defense, they would more confident would not get the Blackbeard kill, which of course will make it a little bit more difficult. But I actually think this is the right call for help us LFO. If you look at how PNQ Fierce attacked you previously, they didn't win the round. It was that help us LFO lost the round. They gave them the space of free. They allowed them to take it. We've seen a minor change in there. Castle being brought out instead of that pulse. I wonder how much this didn't slow down this defense. Where are the castle barricades at? They're just perhaps on the exterior windows of sight. It's just burning time, burning you too. I think you just, again, maybe you put one on double door in Fireplace Beneath. You can play more on the dining hallway, but generally speaking, you just close off the angles angles and make a sledge or maybe if they play the forest, run around the building and waste time destroying the castles. It's just to help further solidify that we're bunkering down. We're not roaming, we're not playing for C4 kill, we're playing for the 5v5 at Clash top blue. And the only counter play really that happened here, kind of no match. Once you get map control, you can kind of stop the clash from retaking the space against you and limit the mobility. And the second one is going to be the sense from Lisa. If you use the sense correctly, you can pretty much counter the top four setup by destroying the crossfires. The only issue is, it's not a solid wall, it doesn't block bullets. You can still get shot through that projector of the sense wall, it'll just have to be based on block. You're not gonna have aim, you're gonna have RNG, whether you're gonna hit that shot or not. So, Furious are looking very confident this round, they've made quick work of that map control, They've ticked off a lot of these key boxes, checkmarks, taking control of the map, you know, opening up these walls and you're right, there is a castle barricade downstairs. You can say it's also fine, it's a kill. Each woogie man to go down, as the main operator is going to clear the castle barricades, the clash shield is really going to make things challenging here. and L as well, but no! The stun from the Clash of Shield stops an L from being able to confirm that kill. And Harper finds Stetzel! This is the moment where Therex capitulate. It could be the first time in history that this team is first-rounded in APAC. Help Arcella Foe just need to hold their ground as the Blackbeard makes his way forward, right and shuts him down. Romantic is the last one standing And it is indeed the end of the line for FIREX. Help us, LFO, put down the fallen kings from Korea, and they survive. They will carry the torch for their country here in the lower brackets. I want a story as well. How was LFO literally looking for an organization, taking on a big name in the Inky Fierce, taking on a former teammate in Misa, and overcoming such a long time of struggles, of obstacles, of lacking confidence, adaptations, and counterplay, going into today's game saying, you know what, we got outplayed last week by KineTrope, where we got exposed on our weaknesses, we're gonna work on it very hard, we're gonna come back stronger. Everyone says it, not everyone shows up for it, they 100% showed a significant improvement in so many areas from last week to this one. What a statement to make when And the biggest org that's representing players from your country, looks up one of your star players, Misa, went over from El Parcelofo to Fyrex, and yet they beat him anyway. It doesn't matter what talent Fyrex are able to find from the scene, what talent their organization is able to attract. All of these players that joined El Parcelofo, especially recently, players like Harper and Soldier, they took a gamble, joining a team that has no representation, joining a team where they don't get paid salaries, they could have maybe gone and joined Fyrex, but no, they took a gamble and it was a gamble well placed because now they survive here in the lower bracket and kick off. Phenomenal. I mean, there are so many highlight rounds, honestly. Mostly from how much they've sold, they are so close today. They have so many like, you know, 2v2s, 1vx's and just big moments where they make a comeback. Even the rounds that was like the Montymaster Vigilum attack, I think the first and second from beating Firix, it was a 5v3 off the rip, into a 5v2, that turned into a 2v1. Every time that you thought Firix had a round, they didn't. Or at the very least, it made it extremely close. Yeah, credit to Firix, they did bring it back a little bit there, it was 6-3 match point, it ended up as a 7-5, so two rounds in a row on the attacking side, and they looked confident. Of course, we've had a slew of games today, let's look at our MVP of the day, it actually wasn't from this match, It was from our match earlier Kiritrope versus scars But I don't think anyone can dispute that it was very much deserved from car. Well 1.94 KD That is utterly