you
I
So, we're going to take a look
at the game. Welcome back,
everybody to SA. Yeah, what a
wonderful night that we're
about to have together as we
for the show here on SAEL and for tonight.
Joining us by the one and only Foxy,
again, Mr. David Ebuci, how are you doing?
I'm doing great.
I'm excited to watch some SAEL.
I mean, the NA bracket play was amazing.
I'm excited to see the finals of it coming next week
and now we got SAEL to get a little bit closer.
And again, I think SAEL's still the best region.
So it's always gonna be high competition
regardless of the teams that are there.
Very much so.
I've been throwing a bit of shade
shop firebellion over the past couple play days and I think well you should just those if you know
you know kind of moment loss versus INTZ is up first followed by phase versus black dragons
to remind you that these two matches are in the lower bracket as you've either been eliminated
from the top and you have to play an extra match to survive that's your one lifeline left that's
the case for loss and phase or you just got into fourth place from the group stage that is the case
of course, of INTZ and of Black Dragons. They were in groups A and B and this is where they get to make it.
But quickly to kind of talk about our quarterfinals, NIP versus LOS 2-0.
NIP looked pretty comfortable in the match. Very excited for the game against TI.
LOS, still some work to be done. We'll talk about that in their preview.
Faze, Fluxo, honestly, Cointos. Incredible match. Probably the best game we've had so far
in this stage of SAO, not going to lie.
Absolutely.
I mean, it was so well-fought by Flexo.
I mean, the last two maps coming down to literally a round
apart for Flexo to be able to clutch it out.
And I guess, Faze, Faze, the team that you'd expect,
you know, every time when it comes to inter-regional play,
they always are dominating.
They're getting first out of their bracket.
They're being the Titans that go to every major, every event.
And for them to get knocked down to a lower bracket,
you know, it shows that the Titans can bleed a little bit.
That being said, it's still phase at the end of the day.
They now have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder as they go through the lower bracket.
Oh my God.
I cannot imagine facing an angry face plan, facing them on any day's tough.
Imagine you go up against them when they're like fuming that they lost so
close to getting any emotions from phase.
It's genuinely like trying to, like talking to a flexo after the way we talked to
and he was so happy like overjoyed at how good that game was.
He's like, this is the reason why I compete because of matches like this, but especially when we win it.
You might imagine the same thing for FaZe. They were not looking too happy after it, and I'm sure that they're going to give it their all,
but that's for later today. Let's talk about our lineups and start with INTZ, who has started immediately in this lower bracket.
bracket. Like I said, they were in fourth place in group E. That's a lot of groups. And that's where
they got to the spot. A minus nine right in the financial squeezing just above loud in the final
playday of the SAL group stage. They're here to prove a point so far making it to the playoffs
in a stage like this. I would say is a good start. I think it's a great start. I mean,
I mean, it's, you know, they have a couple of players that we've been seeing in the past couple of years, the development of this team is what we want to continue to see.
At the end of the day, them getting fourth out of their group, beating out loud is a success. And they had some amazing times in their team, in their group, having fury and I P flutcher.
So for them to be able to clinch a spot, just to be able to make a lower bracket, I think
is the most that they could have imagined.
And they've had a little bit of time to be able to watch their opponents and most lose
to NIP.
And now we're in a situation where if you're in, you have all the cars that you need.
I mean, you're going up against a weak loss.
This is a good situation for you to get started into this bracket play and not have the most
amount of stress.
You're not going up against one of these Titans that have fallen down.
And I think they're in a great spot.
I mean, throughout their regular group games,
there's been a lot of close matches.
And I think that's the biggest takeaway is
they're keeping it close, they're improving.
And, you know, the fact that they were just able
to be a furia during the regular groups,
I think is a testament to what they can bring,
that potential that they can reach.
And they still have a lot of younger players,
so to say, besides raps and SDK
that have been around for a little bit.
But that being said, it's still a young core.
There's a lot of grind and effort that is coming from them to be able to find a little
bit more success.
I think this is a perfect matchup for them to be able to get that success and hit the
ground running in the lower bracket.
Absolutely.
I don't think they could have gotten a better situation really to advance deeper in this
bracket.
This is the first time that they get to play.
Legacy has been very impressive as an individual.
There's some moments from other teammates.
I'll name Arthur for just a second, but there are some awkward moments that have happened
here and there in different games, but that's just kind of the name of the game.
As someone who has faced many awkward moments myself when playing with people
who actually know how to play, it gets difficult.
So something to look at maybe during the matchup to be a bit more pedantic about.
However, on the other side, it is a loss.
A squad that has dropped down into the lower bracket.
Still a game against the I.T.
Like I said earlier, they did not look too impressive.
Yes, the scorelines was a 7-4, 7-3, but I feel like a couple of the rounds in each map were kind of stolen off of NIP in a really weird way.
So, yes, they got third in Group A, but I still feel that there's a lot more work to be done.
And I only say it this way because I expect, looking at the talent and some of the experience that Lest has,
I expect them to play better, to be a bit more successful.
But then again, this is a team that was reformed.
It's a lot of work for Huxer, for example,
to try to put the team together
and actually organize them in the match.
But I'm looking forward to a good result,
especially having Dash on the squad, Fox.
Yeah, you'd like to think so.
I mean, they do have a lot of experience.
They have a great coach when it comes to Huxer,
but something that we were talking about,
Milos, is they're not really following any patterns.
And I think they're in the complete opposite boat as is.
I mean, Los just got absolutely demolished by NIP.
And like you said, it didn't seem like they really deserve
some of the rounds that they were winning.
I think when you talk about consistency,
Dash himself is having arguably one of the worst stages
he's ever had, a little bit continuing that trend
of a decline since the last stage of the NAL
and then coming back to Brazil and continuous.
So even though he's on a team with players
that he should be the leader of,
he's still falling a little behind.
And it's not something that we're expecting from them.
I mean, two players from this roster that have really been the main
guidance for it is Gaffo and Perez. I mean, they have been playing very well.
It's just really unfortunate for them that they went up against a hot NIP.
I mean, fantasy was, you know, doing one of his classic fantasy games,
but that being said, the maps, the, everything,
when it comes down to the preparation, it doesn't really make sense to me.
Something that I feel like we've been seeing a lot from the SAL as a region as a
hole is a little bit of an ego from the older, more experienced Brazilian players that join
maybe a rookie team or, you know, some of those players run to a quote unquote weaker
region like APAC and they have this huge ego and they underperform. And I think that's
what we're seeing from Dash. Maybe that's what we're seeing from the team as a whole.
Because the map bands itself going border and bank against NIP, it didn't really make
sense. It didn't make sense at all. And structurally, if you don't have everybody on the team really
finding success, specifically a player like Dash, that you're going to be looking to be
able to hold that mantle to getting a lot of these kills and putting players in the
right position leading the team. When he's not showing up, it just looks like Lose has
already accepted their fate of being sent down to the lower bracket.
I would fully agree with that. I would, I would though, however, give the caveat of careful
what you say about APL in here because we got, we got Devon's
for later. And there's a, there's a bit of a little check
yourself before, before we get into the game.
Yeah, it wasn't about the region. I know, I know about the
hell of a team. They thought that they would be so good going
to the APL and look how they turned out, you know, just to
show that a lot of the SAO region, they do believe that
they are better than the average. And I think that is what
we're seeing when we look at lows, they just believe that their levels are a better average
than most other teams and they faced a rude awakening against an IP.
Yeah, for being honest, the only farmers league that's legitimately ever existed is the, the
Benelux League. No, Benelux League, Benelux. And I think everybody will agree with me on
that, especially the Europeans that are up late at this point and are watching the show.
Anyways, though, you'll see the head to head stats that does include losses
previous three maps or sorry, two maps that they played against NIP.
So obviously, the stats are going to be way over in their favor in that sense.
We'll see if IMTZ can kind of add in their own because during the group stage,
each team only got to play four maps.
It's not really a lot to work with, which is also the challenge of a program
and system like kickoff where you're trying your best in those four games
to be in the top four and then qualifying the playoffs and hope to God that you'll be in any
spot, which was the case here for ISTZ who came into that fourth place and are where they are.
And I do want to discuss the map veto for this match because again, best of threes. It's a big
challenge for either one of these two teams that are lacking more of the experience to where
a lot of these holes that can really be found. Border will be first, chalet second, and going
onto fortress. It's just like border. These two played, what did they play NIP? Both of them on
this match? Yeah. Pretty recently, I mean, lost seven forward a border on border to NIP in their
last playday. So it's a good pick from INCE to be able to go to it. And to give NIP a little bit
of hope, INCE has also lost border. It was a lot closer. It was a overtime matchup. They lost eight
six. So honestly, if you're INCE, this is probably the best neutral firing ground for you to go to
because you statistically did a little bit better against a mutual opponent. So
borders a good pickup. Also when it comes to Los and their opening kills
against an IP, they looked pretty bad. Now a map like Chalet, Ince has played it.
They look confident on it on the map of Chalet. Los hasn't played it at all this
stage. We haven't seen anything on Chalet from it. It's a lot more of an
aggressive map. Again, same issue per sides, opening kills. Perez has been the
only real consistent player when it comes to opening kills. So Los picking a
map like Chalet doesn't make too much sense. Again, they're the team that is not following
any, you know, any rules. It seems like they don't have any habits that they're going to.
They're really trying to just take a gunfight. I feel like this is another matter of them
having overconfidence against their opponent. Oh, it's ince. Let's just take them to a gunfight
oriented map. And then Fortress. Fortress is a map that we've seen in its play, I believe,
And they, they looked pretty good on it. I believe it was a eight, seven loss to loud. That being said, really close. It was one of the first play days. So, you know, first experience on a map like Fortress as for Los again, I believe that they haven't played it. So then just leaving it up as opposed to a map like clubhouse or bank.
It's really questionable. I feel like when you're looking at these map bands, it doesn't make sense what Los is really trying to go for. They're not taking in to weaker maps. They're really just trying to take them somewhere where they don't have any information on it really.
And you don't have any information on Los, which doesn't do well if you're playing a team that you should be better than you want to go to a map like clubhouse.
You want to go to a map like bank because you know, if you are the better team, you want to be able to add elements of a map that will be able to hinder a newer team like ends.
And that doesn't really seem like Los is going for any of that. It just seems like they are going to punch their way through the problem.
And I don't know if that is a safe bet to be able to believe in, especially since they couldn't punch their way through an IP.
Well, that's a question that will look to solve in the game itself and also maybe hugs are just cooking
We don't know what's been going on in the back rooms in preparation for this
And then there might have been some heavy conversations after the nip game a couple of days ago though
And this would have to move on to our next bit of conversational welcoming our commentators for the evening
Well for them, it's for the morning because it's like six in the morning six almost seven. I
I realize what I did there. I'm very sorry. Good morning. Good morning, Dev and Xenox.
How are we, Jax?
Morning. Right.
Yeah, waking up. Waking up in the wash. It's nice and early, but we wake up to the second
best region in the world.
I'm joking. It's the best region in the world, let's be honest. SAO is a class above and excited
for the fact that we get some very high intensity games because if you want to go to the major,
going to win your series today.
It's just by the way, thank you just wanted to add that you're blowing your skin cares
looking good.
Guys, you need a room.
Yeah, I mean, sure.
We're in the same discord space here, but we're all don't forget me and folks have won
a hammer.
Yeah, yeah, we did.
You guys the best team during the escape room in Paris, were you?
No, Anne was the best, Anne beat everybody by like a five minute margin.
Yeah, I feel like Anne hard carried Rob in that activity.
But look, you guys won a hammer, so I'll give you that.
This region is the region that has won the most hammers now, so I'm super keen for that.
All of us have been part of a SI finals broadcast in one way or another, right?
So we all won hammers in our own way.
James has performed really well in show matches.
I'll say that.
The show match back in Brazil just before we saw the griffon.
He is a showman.
Clearly, my man James came all the way over from Australia to show off.
He's like, you know what?
I'm a broadcast, but I'm going to give you a goddamn show at the end of it.
And we did.
We did get it.
show today both matches here looking very promising but looking at INTZ and loss you got two young
rosters that are still looking to break through James how do they try to reckon with that in a
lower bracket where now you're out of lives? Yeah well obviously it's about just digging your heels
in because like you said it's lower bracket you got to win every game and just like I'm looking at
my my second screen right now and I'm looking at the bracket you win this game and you either play
phase or black dragons obviously phase the best team in history or black
dragons the winner of the lcq and one of the only teams that can compete with the
top level of brazil that isn't in the top of brazil and then you win that game
and then you go and you play whoever's lost out of the upper bracket you win
that game like it's so hard so like yeah man I don't know I think these guys
just got to get crazy it is gonna get tough no matter what because this is
SAO. These are teams that don't just come into the competitive year to play in just
online games in their own region and best of ones. They're here as just a formality to get to
the LAN event and to actually be on stage and be in the grand final. And Xenax, you've seen over
the years the demolition derby that SAO teams really bring no matter what. Again, young players
in here with a lot of hope, we've seen the sort of development from hungry, hungry young
players lead to the big teams that we know of today.
Yeah, I mean, I think that the developmental pathways in the SCL region are the best.
I don't think you could make arguments to that.
There's a lot of focus on tier two and getting access to the ability to play tier one.
And let's be honest, we see a lot of SCL talent even going international.
So when you factor in this world, they're very the best region mechanically and strategically
it's difficult to, you know, envision who's going to be able to sort of close the gap.
But I think what we are probably seeing now is that, especially in Europe and every now
and then maybe in an A10, they are slowly but surely starting to compete and make things
competitive at the international level. But I don't think any region is going to beat
out SL when it comes to the inter-regional competition that we see in this region. It's
been you kind of look at TL Alienware and they had to go and buy basically the second best team
in the region just to be able to make it international because that's how difficult
it is in this region and so kind of bringing it to today you look at like you know Lost One and
Inc. for instance where Lost is probably the kind of team where you could easily say could they be a
top three NA team probably you know could they compete with the best in EU absolutely sorry
Fox, what did you want me to say?
Could they be the best team in an APL?
Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't know.
We we try to get Los to compete in an a different roster a little bit,
but they were what happened last every single stage.
I don't know. Different roster, different time.
Honestly, in my opinion, looking at these two rosters, I mean,
when you look at the players, the only real two players on Los
that I want to put stock in is Perez, because he has consistently
been on teams that have underperformed that he has always over over performed. And I feel
like Gaffa as well has a lot of flexibility. He's a good background player. And again,
I think this is just another instance that those two players on our team that maybe has
a little bit of issues outside of the server, not inside the server, because dash is something
that we talked about in the NAL. His overconfidence, his ego is something that was dragging wild
card down a little bit. He's coming now to the S. A. L. And it seems like he is dragging
down Los a little bit. I mean, to go up against Nick and be the worst performing player on
team of you know, players that don't have as much experience as him. That's not something that you
want to see from the guy that you're pulling back from another region to essentially be the leader
of this team. And if you look at it, the fact that they already passed loud in a group of death
in group B to be able to get a fourth spot, they should be more than happy. They're over the moon.
Any way, any step further now at this point, for instance, is even more gratifying, even more of
of a win for them. They shouldn't have even really been in this situation in the first
place. So that being said, I feel a little bit of an underdog story, but this is where
ince should have the most amount of confidence because their confidence is real. They deserve
to be here. Whereas Los, you could beg the question, should they even have a chance to
play after getting smoked by an IP? Can I jump in for a second? I can see it. So just
to jump on top of that, Fox, like if I look back, obviously you're kind of paying this
This is like IMTZ of like very much up and com as the underdogs here.
If you look at it with that, every single game they played was in to overtime, right?
They lost, you already mentioned 7-8 to loud, they lost 6-8 to Nip, they won against Furia
which in itself is insane by the way, 8-7.
And then they got smashed by Flux at W7M 0-7.
a couple of those rounds go a different direction and they could actually be topping their group
which i think is insane because you look at this roster on paper and you think well i
expect them to only barely escape groups which is what happened but three rounds go different
directions for the mini-group stage and it would be a very different story that actually be one of
the favorites or one of the top of their group coming into playoffs. I sense that the the mustaches
here are fighting against one another in both both looking dash and fox. I love the stash.
I love how you're you're rocking that. Just I don't know. I call it James is a moustache.
It's more of an early learning shade. It is very early morning. I'll give them that. Anyways,
my friends, it seems like our game is all set and ready. So the lay but we are in it. We'll give it
over to our casters, Devin Zenox, for the first time here in SAO together. I love the kind of
changes that we get to have here in SAO and different duos with it. So please gentlemen, take
away. It's been a while, Jake. I think I noticed in the chat there, good luck Magneticos, which was
the former name of INTC before this organization picked up this current iteration of roster back
I don't know, maybe like a week or two.
I'm excited for this one, no James.
I think they're shaved again.
Like the discussion that we have on the desk.
I was doing it.
I was like, oh, that's a great idea.
Cause I was like, hang on a second.
These guys are good.
Don't get me wrong, but they're not that great.
And honestly, that means that coming with something like
partner, really good arguments, sort of, but it seems, you know,
you kind of like, I was just, but I didn't like how I feel like
my face was like mad, like, you know, when you like,
it's like when you have a beard.
for so long and maybe she really gets smashed.
You see, there's one big loss was phase 7-3,
which I think everyone in the region could sort of say,
hey, that's not completely awful phase of phase,
although they do find themselves in that bracket.
And then a 7-5 loss versus liquid,
anywhere that's probably the one result
where you kind of look at and say, well,
if you flip that one,
they could have had a much better group stage.
And then they beat Imperial and they beat Black Dragons,
who as we know, Black Dragons are a very, very good team.
Obviously, when it comes to the NIP series,
disappointing, yeah, 7473, but NIP themselves, I think they spoke out internationally, over
the last six or 12 months, NIP is kind of back in the fold when it comes to international
siege and they've kind of broken through the SAO barrier and started to actually, you know,
make waves internationally. So even day two, you know, no pushovers. I think this will
be a really, really good matchup where it just comes down to on the day who's just going
to play better. And then there's probably a lot between these two teams. But as I said,
win this and it's still a long way to go to actually get to the major but it starts here
in the low bracket.
We go to port of first start but it should be exciting, it should be fun.
The beauty for us is we can always kind of, obviously you've done EML and me and Gus did
a little bit of NAL and so we've gotten a good view of all the regions.
Predominantly APL is where we do see most of the action and so this will be a really
good way to kind of look at where are the big differences.
Yeah, like you said, both of these teams, of course, very much on the outside of looking
in within BSAL, we only have four spots for Brazil to the major, which seems a little
bit criminal when you think about how many good teams have gotten this region, obviously
FaZe, Feria, Team Liquid Alienware, Flix of W7N, NIP, Black Dragons, I think there's
already more than four there.
And Raps, bottom of East Stairs, gonna find a quick double, nice idea with a capitar to
try and flush him out does not work in the slightest and after that it seems like
you're lost completely capitulated it's just Daffo left outside and he's got no
diffuser I know exactly where he is 1v5 is the thing likely with a nimet 30 on
the clock maybe a bit of a feed for him breakfast time yeah strange one to start
not ideal if you're if you're lost you don't give in severely early
confidence is their map picks start well in a series and an elimination game and so for them to
just kind of throw bodies away into early picks and pretty comfortable oping around. That's not
the way that you want to start a series if you're if you're loose. That's very disappointing. You
want to make a contest nice and early out the gate. Doesn't matter what map, doesn't matter what site.
Yes, it's Armory Archives. Losing too many players too early into the round and then it just all
completely falls apart. You've got to be competitive. It's the one round where I think you can just
play slow. I know it's border, but just take your time. Easy into the game. And the fact that it's
over already, you know, just that's a great start for in confidence boosts. And I'll be very happy
with the start of this one. Did that double up just then? That is the loudest I've ever heard
that do not board the hood of the speaker. It was intense. There was a lot going on.
But that's butterfly, right? This map is so chaotic and it's one of the reasons why we love it.
Well, the other thing James, I wanted to kind of chat with you about in this series, since we'll
have some time throughout, but raps coming over from Elevate, you know, we kind of heard the news
about the Elevate roster essentially departing the APL region. A lot of them kind of had a
sprinkled back out through SAO and it was always going to be curious to see, well, who
were the ones that were going to get picked up? Who were going to be able to slot into some
nice teams? I think Raps was a very solid player in the APAC region. I think that quite a few of
those Brazilian players that went over to that elevator roster, you could easily make the argument
that it's very talented individuals, but it can be then very difficult to maybe then go back to
SAO and joined a team when what's your reference when I played at APL
Yeah, very different meta and you have to adapt now. It looks like loads of deep in the bombsite
Big chance here for dash as the killers found on the entry now the fuse are going down by knocks and
I DZ a cool color with their pants down
How are they gonna try and retake this with the upside down repellent on the side window?
Yeah, they had the 3-2 split one goes down very early wraps just gets cool archives good push from Dash on the blitz
Stk does get a trade back
But I mean you got 28 seconds here 4v3 got to go quick and it's three outside stacked on the exterior
So you're gonna have to start trying to go for runouts jump outs. Otherwise. There's no way you can just stick this kid
Believe the plant is for the window pretty easily so the upside down repellent should be oh, no
It's actually kind of deep which does mean they have to swing a little bit more
but doesn't matter very easy for those to lock it in sdk goes for a bit of a jog outside but
a very swift reply after getting completely shattered in the first round
loads fortify in the second i mean you can question the post playing retake that's irrelevant
though when you kind of have to really question how did that even develop in the first place
and it's just really a simple rush like there's not much to it we've all seen it many times over
of bathroom towers through the window blitz play especially super viable and what we
see from a lot of teams in the modern era of siege trap utility is so big and denying
a lot of that and you kind of look at the lineup you had a thorn you had a malusia you
had denarii it's all of this utility that's really hindering that rush attempt and certainly
dash going in on the blitz and so the kill is one thing there's not much that wraps
is really going to be able to do in that opening death scenario over the world's archives completely
caught by himself who's gonna get flashed by the blitz that's not on him at all as an individual but
more the setup of the defense there from in so they'll be disappointed with that now they'll
probably change that up big time next time that they go bathroom and tell us because that should
never really be allowed at the super top end level and loss will be more than happy go with the
response and that's a response that they needed little wake up okay well the first round was
kind of diabolical now we can try and see if we can smack them back in the face and they did that
One one and this is what you want from a series like this. You want to be back and forth hopefully contested hyper competitive
You don't want blowouts you get bloated blowing out in this series change. I mean, it's a long time until stage one like it's
You getting kicked out
Opening round playoffs in the lower bracket
Now this needs to be at least close because then you can walk away for either of these two teams and say well at least
It was competitive. We weren't that far off it
Yeah
Jack, I don't feel like we might be seeing a few more attacks like that one, but we didn't really get a chance to touch on the operator, Vito, but Warden getting banned, Collier getting banned, that really telegraphs.
We want to go for a rush, we want to use the Blitz, we want to use the Ying, we want to use the Glars. Now two of those operators are already brought to the table here in the second round, and Dash is going inside with the Blitz again.
again, that Tamari though does keep him at bay. He decides to just tank it. He wants to go up the stairs
and he's gonna get shot in the back of his head by Daphne.
It happened to me as well.
It seemingly happens in every region.
Unfortunately, that team kill, Daphne will find one with the glass regardless, but he is so separated from his teammate
and he's also very far from the bomb site as well.
This will be a very hard conversion for these two lonely players,
players, especially if Daphne can't find that kill. It gets the down, but doesn't matter.
Now, a 1v4 becomes a 1v3 for Nox on the Grim.
Yeah, and honestly, if he was full health, let's say he's a fair shot, 90 seconds, legacy
is low, but he's half health. It's just a couple of bullets to the body. They know where
he is coming out of security towards 90. They're difficult. He has to clear above. No chance
as Raps shuts him down, trying to push into Founson. It's funny, I was speaking to Gus
about this the other day on, uh, I think it was an APL broadcast and I'd love to see a
statistic of team kills in siege because I genuinely believe the highest percentage
would be in terms of the death part of that.
So yeah, it just happens so often and then a lot of the times it's no one's fault.
It's not that the show plays fault or even the person who gets the team kill fault.
It's just like it's a rush in.
It's just the spirit of the moment of flick.
you know, like little things can happen, but it's funny because as I said, it happens in every region,
but I think we just kind of see it a little bit more in others. Yeah, look, we like to meme on it,
but it genuinely is a bit hard in the chaos when you're doing a blitz rush, especially if you're
playing a glass with a very deep scope, don't have as good vision. You don't have peripheral vision.
Sometimes it's just a little bit awkward. Speaking of the glass gets banned on out,
And now we have the reply, right?
The Ying and the Glass have been banned with that Warden also being banned,
kind of nullifying the effects of the Warden ban more or less.
Of course, you still have smokes and you still have the Blitz Flashes,
to mention just typical Flash grenades as well.
But the Tenari ban clearly also trying to enable Dash on the shields.
Now, this is the thing about Dash, right?
I know Fox talked about him a lot.
I've heard a lot of commentary about his time on Wildcard and his rejoining lows.
Now he's an aggressive player and he likes to take risks, especially on the shields
It's a lot of rounds where that guy is aiming down sights early
Unfortunately last round his death wasn't his fault. We said that was a team kill
But yeah, I'd like to see more of the blitz now that Denari is gone
But it is going to be foregone for this round, but I'm okay with that not to mention the clash has been picked as well
I mean this is not the if you're in two defensive rounds to begin
Let's go back to our new archives now as well
The shield play that we've seen so far from most as well hasn't really been
All that effective doesn't help me in team kill but except for the archives round
That was the only one where a bit of success.
Oh, nice opening kill from Daffo.
Well, I needed a good start to the round.
And so far, they've been able to do that in the last three
rounds for Los.
Didn't convert, of course, to the previous round.
So after it goes down, no smoke.
You lose a lot of BB delay.
That's a big kill, but you do still have to clash on the board.
Big target here is going to be Angel inside a CCTV
and Noah's favorite spot with the DMR as well.
He has so much ability to get heavy damage
at long range with that ACOG.
Supported by the clash, it's a bit of a dream position
to play by INTZ.
And since he's supported down below by STK,
worried about perhaps a bit of vertical pressure,
which is unlikely based on the operators chosen here by Loose.
But it is dark.
He tries to go for a look up the main stairs.
The barbed wire, at least one piece of it,
was mated off at the start of a round by his teammate.
So, INTC were able to read that play into the mid round.
Just can't get into the building.
I mean, we just got a minute left
and still pulling the exterior.
I haven't taken any security control.
I haven't taken this battle with Angel.
I can't get through break.
I mean, Topias there should be available at an entry point.
And if not, that's where Paris is gonna go now.
But I just don't like the timing here.
You still wanna take this battle with Angels.
you can get that kill, open up security, you can open up the map a little bit more, start
to flood burn towards site with the extra number advantage, you're dealing against the clash,
SDK towards office would then be the next Contents ball, but they're a little split
right now, and they're taking their time, slow, slow in the pace down, they're going
there for an Archives plant, Sholie there's a denial to come through, there shouldn't
be a lot of, wow, he just walked straight in.
incredible deep plan the main position tonight that plan was covered in a dash
finding a big double now angels is the last one left 1v3 Perez not in a
revival position for now that's fine he's still giving plenty of information
for Los and now the final E1D locks angels in place you can see dashes so
tempted to peek but man this is such an impossible task now you could die from
four different angles potentially and even if he finds Nux here he'll get
traded back by Daphne and Loce they will quickly tie up the score.
Yeah I mean it's a fascinating one so I guess from Loce's perspective instead of
taking the battle towards security ignore instead of pushing through office
ignore I mean there was one there with the flash dump and a little bit of
presence shown but you're not taking the fight so they're kind of drawing the
attention away the defenders from from archives legacy had a nitrous style he
through it out. I imagine that was to deny a point. We didn't get to see it. But that
was essentially that was, well, that's the thing either didn't know where point was didn't
have eyes on it. And certainly then didn't have bodies, or at least enough bodies actually
there to put pressure on that because they also had the clash as well. So like that wasn't
really the focus of the world's archives. They were expecting lost to probably push in
and take those fights towards security towards office. And I guess for lost, that's actually
just really good counterplay where they identified a potential win condition which was they don't
have a lot of bodies on site. Let's see if we can stake in archives, get planned down,
we'll show a little bit of presence elsewhere to keep them in positions like office, like security
and sort of also like the back of Armory and it ended up just working out. That's a credit to Lowe's.
That's a really good adaptation mid-round because I was a little concerned. Time management wasn't
great in terms of forming and taking the more conventional bites opted for a different strategy.
it works out too too small and we're getting that competitive back and forth nice and early
underrated operator picks for me last round was actually the brava we didn't see on camera
whether this was true but based on the operator picks from iantz i can only assume there was a
bulletproof camera in archives that would have called out the position of that plant i can only
assume it was hacked by the brava which is why that c4 missed obviously a lot happens on stage off
camera, a nature of having 10 players to intend different things in one round, but I just want to
give credit where credit is due. Lois had a lot of different working paths to make that execute
happen, and now they've got a lot of working paths to make this. Very quick rush all the way in
through, wow, he's just deep in. Workshop, the plan is going down from Nux, the Blitz is
roughing into the bomb site. So much control here from the attacking side. The defense just gave
up so much ground and it was very quickly lapped up by Loos, STK and Legacy now, realistically
no chance of winning this round and it will be flawless for Loos. Unbelievable utter domination
and they take the lead once again. One of the better rounds that I've seen on bathroom
Talos so it's not too dissimilar to what we saw before. The difference being they get the pinch
involved too so they get the Blitz play with the lion through Talos, bit of a rush. Okay,
clear that player out. Then they've also got the workshop rush as well. So anyone close to site
horizontally is just dead immediately. And they're going to have to look at that site and say,
well, how are we allowing a rush to tell us again for the second time straight? That's concerning
that we still don't have enough there to actually deny that. And credits are lost. We're just going
with the double down and say, yeah, let's go Blitz again and send it through. This time we'll add
impressions from the workshop side so they cleared out those two players on that on that first floor
really really solid pinch it clearly takes a high amount of communication coordination to pull that
off it's just one ready for it and Loos now up three two the one three last four rounds so like
they've got the momentum at the end of this first half. 10 seconds to insertion. I wonder why
ANTZ did not pick smoke last round considering that the main way that they lost the previous
defensive bar from Delos was due to Oblitz rushing and they didn't just have any presence for that
at all. Funny, it takes six rounds for us to see the mirror. You ask, well, why don't we see more
Goya Warden than Arivanse? Well, it's because it costs something. You know, you don't get a chance
to ban that mirror, which is everyone's favorite operator to ban on the defensive side. It takes
this long for us to bring it out and Mira is actually usable on pretty much any
bomb site of border extremely useful very almost a free kill for Perez now
there's not a lot of utility to clear these mirror windows no ash or carly no
zero none of the obvious direct counters or even a twitch so Los he's
stalled out a little bit we're gonna have to show us that they have a good way to
deal with these power positions that mine to see have created and it's a really
Showcase there in that moment with Paris right because of the mirror window
He kind of the trigger discipline and kind of push up to that open wall even though he sees
Arthur's back
He kind of shoots immediately because he's not gonna really get that chance to push up
I don't know if he does push up. It's all well then he's now kind of going right side if he turns around looks through the mirror window
You're not gonna get that element of surprise
I really love that there could be a lion combo aren't there?
Logic bomb rings out.
Makes sense on this map.
Yeah.
A lot of YouTube spam, interesting flashes from Gaffo instead of Nades on the lion, Angel's
aggressive inside a CCTV where he's played every single time IJZ played this bombsite.
And yeah, now Lo-Sir...
Well I'm a little bit confused there, so Parrot is on the demo, so he can be on the
really strong operator in dealing with that security hole and then so you I
don't know why he's got so much focus over the words army especially with that
mirror window there I think they had enough time and just have shown no
willingness so far lost in this house to go for a security clear at all big
refrag under the mirror of legacy it looks like wraps is trying to wrap back
to site as the pressure is primarily coming out from that office side but
with one player here on the balcony and as I say that, it's just all over isn't it?
INTC back into it, 3v1 now as Dark is down below.
He was tasked with dealing with the mirror position, dealing with angels inside CC and
it was just too little and it was far too late.
As you said before, the Deimos is so good at dealing with that CC-TV position, he needed
to be down below working it with the block but no picked early and picked apart.
TZ managed to tie up the half
Yeah, interesting one on board here as we headed to the Rolls-Royce half-time break for these players again
It's a fascinating one from the perspective of
Lois in that half just no real care about clearing out CC. Well, who was playing CC there?
His name was Angels. He got the most amount of kills. He's just got the freedom the license from that position
You can see 90 you can deny entry over towards Armory
you can pull pressure over towards break and any kind of top East airs position depending on and and also the window play as well
Which is just incredible on border, which you got that opening pick in the round against Paris
So I'm a little bit confused as to why they didn't really care about
Clearing that out and buying arm around our cars in the more conventional sense the one round that they won on that site was the
Archives play where they kind of just snuck through the door and again completely ignored the likes of security and office
I think getting a 3-3 half on board is fine. I don't think I have the team sweating right now
They'll probably go and continue to trade blow for blow going into the second half
You know what we have seen though at least is just the willingness to take flights nice and early in rounds
You kind of look at the opening kill metric
I'm gonna give the opening round which was at a minute 55. I'll say that's basically two minutes
And that's five out of six rounds that were two plus minutes on the clock when you got that opening kill
That's border in a nutshell. Just a lot of balcony play a lot of windows. You're going to get a lot of early kills
But it does sort of highlight then when you're taking the time of plants that we saw two of them from lows
Two or eight and two eleven with the third one being at the 35 second mark
But the opening kill was really early in the round just fast play both of these teams are playing super fast
Wanted to be aggressive
I think for those there were times where they struggled to get into the buildings when they lost those rounds
But when they went really quick like hyper quick and I just went screw up
Let's just get straight into the building. They won those rounds. So it was quite intriguing to watch that half play out
Yeah, don't disagree I just feel like I would like to see a little bit more
Braver and twitch in that last round both operators that we saw
Loose pick earlier in the half that would have played really well into the setup
you're talking about Mira, Aruni, Elethorn operas that get very well counted by those
drone ops. I think it was a little bit of a waste to emphasize so much on the buck,
damn. But let's see, as we move to the second half, what ops the focus? The Goyo Band makes
a return this time by INTZ and the Clash as well. Okay, so no Warden Band, no Glas Band either.