insane 10 multi kills of course It was a grilling cream upper, but a well-deserved Spot for car well and to go through into the upper bracket final with the winner of the scars is nothing to scoff at Yeah, no, no, no, I mean this is definitely very well-deserved I also think that the the scars Kiritrope matchup was also a much closer one part the closest and even matchup we've had today by far given that the fierce game was a bit of a blowout. So the fact that you have a set up play in a series like that is definitely a big reason for me as well. Why I would choose to miss a movie. Yeah. Of course, it was a great showing from Carl Bauer. And if you missed that match here are the highlights for you, the highlights of what Carl Bauer managed to achieve. Doesn't matter, matter what he's doing. Whether he's abusing the thorn shotgun, whether he's on the blitz, whether he's making entries happen with the zero, which I thought Thorne can count. Yeah, Thorne doesn't count, man. Get off the Thorne again, okay. Look, he can play Blitz and Blackbeard, he can play Zero. I respect that. So, yeah, I'll give him a little bit of credit where credit is due. I think he had an 18 kill game as well on one of those maps against Scars. Yeah, he was ranking up a number, he's told me he was. There's also, play issue, as you said, like a wide team of operators, like he's doing extra for some non-bank and whatnot, so he's not just playing like you're entry, getting through kills, he actually plays back lines of port sometimes, Please take some times please to the entry some times. He's everywhere. Yeah huge performance from car Well, and of course a big game for the game to try to get the leg up over scars We saw how much it meant to our commission that match Let's reflect on the bracket as it's gone It's a pan out today and of course last week as well the first rounds the upper bracket final are all finished now Thanks to can you be my enemy in D plus Kia panning out today in a way that we pretty much expected of course D plus always can be the favorite team in that one which sets up an utter banger of an upper semi-final with CAG taking on D plus Kierpengu. Most people coming into this bracket would expect that match to be our grand final. Yeah, they very much would. I mean, it still can, right? One of those teams, the winner of course of CAG plus can do the upper bracket run and then the other one could go the lower bracket run and then go all the distance there. But I am curious to see how CAG will fare, you know, in a new version of themselves, getting a proper support staff, DD now being a proper player, being announced and whatnot. I wouldn't say CAG had the strongest performance with LFO no-name, however, they did give really big praise in the interview afterwards, saying LFO no-name is actually a really good team, and we're trying our butts off to beat them. So that could just have been that their opponent was better, not that CAG was weak. Yeah, it's gonna be a crazy time over in a pack north, but of course, that's not the only region we have here in a pack We've got three different sub regions tomorrow We'll be commentating Asia, which is in a way the most exciting region because we've got two spots to play for obviously We have the best in a pack undisputed. It's Weber gaming They'll be playing in an upper bracket final tomorrow against souls heart Yeah, becoming Ty roster that haven't made me roster changes in well forever But of course we've got a couple other teams to look at as well big one is going to be that elimination match fury at day stuff Yeah, it's kind of again I feel like you feel always delivers the surprises right below brag I'll something looks very stacked in various regions and you got us a good buy It seems they don't want to say goodbye to just yet If you're north headed with the crevice free a matchup and then I think fury and daystar is kind of given that same vibe Yeah, very much. So I think we'll have a couple of free mappers tomorrow. That's for sure That's coming up tomorrow Asia, but in just a few hours coming up here on the rainbow six channel will actually be North America League. Oh, what a crazy time It's been an MA also for any particular matches on the schedule for today that you're excited for Did I gotta watch my gold far be in to wipe the floor with five fears? I Look at that go a mate is gonna take that seven two and be done with it Yeah, I personally I'm excited to see the new Dark Zero roster of course. It's a lot of the old space station team So we'll see how they fare obviously a lot of new upcoming Rosses in NAL You know 130 outlast even cloud nine, you know a bit of a newer team a bit of a lower-pack team So yeah, can you see what happens in NAL? But that pretty much wraps us up here in a pack north for tonight remember Asia tomorrow Oh the day after that NAL in just a couple of hours from now But if you've joined us today, thank you so much We hope you had as much fun as we did here on the APL and we'll see you in the next one