The Thatcher is in as well. So a couple of departures from the first half. The big thing here though is that there's going to be a lot of emphasis on shields here for INTZ because of that clash band, because of that Goyo band, both operators that really counter shields.
Well, they don't have the Monty. That's fine. Three other shields to choose between and they're going with Blackbeard at least for now at the start of this first round. So I have very high hopes.
pair that with Florez and Twitch. Man, you can completely clear out any traps in the
bomb site. Ella on a thorn, Denari. It's clearly a big focus for Los. Both teams know what kind
of a round we're going to be playing. It's going to be centered around wherever that shield decides
to go. We'll be curious to see because I think on board of the attacking team really sets the pace
and sets how things are going to be played. I mean, defense that can as well because if the
The defense is aggressive at the window, swinging out.
I think Faiz are a team that really
likes to actually go for runouts
and be super aggressive as an example.
So you can kind of dictate how the game is playing
from both sides.
And we saw that in the first half with Lois on the attack.
Like when they wanted to rush in,
there wasn't much ins to do about it.
You know, it's just sort of then having to play
in response to what the opposition was doing.
It's the beauty of Bordax.
Why it's one of my favorite maps to watch,
because the best teams are so dominant on it and can really flex their skills in a lot of areas.
And it strategically is, well, it is there. It's not just a run and gam map.
And we saw that in one of the earlier rounds in our main archives from Orvis.
And so judging by this lineup, you bring the Twitch, you bring the Flores,
you've got the airjabs from the Nomad.
This might actually be slow paced from ints, but then with the black in and doggedly,
they can kind of flick that switch and duck, goes for that early run out.
That's so aggressive, too aggressive, probably,
and gives insta a really big opening in this first round in the second half.
And the camera.
Yeah, look the only rounds where the team who got the opening kill did not convert it is the round
where it was a team kill. So if that doesn't emphasize how much that first pick matters on
border, well I don't know what will. That is a huge cost to Lowe. So at the start of this round
it's going to be doubled down. Andrews is back on the DMR. Every single round of defense, Jake,
He played a DMR, now he switches to attack, he's played the exact same gun he played for almost every single round of the first half as the Aruni.
And he's dealing damage with it too, legacy finds his second in the rounds and Loser been completely picked apart.
You haven't had a lot of close rounds, that could change, he's still got it for a minute, 2v4, especially in the defense.
not trying to get some information on the pulse and dafford does still have a
nitrocell and when you look at the health margins of Arthur and angels
they're not exactly full health minute left so it's up to STK legacy kind of
just being able to back themselves in push be aggressive here they're just
holding the angles as legacy and out there we'll push through office but in
terms of that first half there was never a single round where there was two or
less alive. It was three plus every single time. So it's up to Lois down and most importantly
down for the nuts to try and bring this round back. Oh, team kill doesn't help. Down for
the nuts. Get one each as well. And this is now 1v2.
SCK is also staring straight to a crossfire as well. This could not have gone worse for
INTZ. That is around. Lois had no right to win. Yet they did. Unreal. I can't believe
And it's going to be such a tilter for INTZ, it doesn't get much worse than that.
You have a shield, you have a 4v2 advantage, the two players left are in two different bomb sides,
and once you start pressuring archives, the pulse drops down below.
That's a 4v1 on the bomb side, they don't even find a single kill.
Devastating.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it wasn't a, it was a round that they had no right to win.
Again, there was still a nitro 2-4. You're on the defense as the two couple of low health members for
The ins it was certainly a winnable round
But geez you kind of just throw it away there and it's kind of strange that we see two
Team kills onto two shields again. It just backs in my theory like how often that happens when you're that shield player
You're just gonna have to be prepared to
Put one in the back of the head bit for me
It's just the fact that the lows as Knox and Daffro did the right job kind of just sit back hold positions hold angles force into you
They didn't go out swinging that didn't start just trying to
Aggressively get the kills back. They kind of just sat back. We haven't seen a lot of that here on board or so far in this match
So that might be something that was looked to in the second half of just think well
If we do fade back a little bit maybe into my fall into positions, we want them in
What's the saying never interrupts your opponent and they're about to make a mistake?
I think it's your enemy, but in this case you're opponent.
Potato, potato, tomato, tomato, I am teasing you.
Yeah, look, I just, I can't help but feel like that's a tilt-er.
I really feel like the, you can overthink it for a million years, but the priority there should have been just looking to try and focus up Armory side,
because that's the only place where you can plant safely
from the poles down below.
It's got a Blackbeard, if you're going to say it.
You just bully that warden 4v1, and that should be a win.
Yes, it's winnable for the defense,
but not without some kind of a mistake from the attack.
Now, it's up to IGZ to right the wrongs of that last round,
make a bit of a comeback.
And cracking this very tough egg of CC2V
is going to be a hard one.
There's two players in there at the moment, one
with a crossfire from Armory.
This is not working. There's no universe where this works jumping in the window like this.
Come on. Oh my god, he finds that kill. I cannot believe it.
Took on this the entire magazine.
Does get traded, but miraculously, Auntie Z actually come out better for it.
Up until Angel falls there.
And that went pretty much even.
Lois actually don't have the worst position.
They do have some of the worst operators though, for some reason.
The thorn is a strange choice.
But Nux finding that pick on the Oryx, makes it a little bit more winnable now, as STK and Legacy are forced into a lot of 1v1s STK fighters.
Oh hang on, Nux is healing. The Thunderbird doing its job at the Kona Station. Chef Jeff would be proud.
First time I've done anything.
I thought it just saved his life as well!
Yes!
You're probably kidding me.
Oh my god, what a meme.
Well, I I'll have to owe an apology to chef Jeff
It might be the first time his name's been mentioned on an SAO broadcast
But yeah, likes to play the Thunderbird in the oceanic region
Wasn't expecting to see it here in SAO
It just got a buff as well James from two to three
Oh my goodness three HP per second that means I could have full health after 365
That's false the time out in Sir not a great start to the second half haven't found an attacking ground just yet
Laws have looked pretty solid on the defense. You make the argument of course the seventh round was a
Throw-in round for in sports who up in terms of players advantage, but it was never in given
Yeah, I'd be disappointed. What's interesting in this game as well sort of to watch is the attacking team has won the vast
majority of the opening kills. So Ayns have actually got the two opening picks in the second half
and it was four to two in favor of Loas in the first half. So out of the eight rounds played,
that's a six to two split in favor of the attacking team, which again is a border and a
nutshell. But despite that, we've actually seen a lot of defensive rounds, one here on
border despite essentially playing as 4v5 on a pretty good map for attackers to flood through
and take good space and positioning.
5-3 lead for Loser.
It's Inc's map pick, so timeout expires.
They need to bounce back quickly,
because it's been a back-and-forth match,
but Loser at four round streak in the last five rounds.
That's dominant.
Next is Chalet after this.
I actually haven't played that in a stage
we saw Loser play it against FaZe.
They've got three rounds, but it's FaZe,
so you can't hold that against them too much.
I did watch that game. That was not a close game. That was a very violent start from FaZe.
But nonetheless, I do agree with you. I just need to have a better performance here
on board it, because Shallow up next is going to be a hard slog. I'm still kind of bewildered that
the play loss around from the Blitz was to Jagged him the CC window. That is just crazy risky.
insane that that even worked out for one kill before being traded. No shield this
rounds, maybe a good thing with the track record of shield players getting
team killed so far this match.
Well there's another pick for the defense. It's gonna be very difficult round out for
hands out in a second so most now flick the switch they get aggressive so kind
and lolling into this sense of security with this more sit back play style allowing
insta push in and then out of the time out they're probably thinking well insta cook
something up so let's actually go for the counter punch nice and early in the round
this has been such a good display from Loos in terms of their ability to adapt throughout
the match based on how the game is playing and they're trying in this arm wrestle to
get it on their terms of which they've succeeded and are now on the verge of a 6-3 lead.
Yeah, especially when the attack wants to go for some kind of set execute with you to like glass cap it's out
That's when you want to take the fight to them. Wow. Oh my god. They're filled players
Here just around the CCTV box. We're gonna get aggressive together Perez does he finds Arthur
STK 1v5 on the glass not gonna have a good time. That's for sure
Well, these are the legs of the floor, which is always a nice little mental, mental thing.
I think it's a second.
Oh, he's certainly got to just stop throwing bodies away here.
Glass is quite strong if you're going one by one.
It's probably maybe one of the best operators.
If you've got numbers and you swarm around him, there's not much you can do.
Six, three, and honestly, well deserved for those.
Yes.
little errors at times here or there, but from both teams and not too many. The reason
why they've got this three round advantage is just their ability to adapt, to being
better on defense than in that first half and it's not even close. They're just ability
to deny any potential rush attempts, get aggressive at times themselves. They're making it difficult
for inns to read what lows are kind of doing on the defense and so that's causing a lot
of hesitation. As we head into these bands, it's going to be very important. They get
rid of something. It's impactful and it's Malusi, which only got played twice. Didn't
get played in the opening round. It's probably not the kind of operator as well, Dev. I think
you, you ban it. You think, oh, I'm not safe for now. We don't have to deal with the banshees.
Like the glass is a great band because it takes away a lot of strength on those, you
know, balcony exterior positions, looking into windows, playing with the smoke executes
as well. That's a huge ban. The Milusia I don't think shifts the needle.
No, they're not banning the mirror and they're not bringing any counters for it, aside from
the Ace, which is still not a perfect counter for it because it could be shot off, it could
be protected with batteries and any form of electrification. Yeah, I don't think the
Milusia is a huge ban here at all. I think that I and Tizia are probably going to get
a little bit punished. And it's not just about operators. I mean, when
Loser winning while playing Oryx and Thunderbird in the same round and it's not just about
the YouTube being brought to the table, it's about the way the rounds are playing out.
And IJZ actually had the IQ of Arthur jump again into CCTV window that round, died with
a diffuser in that 2v5.
And that to me just seems like, again, a little bit of a risk, a little bit of an unnecessary
one.
The operator picks get locked in and we still have no hard counters to the mirror.
the soft counter of the twitch, which to me doesn't feel like enough.
Love little angle for doc. No one going negative as well now for those that's
been a good team effort. Noxus led the way 10 five. Double not just selling this
round. Well, friendly enough on the denarii of the doctor. He's still got two
trip wire connectors and he's deployed. We'll show that he has used gotta go for
Yeah, spawnpeek bro.
Oh!
Well, he's got us to stay alive here.
Yeah, he's not going to.
Yeah.
It's a costly spawnpeek.
Just use your utility first, and then go to the spawnpeek.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, look, it's worth it if you just don't spawnpeek.
You manage to get your utility down.
Probably a bit of regret there.
Thankfully, I don't think that shield was
essential to the strat. They still have good power positions with the mirror, but you definitely
don't mind using a shield any position on this map to try and fortify yourself a little bit.
But giving up that opening pick does give a big advantage now to INTZ. Now they have the numbers
to really prioritize one facet of the map. This is going to be an aggressive peek though.
Big kill from Dash, he runs straight outside, takes down angels. Now no more sledge to worry
that that really does decline some of the main utility as well Arthur himself is out of nades
twitching coming up with the denarius it up which is good there's a lot of ground to take
yeah again not a lot of map control you got after pushing east stairs and that's it really
still not that mirror man i haven't dealt with the mirror you've got the pulse that can get
information you can see nox is on the heartbeat sensor now and they have the
utility to deal with this black beard as well well on a breach it's a good move
here to breach open the archives well we've got the ace for it
oh nox don't let you see for now oh it does not waste wow that's big it doesn't
get the kill gems but it delays you're gonna go get the res you want that black
beard up you have to go get him and look at the time left in the round this is
delayed in massively that's a solid 10 to 15 seconds just wasted off the clock
in a round where there's not much time has this completely opened up this round
for INDZ it's the end of the road isn't it it's SDK up against the world that
photo swing the final kill and Lowe's put to bed what was in the end quite a
a dominant game. Very dominant in the end. Loose winning five of the last six rounds
after a bit of back and forth. Nice and early on. It was shaping up to be hyper competitive.
But in the end, Loose just ran away with the James and deservedly sorry. They just played
the map a lot better. Certainly going into the second half where they won the four round
straight on defense, which doesn't happen all that often on
border as well.
No, no, four rounds in a row, mirror making an appearance in
three of those rounds, hell of a lot of traps and great bit of
pulse play at the end there. I really thought that was a waste
at C4. But no, the fact that it landed outside the window down
the black bid and with the time of the clock, it was a done deal
for us.
It certainly was. I think they are moving forward for it. You've
lost your opening map. So now you've got to try and find a way
back going into Chalet. Yeah, it's not your map pick, but Chalet I think is a map where,
I don't want to say the word, it's going to play similar to Border, but there are certainly
elements with the exterior play, the windows, you know, you can kind of play similar and
getting into the map isn't always easy, but when you do, can you take space and can you clear out
defenders, etc. It's going to have to do a much, much better job of that, because as we saw in
that second half on their attack, they couldn't really get anything going. They couldn't get any
rushes did that didn't work at all we saw loads pull that off in the first half
and they certainly could again struggle to get into the building couldn't really
get any side executes down either no diffuser play that's a lot of what you're
gonna see on charlotte you think about on charlotte how often we see rounds come
down to kick going down post plant scenarios things like that so that's
room for improvement for ends and certainly now with the tournament on
the line if you lose the next map you're out of kickoff and certainly not
on the Major. Yeah, absolutely.
Onto the next map though, it's lost opportunity for ITZ, Shelly coming up on the other side
of this brick. And it's official. The Kingdom Hearts of FPS games is real. Okay, okay, that's
obviously a joke, but unless you've been hiding in the cave for the past few months, you already
know that the main character from the Metal Gear franchise is now on a mission
inside Rainbow Six. The legend himself saw its name. So let's break it down and
see what this iconic creation of Hideo Kojima can actually do in the world of
Siege. Snake is a brand new attacking operator introduced in Operation Silent
Hunt and his stats is got one health and three speed. His loadout is just as spicy.
The beautiful F2 has his primary weapon and the exclusive TASC .45S is secondary.
Which by the way is basically the same suppressed pistol he uses in his own games.
Now when it comes to secondary gadgets you've got options, a lot of options.
Frag grenades, stuns, impacts, smokes and even breathe charges.
But the real highlight here is his signature gadget, the Soliton Raider MK3.
This thing doesn't just reveal defender positions.
It also shows which direction they are facing.
But don't get too excited.
Charges are limited and enemies will know when you activate it.
So yeah, timing is everything.
And that's not all.
Snake can also pick up secondary gadgets from eliminated defenders, given him even more
that ability as the round goes on. Now, to me, everything sounds pretty solid, maybe
a little too solid, if I'm being honest. But what do the pros think about this new and
very famous operator?
Operator
Perfect.
Efficient, adaptable and with an easy to use gadget.
Nothing to complain about.
Editor, go ahead and stamp it.
Approved!
But what about you guys?
Do you like the new operator?
Do you think he's gonna be better?
Drop your thoughts in the comments.
I'm out for now.
Thanks for watching everyone.
See you next time!
there it is my friends you got to see the video to wrap it all up that was the
voice of E.K. our friend in Brazil who just recently actually announced his
retirement from siege after graduating from his studies which is pretty darn
cool and impressive we love him very much we're very happy that he got to make
this video at the end of it we're very happy that we got this first map done
and that's that real quick because it clearly showed Loves a bit on a
different level compared to
IZ in this case of my friend
Fox. I think at first the
over aggressive play trying to
get those fast picks on attack.
It wasn't really working out for
those too well, and then they
sort of they understood exactly
what they needed what needed to
be done, especially when it came
down to the side swap. That's
what we saw. Just lost run away
with it. I mean, it really
really do believe when I say this, that a lot of the direction of the way Los
can win their rounds is based correlated directly on how Dash is playing.
If Dash is leading the charge, if he's being able to find picks, find
positionings with the shields, or on defense, find those opening kills, go for
these aggressive plays, I think that's scared Aintz a little bit. I think that
that means that Los is going to be performing exceptionally well. Aintz
look like once those got over aggressive. That's where we saw the whole start to show
up. The individual picks would come through. There was no trades from ants. They were just
losing body after body. Their attacks looked very disjointed and split up. But I think
I don't think that's necessarily it's playing bat. I just think it was those taking advantage
like this, this push right there from dash, they're just taking advantage of the gaps
that incess letting them. And that's where Los is going. They look like an experience
difference on knowing where to take these gunfights. That being said, even though it's a 7-3, I'm
not too confident that it's going to be a blow on the next map. I think it's just got a little
flustered, so to say, and going into the next map, I just don't know if that fluster can
make or break a team. If they can shake it off, I think it'll be a lot closer. If not,
then it might just be a 2-0.
It's just cool in some ways to see a defense-sided border in a case like this in a game in the
square.
The real struggle will always be this level of play.
How do we do on the attack?
It's always the challenge.
Top teams have it, but they have those problems quite a bit less than teams that require more
experience.
Have we set it up for IMTZ and Loos?
Both need a bit more time in the cooking phase.
They've made it to the spot.
Now it's to see who can advance deeper.
you said might be a tool blowout. We are not sure of that just yet. We'll take a look at our map veto
one more time just to kind of give everybody a preview. We went to map number one on a border and
that was of course the INTZ defense start. As you saw they were quite successful on it with three
rounds. Now we will go to Chalet and the attack side here goes for loss. Sorry the attack side goes
for INTZ, loss starting off on the defense, they're the ones that picked the map at the
end of the day. INTZ going for more advantageous one. From what we've seen from Border, what
can you apply in here where you can play that aggression? Maybe do you have to do it faster,
quicker? Do you bring a shield? Do you play behind that if you're INTZ to gain an early map advantage?
Well, Xenox, Hicklinale, and the head of the chalet is very fundamentally similar to border because of how aggressive you need to be.
The shields don't have as much success, but I'd imagine that's what Los is going to stick to. The shields and the dope could be.
Something that I could take a page out of Los's book because it looked like a lot of the rounds that they were losing on their attacks on border was due to lack of information, lack of knowing where the rat players are from Los getting overwhelmed by the individual aggression.
So I'm hoping that if ints learn anything from Border,
they're bringing the Doki B, they're bringing their own shields,
maybe some Nomads and Gridlocks and Grim,
information operators to be able to find
where Los is gonna be.
Cause they went pretty 50-50 when it came
to the opening kill.
So once they know where somebody is,
more often than not, they're able to get that advantage,
but they're losing it later on
because Los is bunkered down in little corners,
you have Dash going for flanks,
going for aggressive pushes.
So INS needs to make sure that they batten on the hatches
on that front and make sure that they just have
the information in the late round.
As for those, shields, again, aren't as strong on this map.
But that being said, I'm assuming we're gonna see
a Blackbeard, a Bullitts, one of those two from Dash.
And again, that's another aspect where INS
can take off the board if they don't wanna have to deal
with Dash being that spirit,
because it's a lot of on Dash's shoulders
when it comes to the entry on their own attack.
So, lots to take away from if you're in slots to learn from.
For Los, again, there's no real habits.
It doesn't really seem like they're following a playbook by no means.
So, it just seems like they're letting the confidence lead the charge for them.
Well, that's it, I guess, from us.
But we usually want to hear from the players themselves.
And actually, Aintezette and Los actually had something to say in preparation for this match.
Let's hear what they had with that.
I think they're two teams to prove themselves.
Who?
I think it's going to be a player against my brother, Pérez, Hugo too.
He's going to come with blood in his eyes, but if we're separated, we're more experienced.
We're going to be able to put our lives at stake.
The kid is going to have to fall on the day. If the kid doesn't fall, you won't be able to take it.
Yeah, we're back. Yeah, I don't know. I'm looking at it. I'm like, wait, that was fast. But
yes, we're Fox. I'll just say our night is still young. Anyways, we got our second map
on our hand here in Chalet. We're waiting for a match to get started and actually kick
off into our second map, talking about both of our squads and what could be brought. We
We talked about the Monty, we talked about the aggression playing behind one another
in this, really trying to take it into a loss's face.
But how are you kind of playing out this defense?
Because we saw a defense-sided border, not usually what we get.
Is there a way that we actually get a more defensive side of Chalet with the way these
two teams are playing?
I mean, the aspect of Losus's success is because they are riding so heavily.
map like Chalet. We've seen lobin do it all the time. The flanks from the basement, blue
stairs, main stairs. Those are going to be your traps that Los is hopefully trying to
execute on. And a lot of their plays are individualized. We're not seeing a three, two, one, one person
at the flank and then we'll push from the front. It's more just dash roaming alone, finding
these opening kills. Now, if you're in, again, you have to be able to realize that if you
want to be a competitive, especially against the very difficult teams in the bracket, we
said that this is the best situation that ins could have found themselves in is facing
lows. The harder teams are going to take advantage of those gaps. And that's where instant to
be able to show us that they can auto correct and learn from just one map loss because this
is their last opportunity in the map to bring these info operators. You need to have an
understanding on where everyone from most is going to be specifically in late round.
That's why the go could be is going to be so strong. It's a very popular SAO operator
because you can cut down on the drone and you don't have to find them.
You can just hit a phone call and execute and then wherever the phone call comes from,
you know where Los is going to be. Operators like that. Line will be able to help.
They're very successful when it comes to the entry. It's just about these late round scenarios.
And that's what you see from teams that are a little bit less strong. I don't want to say less
experience because they do have some experience on the team, but confidence right now that Los
is radiating. They're just going for plays that they feel like they can just win because
they are the core and core better team. So you can easily take advantage of that if you
just have flank drones, have information on loss, you're getting the first pick as the
hard part down. Just make sure you're using that man advantage with the information.
All right, then let's bring in our casters. Please, then step Marta, come on into the room.
My friends, we're going to have a little jab between us as our lobby is set. We're almost
ready to kick it into our matchup, punishing over confidence Zenax and games like this.
How do you achieve that?
That's a good question.
I think that what we saw in the in the first half of border was the confidence from Lois
and we didn't see in sexually be able to deny those rushes and really get on the front
foot is the defense.
And then so I thought in the second half that that would change a little bit.
In the second half, I thought that would maybe change, but it certainly didn't.
And so, yeah, this was lost is there.
As we say, goodbye to Miloš and Fox, lovely two gentlemen.
I think that what we need to see is actually more confidence from
it's not worrying about what losses doing James.
That's the biggest thing is like in some program, especially in this
first half, you're on attack.
So perfect. Set the time nice and early.
Have the confidence.
Take the gunfights.
You know that Los have the ability to play aggressive on the defense
and Chalet is a map that plays well to that.
So I think they've got to be better prepared
coming into Chalet, even if it is Los Alamos.
I don't know about that for a second.
Yeah, for sure.
But I really like the operators that we've seen banned on out.
The clash was a big one, of course.
Both teams really liked using the shields,
but I think especially the INTZ,
the way that we saw them trying a couple of different ideas
with the shields in the end,
the Blackbeard not working in that final round, unfortunately,
but it could make a return here.
Blackbeard's really good on this map, Monty.
pretty good on this map. The Blitz Band out leaves those two shields as your main
options. The Clash gotten rid of, really gives you a lot more flexibility. The Azami as well,
not only is Azami amazing on Chalet for creating power positions, but one of the more modern Azami
players, much more dynamic and aggressive. You keep a lot of those keepers in pocket,
you go for retakes and such with them, but getting rid of Azami and Clash loose another one of the
main big power position operators in, which is the Mira that I didn't shut up about on border
Xenox, and I won't shut up about it here as long as it's picked and not banned, but the big question
for me is how does INTC get a look to clearing their positions? You can do so in a thousand different
ways. We've got the banner and ace, both of which are not super reliable because they can be shut off.
You've got the twitch, which is also not super reliable because it can be shut. You've got the
Kali and the ash, which are the two easiest counters, and they haven't been picked as of yet.
expensive operators because they're gonna bring a lot of other utility, as versatile necessarily,
as some of these other choices. But yeah, I just think that if the mirrors don't get dealt with,
I'd be flexing onto something that has a bit more of a direct counter.
Yeah, and obviously you get the opportunity to ban it three rounds in as well. Obviously,
that's still three rounds that you get to play if you're loose. But if it really is becoming an
issue for instance, then they do still have that option as long as they don't get rid of something
like a malusia which is what we saw at the tail end of border but yeah I think for ince this is
going to have to just be bring the confidence you're fighting for a spot in the major that's a
lot you know yourself from dark and Paris and again this is what we spoke about on the desk the
aggression and the confidence of lows we saw it back on border so ince knew full well this is how
lows want to play border charlotte lot of similarities and playing around the windows and when you're
You're on the attack here on those balcony positions. Lovely swing from angels and Paris holding a good angle, but it's just a
great swing
Needed that kill 90 seconds three before certainly feel possible from here
But you've lost the capita which is not great. Now you think about clearing out bar stock
You're gonna lose a lot of utility there. You don't really have much utility left on the attack flashes
Touring in they still need to clear that's hot library and the men's position for the mirror legacy good slipping through the window
catches dash, nothing that that mirror window could do to help out, but at least I thought.
Oh, unfortunately, that gunfight was lost by legacy because that could have turned the tide
of the round. In the end, Los are able to fortify that position at the top of Mezzanine, despite
losing that first mirror window. Of course, they still had the second one. Interesting setup with
the double mirror windows facing two different directions. In the end, I wonder if perhaps
reinforcing that single wall next to the the mirror facing into mezzanine, the wall of box itself.
I wonder if reinforcing that might have created a bit of a safer position. Dash wouldn't have been
as vulnerable, but yeah interesting setup, a nice attempt. I like the fact that they tried
to counter the mirror with the ace and they actually got a kill off of baiting the defender to
shooting the selmas, but at the end of the day a round is around and you can't afford to lose too
many of them on the attacking side or maps like border and shall a as we saw on that first map as well
crazy to think that in the end border ended up being
INTZ unable to win a single attack round after four attempts only won the three in the defense
half they played you could say after five attempts across the series and ox that INTZ haven't won
any attacks as of yet because well that's the case it's been now five rounds in a row they haven't
found a single round on this attacking side. Oh, that's so cheeky. The electrical on top
of the Goyo canister means that it can't be shot from below.
Yeah, if you look at a lot of the metrics right now in this series, and this is where it gets
quite alarming if you're in, there's nothing in their favor. So the first half of board,
three plants went down from lowest. Great. None from in to the second half. The multi-kills has
There's only been two of them back on boarder, but both of those came from loss.
So you look at the opening kills, well, I mean, it was kind of a, a five five split.
They both even that out again, something that instant win.
There's no category, no statistic that ince have actually been successful in.
And then the fact that you throw in what is now what's, what's that seven out of the last
eight rounds have gone the way of lows.
Yeah.
with this one here on Chalet, it's concerning. So the good news for them is there's still a lot of
seats still to be played, but clearly they're finding themselves behind the 8-ball and those
have got the advantage in the series. This is a bait, the idea of the Thatcher Mav Combo. Usually
these operators feel the same purpose. It looks like Daffo bites off a little more than he can
two trying to peak the main breach up on office and legacy is also going to find a pick honestly
two kills that could turn the tide of the round this bombsite down in dining and kitchen is quite
difficult to 90 seconds or so big yeah I think that there's a big chance here for Los to be toppled
on this defense yeah nox low as well doesn't help you get now the pressure from the logic
bombs of angels. And so finally we're seeing Inns put pressure back on to Los. No longer
comfortable on this defense, no longer running around doing what they want. Mexico's so
crucial, Los needed absolutely 5v2 down timing with a logic bomb, but agents gets away, drop
down is successful and could look to now push in through trophy, put some pressure into
solar. So they're starting to get surrounded here for Los dash with the big kill, but the
trade immediately. The power in the numbers, the ints towards the end of the second round,
finally the streak comes to an end. Absolutely needed that from ints.
Now we did the first attack round on the board as well across the whole series, big
opening kills, two of them converting to a round win and front of that monkey off the back for
INTZ that finally got themselves an attacking round on the board. They're finally here on
chalet finally made their debut but most have got three very good bomb sites and
one maybe playable bomb site to choose from and chalet so they can keep on
switching things up darling didn't work out that's fine haven't tried master as
of yet let's go to the top floor maybe bring a little bit of some kind of a
counter for the shield we knew that I'm TZ would probably be bringing a shield
with the blitz band and of course them getting rid of the clash themselves
It looks like the Blackbeard tempted for now, and we've got three fantastic shield counters here between the Elo Goyo and the Echo as well.
A latter of which I think is the most deadly, because if you're not aware of those Yoko drones, the Blackbeard or in this case the Monty, as it's been switched onto by Arthur, can be baited into getting far too aggressive.
of what's more, ANTZ have actually picked off of the IQ, so they're not going to have any utility
that makes it easier to find these three Yo-Kai drones.
That's a distant way back when you lose the first map, 7-3, what was your map pick,
but it just has to start now and that's a big round-win for Ian. So now it's a follow-up.
They have not been able to string together two rounds of the road on border and of course
I haven't really had the chance here in Charlotte, but this would be their first chance in the third round now
Can they get two rounds together?
Dark
Isn't it well, I think he's wearing it the right side of the bow
No one's covering he knows is a player and he knows is a left player. That's just great teamwork dark getting the yellow ping
default locked up how did they get that yellow pink it might have been audio
they might have been a player down in mudroom or something like that I'm not
sure doc but you is there actually maybe it was a
you okay drone dash could have been using them quite aggressively to peek out
windows I just say exactly how that info is gained but a big opening kill much
harder now for INTZ to break in fighting from a player down especially
because after is going to be vulnerable off look at this
player on the Pell should be very vulnerable here because
others in the airjab he wants to take out.
Oh my goodness.
Can he get a pixel?
How do you not know?
He's right below you.
He's right below you.
Oh my God.
That is just ludicrous.
Somebody stop this man.
Yeah, this is an absolute big down in this round.
This is this should be flawless. It deserves to be flawless. It will be flawless
I mean that is clinical see-through low starts of finish every single kill felt so precise meaningful
Tactical it felt as if they intended to do everything they wanted to do and they did there was nothing ins could do about it
They were getting toyed with I
Mean it makes the question that three rounds have now gone by in a bit of a flash to one
We saw the mirror window in the first round. James obviously haven't seen it in the next two rounds
What do you sort of take away here?
Because most have shown a real arsenal of operators then when you kind of look at show I so far hasn't been a huge amount of
Double-up they do get rid of the mirror the Monty goes away. They only got to use that once from the side of ints
Imagine they'll really flex into the black beard moving forward it when they want shield player that will be available
We saw it in the second round on kitchen dining and we go bar games the first time since the opening round no mirror window
This is now an opportunity for ends where without the mirror bar games are still fine
But it's certainly weakened compared to the open round
Absolutely especially the way that low setup the two mirror windows particularly one facing mezzanine
It's very hard to clear that one
One facing from mezzanine. It's a little bit easy to get angles on to but it's a whole new lineup for us
Yeah, well, it's because they're completely changing their strategy when you don't have the mirror
You don't have a zombie. You don't have class
You just can't play that mezzanine in quite such a hard way. You can bring a shield on that phone this case
I hope you actually puts it down this round
We saw a Denari not place his shield on border and they're dying after running away from the spawnpeak
But yeah, it looks like it's a much more aggressive Rome centric hold here for Los.
That is a perfect way to deal with this push.
Yeah, that was that was dark, so dark, but I have to clarify.
That's who that was back on board up.
But yeah, it's a fun lineup.
Now, bar games, I think typically what you will see is again,
with or without the mirror, the same hold that we saw from Los in the opening round.
But I get the sense it's not going to be a default looking lineup.
Obviously, the biggest thing when it comes to bar games is you want to deny that library control.
You want to make sure that they can't just walk in through a big window in games.
So there's always a focus of having bodies close to site, which is why you typically see a lot of the map control given up.
You kind of look at a lot of these positions right now.
like dashes everywhere, it's bathroom.
And then you've got Paris in wine.
So they're really expanding the map for this site more than what you would
typically see one for one trade to start.
And a duck has gotten the second.
He's now eight, one to start.
They lose that flow.
And this is going to be a very quick bar game.
Yeah.
There's a lot of gaps though, because of how spread lows playing on the defense,
which in a way actually baits INTZ into pushing a little bit too much.
Now, Angel's position not known,
but he's about to walk dead into a crossfire and dash watches for his position.
It's other round on the board for Lois.
And while INTZ have won on this attacking side of Chalet,
they're going to need a hell of a lot more than that.
And they only have two more chances coming up.
Yeah, I mean, I was a really, really good round from Lowes. I love the fact that they
just played it a bit differently and Paris was the big factor on the solos coming from
basement up library stairs.
Ince just went ready for it. They just had no idea that they were going to get aggression
coming from below. They probably expected it horizontally and certainly from above,
but not from basement. So he catches them off guard. He gets to crucial kills and dark
as well. You know, just the early portion of the round when the trades are going out.
Ince, of course, found the opening kill on to Nox. And the response was immediate loss,
which is already in the, in the right positions to get those trades to add bodies close by to
those fights. There's nothing really working for Ince in this first half. Just winning the single
round, which was kitchen dining back in the second. And that was just off the back of some early
gunplay. And it was, you know, 5v3, kind of pretty early on into the round. So they found
really kills and then that was really good so they haven't really won any of
these close rounds where you know we're getting to these 3v3s for instance
that they're not winning those it's got to be real alarm bells for ince considering
you're gonna be eliminated from kickoff if you lose this map and your 3-1 down
so those four around that four away and they're just so active on the defense all
around the map and it's similarities to borders defense as well where they're
just dictating what they want ins to do and ins end up just kind of doing it
unwillingly there's a lot of problems I've been doing these rounds and that's
part of the problem oh man what is what is that unfortunately neither of those
impact EMPs really do anything you only removes one laser for seven seconds but legacy able to find
a critical pick and to daffo
a lot of pressure from big window it's enabling a bit of aggression from
iantz who come up from west main it's very hard to crack into the bomb site but Arthur
this is the same as what i've lost time this is the exact same like
like first two pigs and they're just challenging on both first and second floor after scum for the plant but I don't think any of the three defenders are set up to actually deny this.
I never mind nox actually found he basically just gave his life away to deny that which I think in the end it's actually going to be really worth it for lawyers it's a 3v2 but some for means has to actually get in.
And go for the plant now. So technically at one point leader in this round
It will be to be to guns up all this today again. That could be the round
Dark just has to find the angle is not SDK gets it down in kitchen now
It flips massively in the favor of ince even with that kill onto SDK Paris caught of the window big kill from legacy
Down to dark and the one be to post plan
and is winnable as well but not with legacy it's a 4k from outside of the building massive control
from legacy and that round from the double window and the insistence from iantz to force that plant
down eventually gets them around but man that was way too close for comfort and that plant eventually
going down in the kitchen that could have been denied by both of the remaining defenders one
even without being exposed to the double window. I like the ideas there from Los
on the retake. They were using the gas to try and keep legacy off of that main
double window upstairs so they could put the pressure on down through the hatch
but they didn't have information that the plant was going down. If they had, they
would have peaked down and seen that plant so it killed him for free and
pretty much stolen the round again for a second time by denying that plant but
not to be. And now INTZ as a result have a chance to tie up the half before we move
in to their defensive side. This would be huge if they can find a third round of attack.
10 seconds left before insertion.
Yeah, I still think a two, four half for Los is a really good result. So it's still a very
important round for Inns to get this back to three, three, even scoreline going in the
second half but what's most critical is they've at least shown the ability to
win attacking rounds because they couldn't do it on boarder so my one
concern though is still in that first half on boarder it was a little bit
like this it was a bit back and forth it ended up being that 3-3 half and then
Lois just went into the second half and just put the foot down and you can do
that on shallow attack as well so it's not gonna just be the case of what
defense is gonna be the safe haven for ints in the second half certainly could
be. Bad jab from Legacy expecting again more aggression from Los. They're very careful
and that's why we're seeing quite a bit of this Nomad plate. Sort of a bit of it on
border as well. Probably didn't have a lot of effect.
Look, it's not Mosque and James, but this third attack around could go a long way for
INS to get themselves back into this series. And you know, the interesting thing in all
We haven't really spoken about it, but fortress ends up being a bit of a wild card kind of map
So yeah, the answer is just the case gets a fortress and who knows what can happen there
We did see
For just no, sorry, was I in TZ they went seven eight against loud
Honest, yeah, seven eight against loud on fortress. That's the only time we see I really seem to play them out in kickoff
So should we get the
Bit of a wild card yes for both teams Los. I think their priority is really to get it done here
They should be favored to do so it is there that pick after all
They are on the lead right now and I agree with you
I don't think this round is the be all end all but it makes a massive difference if I'm to see struggle here
I think that momentum will carry through to their defensive side. It's another big kill
Wow
Lou of big kills for Los angels desperately needs this but he loses his fight STK cannot survive
and it's a flawless end of the half for Los as they guarantee that for to split
on their defensive side. Yeah, and that's the third flawless of the series.
And so three floor losses all of them to Los again just adding another category
that's gone their way where they're just so dominant what a half or two I think
is great for them to go into the attack now only needing three rounds on the
attack to at least for overtime they're in a really solid position now it's a
knockout ends from kickoff. And again, Fortress, you know, you spoke about the fact that ends
are played or lows haven't banned it. If they haven't banned it once throughout all group
stage and so far as well, when it comes to playoffs, they're more than willing to play
it. I think anytime a team shows that they haven't banned us a map once that they're
more than willing to actually go there since it technically is being allowed through. So
I don't think that for him, this is just the case of get to Fortress and we might have
the better of them. And right now, they're a long way from that third map. They need to at least get
four pretty quick rounds going into this second half. They go defense, which again, on border,
they had some solid defensive rounds. I think the best that we've actually seen from in so far in
this series was probably their border defense with a caveat being that the rounds in which
lows were super aggressive and got those rush entries through the Blitz play. Yeah, of course,
they got kind of beaten up in those rounds. But when the play, the general play was a bit more
default, you're a bit more conventional, the defense was really, really good. You know, so I
think that they've got an opportunity in the second half, I'll know that, but the pressure's on.
And sometimes you either rise to the pressure or you crumble. It's going to be curious to see what
happens in the second half, whether in fact, actually, you know, rise to this pressure,
you're facing elimination, you're on defense, Charlotte, let's lock down, or they kind of
of crumble. They allow low entries, good map control, opening kills, win the gunfights
from the attack. It's going to go one or two ways here. For instance, it has to be rising
to the occasion.
I've just had two minutes to talk about their defence and what they want to lock in for
this side. A lot of bomb sites to choose from on Chalet. All of them play quite differently.
are some similar choke points. I'd say master office plays out somewhat similar to kitchen
and dining. But just to add on to the point that you're forging there during that halftime
break, Jake, on NTZ, the rounds they did win were very close. The rounds they lost were
not very close. I mean, that is just a pretty grim state of affairs. Moving into the second
half of the second map when you lost the first map without winning a single round on the
second half. Now you've only won two rounds on your attack on the chalet which is one of the
most attack-assided maps that we have in the competitive pool than Siege and they've banned
out for their defense. The Monty and the Dockaby leaves a lot of other shields in play. It leaves
a hell of a lot of hard breach ability in play. There's a lot of power-ups like the Solid Snake,
the game asks a lot of these real hunting operators available as well. And on the defensive
bands it's the exact same as we saw at the start of the first half of the Izami clash as well.
It's really where we get to test Lois. What are they looking like on their attack? Because
I guess it's a very different map to border. Yes, attack is very possible
on Chalet, but you need to be well coordinated. You need to have the right balance of hard breach,
your shield play, a lot of rappel angles as well, how do you deal with the roamers,
how do you take map space, and IN2Z look to be pretty ambitious just based on their operator
lineup alone, when you're playing Jager and you're playing Warden, you've got Solis,
we've got Jager and Womai, so often these days, Jake, do we get to see the double catch operators,
and Warden kind of functions a little bit like a catch operator because he
counters some projectiles and the flat any kind of flashing utility and smoke utility
Plus we've got the roaming solos as well. So you need to have a lot of confidence
To play this kind of an active defense phi and tz as I say that the great open kill for stk and dash goes down
Yeah, I mean, that's what you need to see more out of from ince
You just got to take risks now
You're into that kind of phase of the of the series where you've got to take some risks try and bring the aggression
you've got to try and catch Lois off guard and you also need to disrupt their attack.
So that's a big play from SDK, but they've had a lot of opening kills in the series.
And that of the two teams being worse than giving up that opening kill and not converting
in the round. So now it's where for in, you can probably lock down play site, you've
got the extra number SDK's law and health, but he'll just run around in the solace, try
get information as he possibly can. Dark's in a good position. Well, here comes the watching
Nox to clear out Mazzany. Oh, decent job done, I'm going to say, from Angels. I mean, he's
going to go down here, but he bought just enough time. Lewitt in Dark to a bit of a rough spot.
Legacy was then able to get the kill. If that had been a bit of a flawless kill on to Angels,
I don't know if the round would be where it is right now. So that he did a really good job.
That was a huge play from the defense of INTZ. They managed to forge their crossfire as well.
However, legacy falling makes things awkward for INTZ. Naxx has survived despite being very low on HP,
but a lot of space has now been taken by Los. 2v3 with this much HP on the Blitz is awkward,
But keep in mind, SDK is still low HP.
I mean, you just can't lose these rounds.
You lose this round as in C25 down and you probably start to hang your head a little bit and think,
it's not happening, is it?
And it smokes out from Nux, who probably gave the half wall plant towards that fault.
Daffodil Cabo has to shoot the nitrate.
Arthur just hits the headshot.
I'm not sure what Daffodil was actually doing there, to be honest.
Yeah, it wasn't the greatest of hold.
And honestly, and it was a decent position to be in if you're low.
So ince doing a decent job to cover up finally able to start to string together
some rounds here on charlay make a competitor three four score line.
Obviously it was it was a three, three, half back on boarder.
And but low said brought the momentum at the end of that first half and then
just dominated the second half.
So if it ends to actually get around in both halves here on charlay,
just really does prove this is not going to be an easy one for those
into going to give everything they got.
They got kitchen dining out for the next round and it all started off the back of that run out from sdk
That's kind of what set the round in motion
Put the aggression early and again lovely hold from angels towards the mezzanine where you're getting rushed from that blitz
It's easy to panic. It's easy to go down, you know easy
But he fights back got the guard break the late a little bit
That allowed time for legacy to get into a good position to get at least the kill
onto dark
So some little moments there little moments that I think back on boarder
You just didn't really see a lot of remains that just shows the sign of life here and shall I
Yeah for sure and another part of that as well was just the warden being in play there at the ends
That was why Los ended up losing their player covering the diffuser
He just smoked up the rotate hole between sides
He smoked up the piano angle and then he was on ABS because he didn't think he had to challenge the smokes obviously
And then he just died to our warden spraying through the smoke
There's no way that you win that fight if you're the attacker, but they perhaps just needed to forgo the smoke
So had they known that a warden was in place, it's got to be careful about little details like that
But as you said it there would have been pretty much
Curtains if I'm easy had lost around like that just with how many rounds similar they have lost so far
So it's a good thing they finally go to cross the line
And now just one round trailing behind Los as they go to dining and kitchen SDK still
so confident and aggressive on this soulless kingdom to try and find routes from the basement
but hasn't found anything as of yet double bliss to start the second half does the vulnerable
to a potential ban from in severity band away the Monty and they don't have access to the
the clash. So you got to make the most of it now if you are low. Try and get the rounds
on the board while you can. One down unsuccessful, two more opportunities while having access
to the splits, which I imagine will get banned out. And double nitrous salt for Arthur and
Legacy, so they do have the capabilities of dealing with this. And Kitchen Dining the
way was playing the first half from in on the attack was they'd like that split pressure.
It's not just a top floor focus. It's not just the first floor focus.
A little bit of both.
He's not ready for it.
Wow. How is he not dead?
Look at Dax reaction there in the camera as well.
He's just like, how am I not? How is he just standing there?
And he's not being pinged out, but just put inside and he's more than fine.
Even hit one bullet through the wall.
Did STK at the end there?
That was perfect teamwork from INTZ.
TZ the fact that STK calls over Arthur and says look there's a guy outside. He's really lit. I've tagged him very heavily
Just go peak the West Main window. They've confirmed that kill under the top fragger of loss
Yeah, at least dark awesome damage into Arthur. You also somehow got some damage in the SDK offer a very quick reaction
Oh, wow, this is much better
For me and see how this is what we probably wanted to see more of them on border
Didn't quite get to see it flawless their first one of the series and just kind of says back to Lowe's
This is not going to be an easy day on charlay. This series is not going to be over and done with in a flash
Now two rounds in a row. It's a so a couple of things
It's the first time they've now been able to win back-to-back rounds in the series
Which is pretty insane considering we're more than halfway through the second map
That's the first time they've been able to do that and crazy
I don't say back. It's there. It's their first flawless as well. So what that says to me is
is only two rounds. But is the tide shifting just a little bit? If it's not shifted into
their favor, it's certainly shifted to this equilibrium where it's like, well, there's
not really a difference now. It's game on 4-4. Anyone's match from here on on charlotte.
Three rounds away for each. And we're starting to see the reason for this success from instance,
they're showing aggression on defense where it's in these runouts. We're seeing these
open peaks. They're really taking it to Los. Los have just got to now kind of say, okay,
Let's worry a little bit less about trying to get into the building and take map control early on especially the spark games
You don't really need to rush it. Yeah, do your usual default focus
Library balcony positions playing to the into that kind of game because ants now are the ones that are trying to
Catch us off guard trying catches on the front foot. Let's just slow things down a little bit
Can we go to STK and say hey come for a run out come pick up will be ready for you and then that's an opening death
The big thing that's changed for ANTZ is just how aggressive that they are being on this defensive side, and I love it.
It's exactly what we need. The players are starting to feel like they're landing all their shots.
They're coordinating that aggression on the defensive side. They've got a lot of information.
The soloists, now the pulse as well. They're coordinated. It's calculated, and it is in Loser's face.
So I like it. STK going to be aggressive outside of trophy again. Keep in mind STK can also see where the blitz is using his soulless electronics detector because that blitz shield does emit some kind of electronic signal that is detectable.
So you can always call the push about where Nux is going to come from, but now they're
low forming up around library, trying to clear this dark position in the very corner, and
hopefully if he does try and retreat down that hatch there's a player to cut him off.
But at the moment there isn't anyone repelling on that double window of library, so he is
a little bit safer.
Like this though from dark, very aggressive, stripping down one of the key layers of defense
on the bomb side.
And now Raps has gone down on the pulse.
INTC are very exposed.
What is going on though, Fidafo?
Caught in a very odd spot in the legacy.
Is able to take him down.
Big up tree now for Dark,
because he tries to make his way in the side.
Crossfire still finds a kill, STK.
What is going on?
Legacy obliterated.
It's a 1v1.
Arthur has to push out.
He has to push out.
He's on the floor.
Well, I mean, he should because he's...
teammate should have come that that is in mud. And that's why he's got the gas
babe immediately in there wants to try and go for the swing. Paris can't get
picked up right now because he's pushed out of bar stock, got aggressive.
He's passed though. He's not exactly sure entirely as to maybe how or where
and he's got the gas babes left and it's going to now provide the opportunity.
Never mind. I'll just play that perfectly. I think way too much focused
there on trying to get the revive. You could have easily just won the 1v1.
That's a huge, huge round win when it comes to the side of
ins and it's now three straight and they've got the momentum going into this
band phase as well. They can certainly just take the splits off the board.
You can, as you said, put the solos counter in some ways in terms of knowing
where it is, but I just get rid of it. Clearly.
Los have got to focus on using it here in Chalet.
You've already been the Monty and it's going to mean the next few rounds of
loss will be far more difficult.
You're in the solos, Charlie.
And they've lost the solos.
Yeah.
Okay.
And most immediately going to take a tactical time out as well.
Now that they know what bands have come through,
they know they still have the Blitz in the twitch band is a curious one for me.
Jack, I really hadn't seen that coming.
I look at the operators at the defense has been playing.
They get counted by the twitch.
Well, Mira is back.
They're going to play the mirror.
They're going to play the mirror.
The mirror is not banned yet.
So I'm looking at the operators.
It's like Jager, Ella, Wamai, Kaid.
Yeah, nothing that really gets like, that you worry about the Twitch massively.
You play the mirror band, the Twitch, that's fine.
I mean, just play Ash, play Kyle.
But I do wonder if it'll be a philosophy change based on this Twitch band,
the loss of the solace, that they start playing mirror and trap utility.
maybe. Oh, it's for the Goya, that's why you're on Twitch. I was thinking like there's
not really much reason to do it for the mirror because MIRROR has other counters anyway and
they're pretty nice.
Well, it's like what you were saying. In terms of what they were playing, it wasn't as you
said like the Twitch was a big factor. But now, ban the Twitch, you can start to play
a couple more of these operators. The Goya, you can play the MIRROR, you can play World
Yeah, exactly. That's the thing. So that's the main one.
And in so when they played the Wamai and Jaeger combo in that first round, the twitch was brought by Lois.
And we saw the twitch in the previous round as well, even if it probably wasn't as needed.
So clearly the twitch band is a good band from ints.
And so they don't, they kind of say you can have your blitz if you want, but we don't think you're going to want to play the blitz anyway into what we're going to bring.
into what we're going to bring. So we don't fuss about the Blitz, we'll get rid of the Twitch.
Yeah, you know what counters the Goyo and the Thorn and the Ella, all of these trap operators
really well? It's grenades and just look at the number of grenades brought by Loves. Every single
operator has brought grenades to the table and of course Solid Snake only brings one to start with
but after he uses it he can go and scavenge extra grenades off of any dead body that he wants.
So I think this is a really good adaptation from Loos. I'm not sure whether they spotted the Thorn and the Goyo
But they have so much util to flood this
STK has been aggressive this half when he wants to do so again towards my entrance and again
Yeah, you bring those grenades
That's a lot of focus from the attack more about what the utilities being bought from the defense means that for in place utility
Gun up. They're gonna be more worried about throwing grenades. So they're in control right now
I think they they honestly probably won the band phase which is what where they actually lost it in the second half on border and
They're starting to string together rounds. They've got momentum and so fortresses is shaping up, but parents finds an opening kill
Needed that if you're lowest just to start the round and just to try and swing that momentum back into your favor
evil. Darkest. We're going to find this kill. I know exactly where he is. Wow. SDK finds
the kill regardless, trading himself out with the thorn trap shows the value of those traps
latest in our bit of an awkward spot. He's not likely to get back to site safely with
that window opened up. But the entire remaining team of I'm TZ is looking to get a very aggressive
around display. All three of these players looking to try and find kills knocked down
But traded back by dark
Blackbeard has been taken down
What's the tip of his hat showing on the right side of the stairs?
Dark is having a great game that in and six it needs a little bit of help
He may get it from fashion that though under a minute left. This has been a good round for those
They're just being a little bit more active on the attack. All right, so the ends now are forced into having to now
Make the question here for Arthur and Raps. Do we just hold weight play together?
together, or do we go searching? We probably don't want to go searching now. There's only
40 seconds, you're down a player. This is the weight gain. And C.F. Lois make a mistake
when they enter in towards the side. Now, a bedroom and office, not always easy to push
into. They've still got a bit of maz control, and then Raps is playing the inside. 30 seconds
for Lois to think their way through this with the player advantage. Lois, this round, that's
a decent way back. They've got to close it out.
He's going to pick that window, is he? Arthur, I think he was aggressive, and yeah, he gets
Spotted tried to make an aggressive play didn't work out Los confirm the round and tie the score line
once again five rounds apiece
Wow, there was so much mind games going on in that operator veto
But I really liked the way that Los came out ahead of it after their
Tactical time out they figured out exactly the way they wanted to play it and they did it to perfection and you tell you what you
You mentioned it, but Dark is having an insane game.
The Solid Snake only just making an appearance this deep into the match, and he is phenomenal
on it.
It's such a good operator as well to hunt down these loose roamers from Loos, which
they have shown across this second half, but that is the playstyle they want to have with
the Deimos and the Snake.
Hard counter, that playstyle from Loos.
Yeah, we saw it twice in the first half from Angels, but basically no effect.
It was almost as if it didn't really get played and what didn't help him in that regard was the line-ups being brought in that round where they brought shields, they brought slow kind of operators, you know, magic, glass.
There was no one else really to help out.
And then when you bring the solid snake, his partner in crime is the demos. They just help each other so much. Doc could be as well as another good one.
You almost want to double down on that rather than how the solid snake just be the the lone operator in terms of entry and
Moving through the map and getting information. You want to just really double down into that play style
That's his he's bread and butter and that's his strength because he's got other operators that can play off of the information you gain from the radar
It's been a really good map. Shall I
And yeah throw in the line those kind of operators
It's been a really solid map and I don't know if it's because we don't always get to see
SAI up close and it's usually just that the international best James, but you can really
see the mind game battles and you can really see both teams adapting and trying different
strategies and trying to play in different play styles. Their strengths and weaknesses
feel like they're just fully on display at all times.
Dare I say, when you kind of go back to APR, you're maybe scratching your head at times
to a lot of things in comparison.
Yeah, I think definitely historically Brazil, South America as a region has always been
regarded as these guys are really aggressive.
But people don't really give enough credits at just how tactical these teams are.
It was of course Brazil that pioneered the more aggressive but still tactical meta, you
know, skill aggression when that was popular.
Yeah, of course it is.
And so even these two mid to low pack teams are talking about elimination game first team
to be eliminated from the playoffs here in SAEL and they are playing some really bloody
smart siege and the constant back and forth mind games character even minor details there
wraps brings out the shotgun to open up a hole so that he can impact trick the wall and keep
himself safe. Another just deep layer of strategy on the fly here from these teams.
They're very slow round. There's only a minute and 18 left. It feels like it's coming going in
in the flash. Nitro from after got the opening pick and on to dark and onto the glass. It's
a huge kill. Even though angels has gone down into the better position heading into the final
minute and legacy then doubles down with the kill onto dash. Los haven't really got much
to go their way. They finally got bedroom control trying to clear top floor to play top down.
But raps they got another one. Now it's a legacy is in snow. I've got themselves. You would
imagine that point on the cards is not as one and seven. I don't think he's going to
go and pick up the next three to four kills such a good fortification on that
top floor Arthur aggressive who's just hiding in trophy the whole time up and
away we go it is map point now here on shall a for INTZ and man they have
really shot above in this second half they've already won four rounds on this
defensive side now gunning for a fifth and it looks very possible Los had one
good attack round but that's all they found in the second half it has been a
serious drought one last chance to push over time otherwise we go to Fortress
it would be deserved it now for instance to close this map out send us to
Fortress and then fight for their tournament life on that map which is
and said that they played at Los Havent, but Los Havent banned it. So I don't think they'll
go into Fortress, feeling scared or worried. If anything, they'll probably be excited to
finally test it out here for SL kickoff. Now, Legacy's been great, but even though it's 13 and 7,
I think where the real strength for INCE has actually been just their teamwork. They seem
like they're playing off each other. You know, a good example was that STK hold out where he got
the play alone and I think it was Darken and Arthur swung Westman got the kill. So good
teamwork. That's the kind of stuff we're seeing from inns. They look far more in control. They're
winning the multi-kill battle. They've got the one and only clutch. They've got the one and only
plant as well, by the way. Lois in this half have not gotten a single plant yet. You think about
border in the first half out of the six rounds, they've got it at a 50% rate, three out of six.
They haven't done it once here on Chalet. So a lot of the statistics back on border that Lois
with dominant or winning have either equalled up or in to now winnings.
Oh wow, no info on that entry. Deimos comes out and scans for the mozzie,
STK runs away. Man, STK might not be fragging like crazy, you know, seven and seven,
it's not like he's massively positive, like legacy or dark, but this has such a big impact
in this game by constantly giving aggression to Lose and forcing them to check themselves.
So I really like that even though he only gets a bit of damage on, it's well played,
he falls back. The perceived pressure of him surviving and continuing to peak everyone else
elsewhere is far more valuable. I'll tell you what now, it took them six rounds but finally we
You see the mirror picked here by INTC.
And Los have no clear and direct counters to it.
They've slowed it down Los.
And it's funny because I think it's simply
because it's map point and they don't want to make mistakes.
And Dark is going to go in the room.
They want to hunt STK.
They probably are going to put all the eggs in the basket.
If we can get the STK kill,
oh, it's just slipped up the timing up flat play stairs.
He's going to catch him against all their angels towards the library.
They got good positions and dark wins that battle.
Now that's critical.
You get that over the peak, but most importantly, you get the one player on the
defense who's roaming around.
And so you've got the extra play.
You can start to flood side.
Then catches Arthur who went for the trade, knowing where dark was.
And dash with the headshot onto angels.
Gives us a huge advantage.
Only lapses left in a one B three, but there is no, but it's over time.
Wow, what a way to send us into OT for Lois.
INTZ had everything going for them.
The Roma of SDK eventually hunted down credit to the Daymoss.
That was a massive play from Dark down below.
He's put the team on his back.
He is exceedingly top-fragging in the server.
But the rest of the team also sprung into action,
and Lois now have forced the INTZ timeout.
I thought it was going to be so hard to clear that.
Mira set up on the top floor with no direct counters.
We're talking about no ash, no Kali.
Nothing to clearly break the mirrors,
not even a hard breacher that's gonna be able to remotely
breach one of those mirror windows,
like an ace or a Hibana nut,
but they instead found the numbers advantage elsewhere
and then collapsed on the mirror position
by overwhelming them with crossfires
and a number of players coming at them
from different directions.
Now, into overtime, we've had two very dominant halves
in favor of the defense. And now into OT, INTC are again back on that defensive side.
They go straight back to it. But the problem is in the last three rounds, Jake, they've
lost two out of their three defenses. INTC are coming back. Well, Lois rather are coming
back.
I mean, I don't think they've gone away too much anyway. There was that three round win
straight for ince outside of that encapsulated three rounds. It's been
highly contested. It's been pretty much back and forth. It was just that one
little breakaway moment from ince, which was probably not too dissimilar to the
three out of four rounds that we saw from Los in the first half. So they've kind
of both again traded blows, which is identical to what we saw in the first
half of border. When you kind of look at the two match shames, the one big
differential really was just that four round win streak in the second half of
border where let's just kind of blew the game open, won the map from there outside of who's
four rounds. Yeah, it's been really, really close. Again, I think with ins being on double
defense, they're in a good position. They showed really good defensive fortification
in the first couple of rounds of that second half. Well, not the last three, not the last
three, but I think that still like the twitch band for them. The loss of the solos doesn't
help and I wouldn't be surprised if we do see a flex on who a blitz at some point from
woes with well not this round obviously but maybe if it goes to the 15th round they might
go for a blitz play train catch in soft guard. It's been a really fun map of of shalei yeah
I agree this has been a very refreshing map of shalei I feel like often we see the same maps
and you and I have been casting a lot of kickoff between all the different regions we've been
working right sometimes the game gets a bit stale this has been a very refreshing game
seeing a lot of exciting stuff even round to round seeing different things for
example dismount first time INTZ are bringing the castle to the table oh
sorry second time they have brought this on that the same bombsite before but on
the low side and they're bringing back the glass again they've got the thermite
they've got the fascia look they're gonna look for something a little bit more
direct than what we've seen from them previously but at the same time
And Game Off is going to be present.
And Dark is going to have a license to go and cause havoc.
Being what Lois have done a good job of is they've
started to adapt similar to what they did on board
to what's actually happening.
That was their strength on board.
And I think they kind of stopped adapting a little bit
on Charley.
And then just in the last couple of runs in the second half,
they slowed the tempo down.
Now, look at it again, the time, 90 seconds.
And this is forcing into this sort of strategic thinking is
though, how do we want to play this if we sit back, we give
space, we get aggressive, they're waiting. It's just like a
game of chess right now.
Like I used to do that. And you know all that chance cover.
A bit of a theme myself. Legacy is in such a hot seat right now.
His external walls just been breached. There are three players
staring at his position. And he wants to at least take one or
two bodies with him. I believe Perez has now breached not just the wall of office, but also
the wallage of the bomb site down below, which really opens the gates for an execute onto
the site. However, the glass of nukes going down is going to be a massive cost here for
Los.
Yeah, that could be round defining. Dark needs to go big and he gets the handshot onto Arthur
17 and seven now for dark inside of dining and Paris can follow suit dashes over towards
He can drop down and quickly go for the plant, but you don't want to rush that kind of thinking because you do still want to clear
Out top-floor which is where the three remaining defenders are located
You need to still put some pressure on this top floor
You can't just think we can find a safe spot to plant, but you've only got 20 seconds
Very aggressive
Opportunity now for I and TZ to get active STK has been revealed up a party
Going down is doing his best, but no, the smoke bait prevents him from knowing where that plan is going down
Wraps in the 1v4 up on that top floor has to try and retake but DaFo finds him
Loose a second attack round in a row and match point series point is in their hands
I mean we haven't seen I think smoke baits like that for a while. I mean that is a really good play
It denies a little bit of any kind of horizontal retake that denies a little bit of the sightline
But most importantly you can see the spray down aware. He's just thinking what's a smoke plant 15 seconds left in the ramp
Makes sense. How often do you see that?
Especially on kitchen dining when you haven't got any top floor control as the attacking team
Naturally what you see is smoke go down plant inside a smoke because there's not really any kind of cover from the vertebrae
It doesn't opt to do that throws the smoke out which I think was Perez who threw those out and then it just
Takes the attention of ints away immediately to think what they're planning inside of the smoke
It's a really good round from lows, but it comes off the back of dark
I don't even know how he found that kill on to Arthur and then slips into dining. He's been the MVP
There's no debate about that and they lost nox in the glass
Which that's what they wanted the smokes for are probably originally clear up top floor lay the smoke get the glass to clear
them out doesn't work he dies early they pivot they make the adjustment and they adapt in the round
dark is the big reason for it and he opened up a new pathway now they go defense and inks are
facing elimination from kickoff. Yeah wow elimination on the line for 90s Ed.
Two match points for Lois.
Two kills away from a 20 bomb for Dark as well and it would be deserved.
He has been phenomenal, especially on that day, Mos.
I mean, he was really required to step up to another level in these last couple of attacking
rounds.
Now he's back onto the defensive side.
I see he's really struggled on this attack.
They were slow.
They only got two attack rounds successfully, both attacking kitchen dining and we're not
going to have the luxury of going to that bombsite this time around.
It's Master Office defense for Lois.
This was completely locked up.
Both times they defended it.
We're actually flawless defensive wins.
Doesn't spell a good tail here for INTZ.
No, it doesn't, but they tried to solve snake both times.
And so this time they, they're going to ditch it.
They're going to try something different, which is at least good shot from angels and
onto Paris who's been playing well dash report as well, change up in strategy and mindset
here for in spacing elimination.
And they open up the round with two critical kills, SDK does lose his life on the twitch
to Daphne holding over to Ward's office and just keeps the attack at bay momentarily.
Do still have Dark Alive, he also has the Nitro and is playing the Ward and he's the
one to watch in this round going into the final 90 seconds.
Is he worried about those aggressive roams down below but we know for sure that every
single player from Low Series is on site.
that nitro for a run out by the way he went outside the building through the nitro didn't
catch anything maybe thought someone was on repel i'm not too sure we didn't get to see it but dark
has used that nitro not a lot of hard positions to hold here for los i can see why dark feels
anxious that he needs to make a peek happen thing is there's actually no hard breach on the board
here for INTZ so it will be very hard for them to get into the bomb site. They do have a maid
and a couple of flashes as well as a lot of YouTube. Oh no Arthur. But no Arthur goes down,
ran out on by Daffo. Legacy is the last one standing. Dark will not get his 20 bomb today.
Less of Legacy clutches up. They try and survive in the bracket for INTZ. Nux, do not give up
your life now. Daffod holds it and with the TCSG puts the game to bed. Los get it done
in the second map and eliminate IMTZ from kickoff. Wow. Oh, what a, what a round to close
it out on and what a map. A great series for Los. I mean, well deserved. It's hard to say
they don't deserve the series win, but you do have to feel the IMTZ on the map itself
was shall late it felt like it was theirs for the taking James and they've just kind of let it slip
at the last second they were they were looking so dominant but credit to Lowes for again I think
in the ability to adapt change the way they wanted to play pacing wise and a bunch of different other
factors I absolutely deserve the serious win and to stay alive and kick off for the ints while
they'll have to wait for stage one. Yeah better the gutting loss after having that in that point
being on the verge of saying the fortress, but not so big. We'll break that all down for you with the
desk, Milosh. Fox, what do you think about that one? Well, at some point we were having a lot of
questions there, my friend, but I guess they were answered a big victory here for loss that had us
on the edge going into overtime, Fox, but they brought it back. Kudos to scientists that they
did not roll over going into map 2. They definitely gave it their all to try to get it back, really,
but that's where their road, I guess, here in kickoff stops and loss will get to advance
off the back of a very energetic again that they had today. I think you could see a direct
understanding for those once they started to respect in this series. I think that was the
biggest turning point for them as they realized, okay, well, this is playing very good. They're
understanding where we're coming from. They're shutting down the individual alerts, individual
and it's great. I mean, they brought it all the way to a match point by pressure, especially for teams like ince, you know, it can be a
boiling point. It can cause you to crumble. But I do think that looks themselves started playing a lot more team oriented a lot together,
a lot more together. They were really isolating each individual person from ince. They were using that advantage. You could see that they were
they were ramping up individually.
The confidence that they had in map one now
was a team confidence that they had
and they were playing very, very well,
especially with having huge players
to just show up when need be.
I mean, Gar kind of an amazing series himself.
And so for that being said, I think the loss,
once they realized like, hey,
like let's try to make sure that we don't use this
as put together, that's when we saw them
just run away with it and over time.
There were a few of those moments, including the one you've seen in front of you here,
STK and the runout.
There were multiple rounds where you were thinking, oh, NTSA really can bring this one.
They really hold on to the map.
But at the end of the day, that slip-up and overtime really was just going down to basically
the 1v2, the TCSC on the other side, incredible.
There's some moment here, like from back, couple kills, back to back.
A bit of a miss, I say we were both talking about the round where you have one player in DBNL, there's smoke against you, the canister is being deployed in the little cubby there, and you're prioritizing picking up your teammate, you could have used them as bait.
was bait I think that's one of the only times where I'm like okay this is a moment that
baiting is okay as a player to win out the run but you know workout for loss maybe you
would have been able to close it out earlier regardless they do they advance big players
though in this and a big player has to be pettus in this in this map but darky's also
putting up all the numbers that are needed kills the partner wise that was a collection
and fast forward.
Yeah, everybody on the team from the Loas
really stepping up individually,
just to be able to get their kills here and there.
But I really want to stress that once they got to overtime
specifically, I mean, those last few rounds
when they were making that comeback,
you could really see a skill gap between the Loas
that we were watching on boarder to the Loas
towards the end of Chalet, just because of the way
that they were just getting kill after kill
and not losing anybody back.
And some of those rounds were being closed out
with four members from Los Alive.
They were doing a great job at preventing trades from IMTZ.
And they just looked like they were playing
a lot more disciplined.
They still had the same amount of aggressiveness,
but they knew once they got it,
let's reel it in, use that man advantage.
And I think that was the strength from Los.
And that's the kind of loss that would give you hope
going into the rest of the slower bracket
that they could perform, they could right their wrongs,
be the NIP, be the team like Liquid or Furia.
And I think if they just go into it
with their same focus of discipline, they should be okay.
Should be okay.
It is a tall order, I gotta say.
It seems like looking at liquid,
the loss against the NIP that they had yesterday
with how Furia fluxes up them playing also,
like it is not gonna be an easy road,
but I don't think you play competitively,
especially not an SAL,
expecting to have an easy road at any point in time.
Any team that you play against is one that can hit
at least the top four worldwide at events.
You're expected to play your best.
That's why you only get four teams to get to qualify.
You've made it already deep enough into the bracket.
How deep does this run go?
We'll have to see where the loss end.
They're completely reformed roster
as we talked about over the past two and a half weeks
here in kickoff.
A lot of questions that we look to answer,
but if anything, kickoff is a great tester
of all of those skills.
overall great plays would you find out that did you see that INTZ really swapped out their
game plan because we're talking about what they need to do to move on from border and
into Chalet do you think they were able to adapt in that sense what are some small things
they can work out and work on from your professional experience Fox now that they're running kickoff
is done.
I mean, they definitely did learn they started bringing the doka be a lot more on their attacks to be able to limit lows.
I mean, the run that they were going on to bring it all the way to match point, they're running the blackbeard, the shields, the doka be information operators.
Their drone was a lot less sloppy and they did a great job.
And I mean, if you look at the opening kills, they were dominating them for the most part.
I mean, besides raps, who had a very unfortunate series on Chalet specifically, they were doing a great job.
It looked like the start of Chalet was all theirs to be able to win.
But we've seen it.
We've seen teams that don't make it this far necessarily.
They get to match point and it's almost like a kryptonite.
The pressure sits inside of your head to instead of playing to win,
they're playing not to lose.
And I think that's where we saw the loss start to happen.
I mean, they just were losing open and kill.
The trades weren't there.
It seemed like the fear started to arise,
especially once they hit that match point. That's the kind of pressure.
I think that's a mental aspect of the game that you need to be able to just
break through. And that's something that you can only break through with time
and having the experiences to be in situations like these, to make it to a
potential bracket, to make it to a major and to lose it, to be able to
understand that it was very easy. A lot of those rounds.
It wasn't just one little thing going wrong here or there.
it was a team losses that allowed Los to be able to come back into it. I mean,
losing around where Los has four or five people alive.
That is not just one little mistake. That is everyone individually losing a gun
fight. We're not focusing on which gun fight to be able to trade to focus on
your teammates. That's just an aspect of they're so close to winning that it
affects them mentally and they lose it that way. So I think going forward,
It's a mental battle of being able to use this experience as I learned from my mistakes
and hopefully next time put in this position, we don't abandon the fundamentals.
We focus on making sure that we're trading out and that's the best way to put yourself
in a winning position.
So I'm going to say they have the fear of the dark dark in this case MVP of the series.
You have a constant fear that something's always near.
Well, you know what is also near for those who might not have caught the reference
That's one of my favorite bands. I know our Brazilians out there would have absolutely understood where we're going with here
We have our interview and it's Pettis coming up next. Let's bring them up and have a little chant
Pettis, thank you very much for joining us. Congratulations
Huge victory now before we talk about today and in the future. I want to ask you what do you feel?
happened in the match against NIP a couple days ago, that you could learn from and adapt for today.
Hey guys, it's been a while, so it's nice to be back here. I guess NIP, I think we didn't play like
we used to play, especially on bank. Water, it was a game that they played better, and I think it was
as us that are connected, that we had.
But in bank, we played really bad.
We didn't follow what we talked before,
but it was your plans.
So the game went completely in a different way
that we planned.
How do you feel you're able to fix that up for today?
I mean, it's more about the conversation that we had,
about what we should do, that we should sometimes trick to the plan,
but sometimes just play more aggressive. We weren't like playing sometimes too
too slow or not going for a gunfight that they don't expect.
So we found this conversation, I think we played way better today.
Yeah, you guys sure did. I wanted to specifically ask on Chalet, once in
Scott to match point, was there anything that was specifically said that made you
you guys start playing a lot tighter together,
focusing on the trades to start that combat?
To be honest, I don't really remember
the round of the match point,
but we started to play like some,
I don't know how you guys say on the name and manner,
but we say like splitch.
So, each guy played on some part of the map.
We were thinking a lot of things,
Bigs and a lot of things so we thought okay guys we are dying we are not playing like we should so let's play more together do some things together with their case playing like like you also so we did that and let's put the clue up.
Yeah. Yeah, it sure did. My next question would be, obviously, we touched on how you
guys lost to Nip. You guys are in the lower bracket. We've seen teams win throughout the
lower bracket, so it's not impossible. But obviously, the teams that you're going to
play against are a lot higher of a caliber than Int. What were the main takeaways that
you wanted to practice today so that it's good solid, so that when you play one of the
of hard teams, you guys can make sure that you have the best
outputs and do the Windows games.
The most important lesson that we have today is that we need
to play our game.
We don't need to play our game.
We need to show what we are capable, what we can do.
Do our plays, but play aggressive, not just react
from what they are doing.
For me, this is the main lesson of today.
Very good.
it's a very good thing to think about focused up on yourself and see how well things will go.
Thank you very much Perez. I know you said it's been a while but it's good to have you on here.
Congratulations on a big win. You advance on through the lower bracket. Can't wait to see you
this weekend. Any encouraging words you want to give to yourself, your team and to the lost fans out
there? Thank you guys. Thank you for being supporting us. We started a little bit slow
and against Neith in a G2, but I know we are going to find our path. It's going to be a lot better.
Thank you very much, Pennis. We'll let you go rest up and see you later. Here we are and back
again Altogether Fox, just you and me for now because that was only a kind of little taste
of what is to come today. We've over, we can play up the schedule for today, the graphic,
because you just saw game number one, that was INTZ, which is loss, and unfortunately have to say goodbye
to INTZ in our kickoff bracket. Loss advanced, we'll get to see which really tough opponent
they'll be facing off against, but one that they may clash against, if they continue their run
in the lower bracket, would be one of these two face clan and black dragons. Two teams,
of course, FaZe, no need for an introduction, black dragons have been all over the map in
in 2025 and early 2026.
I'm very excited for this next matchup to kick things off
Fox because it's going to be tough for Garbus and Faiz are
backed against the wall.
And I don't think anybody likes to play on that way.
Yeah, we're tired of just the taste.
We want the whole thing.
And Faiz is going to give it to us.
I mean, they are the team to beat at the end of the day.
They're usually the best team in the SAO region.
So we're excited.
And now they have a little bit of fire under them
because they lost their first match up during the lower bracket.
That's not a standard that phase is going to be happy with the back to back
invitation of winners want to make sure that they make it to the Salt Lake City
Major and they want to make sure that they don't lose, especially to a team
like Black Dragons.
So I'm excited to see what comes from it.
It's really an underdog story for Black Dragons, if anything.
Well, I'm telling you face plan or not, used to losing much in general for very
good reasons, but we'll talk about all of that and more after the break.
I
Who is from outside, you won't say anything different about it.
But it's always good to remember his name.
Flutin, you know what I mean?
The guys managed to compete in the old Flutin.
And now you have to respect this tag.
I'm a cappettino.
I'm a cappettino.
Wow.
It's like the guys who are not friends.
I'm a cappettino.
I think I gave this cappettino to R6.
I gave it to Dina.
I don't know.
It's a good idea.
Good?
Good player?
Yeah, look at him.
He's always playing for R6.
It's just a problem now.
My house is R6, and I'm in JV92.
I'm putting all my problems on the floor.
I want to play VV, be responsible.
Because the guy likes to provoke, it's a problem,
but he still plays a lot.
He's a big fan of yours, he already had his target,
but today he's nobody.
Oh, fuck, it's high!
No, it's not.
The best of all, in my activity, it's a very difficult question, ok?
Man, it's very difficult, man.
The best, man, there's no one who can say that I'm the head, right?
Man, put it on the wall, go, look at the mess.
It was one of the best in the world then.
I think it's the broom.
The cyber.
That would be the cyber, right?
Yeah, the cybernetics.
The master of this and that, I'll put it on the wall.
We have a lot of people who have been watching this for a long time.
I think it's the broom.
The cyber.
That would be the cyber, right?
Yeah, the cybernetics.
I'm the master of R6.
Why?
Today I'm going to be a big fan.
I'm the second one to follow.
World champion.
Brabo.
Hulk R6.
Hulk R6 is Guilherme Goran.
Bombadão, R6.
Krasovac, Ukraine.
J.Lukas.
Hulk R6.
Fartão, Grande.
He's playing even more.
Romar, Romar of R6, speaks a lot more in resolution.
Ward, 2023.
Can it be Ward?
In 2023 he solved it and said a lot.
Nowadays, no.
I already have.
Feibé speaks a lot, but at some point you solve it.
Because Baladeiro speaks, but you solve it.
He speaks a lot on Twitter, but he solves it too.
In the offer, he speaks of João Romar.
But Barriga doesn't let him.
I don't know, there's no one who speaks a lot in resolution.
Put the gold there, I don't know if you solve a lot, but...
Speak a lot.
It's a joke.
It's a joke.
But what is this?
What is this?
How are you playing?
Oh, but hit on the pecking.
I'm going to throw it here.
Man, you guys don't know what time it is.
You don't know what time it is.
You know what time it is.
You know what time it is.
You know what time it is.
You know what time it is.
You know what time it is.
That's why it's back to back.
I don't know what time it is.
I think it's the last one.
It's very bad.
We don't know what time it is.
The guy there was from the bottom of São Paulo.
I don't know if we can say that.
I don't care, I'm just going to go to the base and run away.
This is the best defense.
It's fine, it's fine, we don't care.
I think it's actually a good defense.
He said knocked out unfortunate for them. They'll face clan versus black dragons
That is a fight for the ages and that we really have to talk about both of our squads here Fox
We will bring out black dragons first and chat about them because they have been a big surprise
In a lot of ways their improvement over the past year has been very noticeable
They can liken them to the resurgence of NIP though on a different level in their own right
and we saw them even be able to qualify for the invitation or something but it's
very difficult to do anything really but specifically out of SAO in the
Brazilian region. Here they are now in the lower bracket but still in the line
of competition for spot the Salt League City Major Foss. You know if they were
going up against anybody but Faze I would be very confident for Black Friday
because they looked really good at the start of the stage beating
liquid beating IMP. They looked very strong. I think that came from the fact of teams not necessarily
knowing exactly what they were going to bring to the roster. I think everybody on the roster was
doing their job. I mean, rare has been having a very good season individually as a player that
hasn't been talking about too much in previous years. And so for now, this team, I'd say, you
know, it's comprised of good players. They got good backbones, good supportive players,
everything that they could need. But then it started to fall off a little bit towards the
middle of the stage when teams started to get an understanding. I mean, losing to
loves, especially when you have such a heart, a good start to the stage. It's not
where you find you want to find yourself. And then the last play day, I mean, that
was a slaughter. They got seven, oh, guy phase, which is why you would have to be
scared in a situation like this because, you know, losing seven, oh, on a map like
clubhouse, which is very basic. You very fundamentals. You, everyone plays it.
Everyone knows how to play. You never want to take a team that you're worse
then to a map like clubhouse because it's very standard and still they got 7 0 by phase.
So it's a very difficult situation. If you're black dragons to find yourself in, you have
to make sure that you know, you're just putting your best foot forward and I think changing
the tempo of what maps you want to go to is your best friend here. You want to be able
to keep phase on their toes. Hear me out. Okay. Six D chess. Black dragons played phase
the last day of kickoff they lost 7-0 like you said but it's because they didn't want to show
any strategies on clubhouse because they knew that phase would lose to flexor w7m and play them
again in the lower bracket i don't think you're thinking seven steps ahead but they are and face
climb though maybe maybe have thought about this i'm sure they've put in the effort that's for sure
with all the support staff with jp in the background there making sure all the analysis all set up and
been ready to go the two times we've glazed this team time and time again.
They know what's up.
They must be the furious after that flex of the B7M loss because it was so close.
Now you flip a coin and another day, the different, I guess, temperature, maybe
the whole flip thing flips on its head and it's lobin who's getting ready for
the matchup with this team and phase are ready for the weekend.
They have the time to prepare, not the case in this, in this, I guess, realm.
but this is a team that you can always trust.
It's value you can trust, Fox.
You can always trust in phase.
I mean, the only thing you can't say about them
is that they're in the upper bracket right now.
It was such a close matchup against Flexor W7M.
I don't think it's indicative to how they're going to perform
the rest of the stage are so consistent.
I mean, losing 8-6-8-6 in the best of three,
this just happened.
Sometimes rounds don't go in your favor.
Flexor W7M was just able to close out the few,
I don't imagine phase letting up at any time here.
They're going up against Black Dragons
that previously seven node them.
Phase is perfect in almost every regard.
So at the end of the day,
there's not much you can say to give Black Dragons hope
besides, you know, not underdog story,
you know, you could believe in them a little bit.
I guess.
It's great.
You gotta believe in it in this case.
We're gonna go to Shelly first,
that is a Black Dragons defense with Chris Faiz.
they picked the map and they're starting an attack.
Questions are being raised.
Nighthaven Labs, Black Dragons pick with defense.
Sure, attack has figured out Nighthaven more often now,
so good for BD, and then we go to Bank or Decider.
What do we think about Chalet?
Let's narrow it down for a sec.
I mean, I like Chalet.
I think it's a good, even playing ground for both teams.
I mean, we've seen FaZe play it twice.
They dominated it during the regular bracket,
and they lost it, you know, to the flex, it'll be sitting on the other playday. So, you know,
there's ups and downs. I mean, phase is going to be consistent no matter what for black dragons
at the end of the day, going to an aggressive map and catching phase off guard is ideally what you
want to go for. But they're a very passive, very slow team, which is why you find them picking
labs, which when you look at the side of phase, they're very comfortable in labs. There's no bad
map for phase. So at the end of the day, you're getting the best of both worlds. You go on a
fast map. I want to see black dragons play very quick, very fast pace, find those pics.
Regardless of the works or not, you go to labs, switch up the tempo, play slow, slow it down,
suffocate phase out. If it goes to a map three, which you know, big task, you should be happy
for black dragons going to map three. I think today it's bank. It's one of phases best maps.
Don't know how that's going to necessarily go for black dragons. I don't think there's
a world or phase with week on that map, but you have a really good start to see a fast
Caster slow based on shallay or labs will work. And if it goes to map three, you use the situation to use the playstyle that works best.
All right, let's bring our casters then have a little question with them dev and Zenok. So I'm going to ask you the multimillion dollar question at this point.
How do you beat phase when they're on the rampage?
Let them get a six one lead.
All right, game is ready. Let's take it over to you. Xenox. Xenox is seen at first hand closer than anybody else. So you guys have fun. Let's map on a phase for Black Dragons.
Yeah, I mean, you saw it first hand though, James, obviously very recently when they turned things around and the recency of that matters a lot more than what happened two years ago. I think that's to be honest, but
Let's be honest, but it's, it's, it's a, it's a big game because I think black
trackers are actually a good enough team that they can absolutely cause a huge
upset today.
And that's the beauty of this matchup.
All the expectation is with face, uh, the back-to-back S I champions can't be
surely going out this early on and certainly should be making a major,
right?
Like that's, that's the thing.
Black dragons come into this dog.
Okay.
They would love to make the major.
They're good enough to make the major and it'll be disappointing if they don't.
If they are loose at least lose to face. So like they know for a while that they come into this as the underdog
And they've got every chance to just cause a huge upset
Yeah, we had it down face plan would probably be
Expected not just to qualify for the major probably to top their group. Of course, they failed
To do so they lost to the good Alienware which meant that they ended up second place in their group
in the group stage, which means they didn't get the free buy, which means their first game was against Fluxer W7M, arguably the second best team in Brazil right now.
But I think that if FaZe and the making this lower bracket run happen and qualifying for the Major in Solace, they'll probably be the favourites to take the entire Major.
And yet they have to fight from the lower bracket from the first round against teams as good as Black Dragon.
So, yes, it was crazy to think that our two-time world champions and the best team to ever exist in
the number six is here in the elimination match, but it might not be that they'll be here for very
long, Jake, because the last time that they played against Black Dragons was not very long ago at all,
in fact, it was Black Dragon's last match in the group stage, and FaZe smashed them seven
nothing. I've got a stat for you, Jake, that I prepared before the game. You ready for it?
Okay. Yeah. The last time Black Dragons beat FaZe and a best of three was seven years ago.
It speaks to the caliber and it is in both of these teams, I think.
Yeah, it certainly does. I think that for this one, though, FaZe will probably start off a little
cautious in this first half. Just kind of get their feet under them as he's cyber on the solid
snake pushing in towards bottom library stairs. If anything does technically get the opening kill,
KDS had a chance to go for this pinch. Good aggression. Red just gets caught in the trap
as well. Solz was able to get them both nicer done from Solz. And a really good start for
FaZe. A good teamwork. Trying to get that aggression onto the pinch over towards library stairs.
There's a miracle, good headshot onto cyber.
Just keeps it alive, human outlaw
as the duo for Black Dragons.
Now, outlaw's going for a very, very big rotation,
trying to come up the solar stairs.
It gives Faye a lot of gaps on the bottom side
to go and force that plant down.
And the lion certainly helps with that as well.
Plant confirmed, 2v3 retake.
The player's outside the building.
The viet king on the office balcony outside.
Oh, no, sorry. He's inside. Everyone seemingly inside face.
Actually, all the boots in the building as they try and make their way outside.
They're not going to need to anyway.
They can lock it in massive rounds for face.
Cleaning house and shall a first round in lose handy early.
No worries at all.
I mean, that's the that's the strength of this face roster, right?
They've never been one player where lying.
Nothing handy is the best player in the world at the moment
in terms of his overall output, right?
like there's probably better individual fraggers and there's maybe better
individual support players and bet, you know, all of these things.
And, but he, in terms of the overall package, I think he's the best player.
When you lose someone like him, his caliber, it's not a big deal to
phase, because it just absolutely star started.
Um, I think that that's the real strength of them.
And, and honestly, it's a real showcase to the best teams in the world.
Typically aren't really, they're never really relying on one or two individuals.
and that it's always that team effort and and and also usually the best teams in the world don't have what you would consider the
Quintessential hard support where they're just like I can't shoot anyone, but I'll do all these other things and that's been the strength of phase as well
Throughout many many years now and along with a couple of other top teams
I think the black trackers though
They need to try and actually emulate a little bit of what we saw from the now do departed ince on charlay defense
where it's all like STK and he's aggressiveness and just trying to disrupt obviously you get
another pick on the handy but overall ethos I think for this first half of Black Dragons needs
to follow that like swag here over was bedroom playing the window like you don't have to go for
ridiculous runouts as long as it's controlled aggression oh that is a mess I'm lucky to
That's an insane shot from Solz.
Solz is looking good.
FaZe are so good on Shelly.
Solz is put to rest though.
I'm impressed that Outlaw went for a peek outside the double window.
Balzy, I respect it.
I saw FaZe, in fact, in the casted FaZe's first game in this league, this stage, on Shelly.
They completely destroyed Los on this map.
map. They are a very good Shallay team. And a six-invitational phase beat Black Dragon 7-1 on this map.
I like that from Sadi using the solid snake to get
low info. Outlaw is pretty keen to continue fighting all of them together with Lenda.
But, I mean they all fall, don't they? They're trying to retreat further back. It's just Miracle
Left here will need a Miracle to win the 1v4 against the best team in the world.
in the world. It's flying like it right now. The first two rounds just so in sync. Everyone's
across the map. It's where they need to be. They know exactly where the defenders are.
They get everyone lined up in the right positions. It's just the perfect start for base. And
Blackjack is like, you can give up the first two rounds. That's fine. But it's not about
the response. That's the biggest thing is you can get kind of punched in the mouth,
but you got to punch back. And so now I just need to see that again, I'm fortunate for
I don't think he's done anything wrong there inherently. It's normal to play big window bedroom
Go for a bit of a peak as they spawn in and push down towards the building
He just gets caught on a ridiculous shot from souls, but it's also not abnormal to see an attacker shoot through that window
He just gets unlucky with the way the bullet kind of raises him
But we need to bring that aggression early because if you kind of play that sit-back game style against phase
They're just gonna push into the map. They're gonna get into the right positions, which is what we saw in that previous round
They'll be in the best position to play the trade game, numbers in the right spots, and
so Black Jackets need to try and set their own tone in this first half, otherwise it's
going to be a beat down.
And now it's all about the response.
Two opening kills, two rounds straight, Sol's got the plant down in the opening round, it's
been a bit of a demolition job to begin for FaZe in the first two rounds.
What a trick it is to see Faye playing around with the new Solid Snake as well.
Of course the meta hasn't changed drastically since Six Invitational, but in addition to
one new operator, as I say his name, KDS, finding Lender at the start of the round.
I don't know if Lender was spawn-peaking very common on a Tuba Row in ranked, but not advisable
in a competitive level.
I mean in Perley you can do the two guys utility which will die with him
So that's a huge
You put yourself in lenders position when this happens in range he's here or three whether he was
He had to have obviously been doing some kind of peak is a window. He's susceptible
You're probably not sitting here dead thing. I'm not going to do that again
But that's the wrong mindset and it's the wrong attitude against the team like face because then if you just sit back and you play
ultra-defense teams then that's what they want anyway.
Yeah.
No one who knows how to run down a team better than FaZe.
And they are the most, fairly enough, methodical team of any of the Brazilian teams, you know,
compared to T-Law or Furia or Flux of W7 and those that are far more aggressive than Luz.
FaZe, technically less aggressive than those teams, but far more terrifying because they
They can play that aggressive playstyle if they want to, but so often they have these
incredible preconceived ideas and they're so quick to balance as soon as they find an
advantage.
Now the Blitz goes in, rare, beats C4, does find him, however, out of nowhere, FaZe find
the picks back anyway.
Yeah, because they're just flying top floor, they're not putting too much emphasis on the
split, it's all handy with the vaulting, but then even though he's in bathroom, it's
susceptible to that nade, they've got piano control.
you're gonna get the pinch anyway. So even though Handy dies, he's drawing attention.
He dies, then his teammates get the kills. Now it's a 3v2, squag low on health. The
phase of it had kind of got, it's like setting it all in motion. And even if there's a little
diversion in that, well Handy dies, doesn't matter because we still got the pieces to
get what we want done. And that's phase in a nutshell. And they do so with a lot of time
left. Like they're executing these, it may not be site, but they're executing core fundamentals
in the round and around that minute minute and a half mark which gives them
them enough time to then go and execute site as well and you got top floor
kitchen dining these two are low this is going to take a mighty effort from rare
and swag
is there anything going for bd it's the fact that phase don't have a lot of
drones so in fact I don't believe any of the players who still live have
I think there's not KBS on the snake. That's a whole lot of information gathering in its own right. And they also had just happened a face check
big after big face clan simply a cut above
Donating on shall a just like they did last time they met BD on clubhouse taking no prisoners in the first three rounds
Yeah, and
Look, maybe maybe the spawn pig game is not working for BD two minutes 43 two minutes 54
So that's just two rounds in a row where they've just
They've not been able to get the spawn peek as the defense and they're giving it up.
And so it's just easy for FaZe then to play that trade flood game.
We saw it with the bathroom, piano, and pinch.
That kind of play isn't as doable if you've lost the player or too early because then
you just don't have the numbers to play the trade game and then you know, creating pressure
around first floor, second floor.
It's definitely early concerns right now for Black Dragons, but no means though is it,
you know, full blown alarm bells are ringing.
Shelle is, you know, a good attacker map, like, as most of the maps in Siege are rather
defend decided, I think, when I was looking at the statistics the other day, which actually,
you know, for SAO, which I have actually got right now, Shelle is 60% defend decided,
James, which, when you think about maps like Shelle, you probably don't think of it as
like a defensive stalwart of a map where it's like old school cafe or like the basement
the club or whatever it may be, um, you know, not having some defense, for example, but
it certainly is really strong defensively. It's still got very many avenues as an attacking
team and you're seeing that from face. You just have to do it the right way, which is
what they're doing.
There's no two ways about it. There's also really no, there's also really like no actual
attack aside of Max incisively. I genuinely believe that borders maybe like a 50 50 at
Yeah, well if you statistically look at Six Invitational, which is the best stats we have,
Bank is actually the most attack-assided map.
It's still technically defensive sided by like 0.1%.
I think it was, on top of my head I think it was 49.9 or 49.7 for Bank and then 0.2 less
for Border, 0.2 less for Shallow and then you kind of work your way down from there.
We have more attack-assided maps so we don't actually have any outright attack-assided maps.
We do definitely have maps where it feels like if you go 2-4 on attack, you're probably not doing good.
But here, I mean, I'm not really worried about the sides for Black Dragons or FaZe. I think this is more a question of, you know, can Black Dragons fight FaZe at all, not just about what side they're on.
Yeah, 100%. And I think the biggest thing right now is just the small things. Can you get an open kill?
kill. You know, can then you fall back and you keep players alive. The fundamentals of Siege.
And again, it's another opening death, handy getting his first kill. Good Candela's from
Souls. He kind of gives his life away, but it helps facilitate that first pick. And then on top of
that, you've already got Mezzan Library control. So you're getting a little bit closer to bedroom
and office and you can set up, you can then send bodies out towards the balconies and it just keeps
like dragons trapped they're just stuck in sight now they can't really push out
good flash as a logic bomb comes out it's gonna be hard to flush lender out of that position in
office without a grenade they don't have any except for one on vader king needs to come over from the
I didn't hope out. There's a page from rare.
A lot of damage done. No kill.
Stadia's continues to describe his time.
No one will know. One more E1D it goes out.
And yeah, here comes that made from the king in will flush.
Let me out of position.
But but I'm actually open.
Actually do confirm that kill.
And face a place to look for a plant now that the breach has been
opened with the DMR.
Yeah, let's get one piano.
Double stack piano is helping black dragons right now.
that will get to the second. So I love that little lockdown for BD. They put two bodies
together, making Piano difficult to take and just denying space for phase. And they're
just now trying to play off of his longer angles in towards the side. Yeah, that's a
really good run for Black Dragons. The double stack piano works perfectly.
Wow. That is a lot of energy from the BD boys on the camps. We got one round, I think you
said. Oh, it's a good start. You got to start from somewhere, of course. You got to get
them out of your heads after you get 7-0ed in the regular stage and in the group stage
just one round is all that matters just to get yourself back into it. It's been a long
time since Black Dragons have played a close game against FaZe even just in a single map
because like I said before when they met in the group stage and kickoff it was a 7-0 and
they met in 6-1 rotation it was a 7-1, 7-1. The last time that BD took more than one round
phase of the map was way back in October last year and that was still a 7-4 loss.
Now if you look back one back to June last year, BD actually beats Phase on Clubhouse.
7-2, quite a convincing scoreline, obviously a long time ago.
BD with some of the players the same back in the day.
They know they can do it, they know they can hold a counter to Phase but you've got to start one step at a time,
at a time put one foot in front of the other they've just taken the first step here.
A lot of utility denial with this setup double catch throwing the Aruni with the
gates as well and so that's going to expend a lot of these flashes from FaZe which
they've actually brought eight into this round and so for BD it's actually a pretty decent setup
it's literally all about denial of the flashes why because FaZe like to flash don't push in
And so you bring the warden, you bring double cash, you bring the arouni.
Now they can then be susceptible to other means of entry.
But to what phase have kind of brought this around as well?
The cap capital being susceptible to the catch.
Yeah, I mean, you know, you're bringing a striker with flags and flashes.
And it's there's enough utility there for phase to burn a lot of this utility.
But it also is they're not going to have that utility for the actual execute.
Oh.
Almost a freebie there.
Katie was caught off guard for a brief moment.
And they really love that doggity, doggie face.
Continue bringing it time and time again.
Went unbanned because BD wanted to get rid of that,
so it's not fair enough, I say.
But Faze himself has gotten rid of the Ella,
which he was a bit more aggression
than the strap off available.
BD opening Kelo from Ella, I tell you what,
he's been pretty good today.
Quite confident to take a lot of these fights on the water now.
He's peeled back, taken that advantage, taken out the dope with the normal logic bombs for the rest of the rounds, and consoled over at near-library.
We don't see teams do office extensions really much these days, but if they do something akin to the old-school office extension, it'll be a single player that has a rotate option back towards library, and saw that there without law.
Even though he's playing the warden, you still want someone there to be aggressive, find another pick, four-back play site.
Now it's 5v4 bar games and you've still got to burn through a lot of these ADS's
The Y Magnets, the Arunigates, there's only a minute left, BD and a really good
position there in the fifth round.
Tell you what, that's great usage of the striker right there from FaZe, KDS bringing
flashes to clear the ADS's and then a nade to clear the shield and actually
destroy the ADS's before they can recharge. Speaking of recharging, that
Arunigate has just been reactivated which does restrict KDS quite a lot. He can't
walk through here unless he decides to burn it. Consider this is it for a brief
moment that shoes up his last name instead he tries to chuck his name over
onto the staircase doesn't matter because Solace is found to kill regardless 35
seconds and others finally even tried to save a little bit of utility just for
those purposes right here at top-wide this guy's body pushed through flash for
the site which is why hand is still holding it you still got two bolts on
the capitol once note one flames 20 seconds for v4 big round and a big
chance now the black dragon is to find their second but with like the falling it
starts to crop a little bit great pre-fire through the wall from handy finds
one miracle that is the TCSG that gonna have to both fly souls needs to try and
find a path and look good out of flood for kills it's up to KDS to try and cover
his teammate finds the first one and the second as well the striker lands he's
shot and strikes true for phase four one up over black dragons doesn't matter how close
it get phase do not capitulate.
Yeah, and I thought the double start double stack bar stock as well was going to work
out wonders for black dragons and it almost did just meant that they were going to be
safe eight seconds left they could push out together they could obviously not going to
double push through the same doorway unless one dies earlier thought they're going to
maybe go for a sort of wrap from both sides but okay yes the shot the shots he doesn't
hit those shots and that play gets to die. They lose the run. So a huge moment from KDS.
He's seven and one perfect start. And again, that's the beauty of this phase roster is
that you could kind of cycle through all five players and they're all capable of being the
standout fragger in a given map slash series. But black dragons kind of banged on that double
stack over towards bar stock and just didn't quite net in the result. It's a disappointing
round I think for black dragons because they had a lot really go their way. I thought the
catch worked wonders you saw how like there was no utility left to phase that
to burn through so much to do at the ADS is to deal with the womai disc to deal
with the Sawyer gates and then the fact that there was not much time left on the
clock they got the opening pick it was a good stretch from out at the start of
the round so so much goes right you walk away with a loss that's gotta be
difficult for the mental
It's just the layers to the excellence of FaZe.
What are they trying to cook now, they've got the blitz, the thinker to support the blitz
and then the ying as well.
looking round scary comp here for FaZe and again the striker I'm gonna say I
know I mentioned it last time I've seen a lot of striker in this game and it's
not just been KBS and it's not just been for the frags Flash we also saw it for
the claymores earlier today on the dining attack from FaZe as well I really
like the just the flexibility and operators across the board here
This is going to be a top floor pinch. I'm pretty certain from FaZe. The one to watch
as well is Swag. Basement on the vigil. He's got the boss G. Bidikin gets the push in the
rear and there's that flood in towards that top floor and that's probably the half done.
Swag can't do anything. So I explained the vigil roam game but unfortunately for him
FaZe just opted to go for a rush top floor. I mean what are you meant to do against that?
He's got studio, very high task to try and clutch up here, they know exactly where he
is.
You can try and think back to the bombsite, but it's phase we're talking about here.
They can do a million different things.
They have so many different options.
They've still got smokes, got one more thinkabooze as well for handy, you can give them some
extra HP.
Bit of vertical, two LMGs ringing out, candelas as well.
man, this is a sore spot to be. If you swag, he tries to march through the smoke. Actually
gets the down the video king. Suddenly we wonder if it's doable, but no handy with the pistol,
no less finishes the round for phase a dominant five one half. And I would love to hear that
one broken down by our lovely analysts, Cassan and David, what do you guys reckon?
Well, thank you, James. Thank you, Xanax. I wouldn't call myself an Alice in this case,
I would like to discuss things with Fox, because we're watching the game.
We're thinking, whoa, there's some clear issues that are happening here on the
BD side, face kind of running away with it.
And then you find that one round from black dragons and things start
looking a bit more up from that point onwards, despite the five, one, half for
face, what's been going on for BD and what can they fix going into the second
half Fox?
Well, I mean, the first issue that we noticed that will be a problem on their
attack. And I believe that Jake said it as well is opening kills. I mean, Black Dragons
has no chance of coming back into this game if they don't get the opening kills. They're
close to giving a six one lead. But that being said, if we dive deeper, the biggest issue
is there's false roam pressure. Black Dragons is extending, but they're giving it up way
too early falling back down the site and giving face so much time to set up around the site
that it's like shooting fish in a barrel. They have so much time to force Black Dragons
to make a play and Black Dragons has to swing. They have to go for fights and they're losing
them. The only round that they won was because they actually got fortunate enough to win the
shots, specifically Mergot Law. I believe that's how you say his name. Mr. Owl Law. That's how
it was. The only round that they won is Mr. Owl Law is him getting those gunfights and winning
them. Now you're flipping the sides. You're not having to deal with false pressure. You're applying
that pressure. Phase is going to fight for it. They're not just going to give up library control.
they're not giving up games control. They're going to fight for it. And this is where Black Dragons
needs to fix that issue of getting those opening kills. They need to bring shields, something to
push through that first barrier, because right now they're losing the gunfights. They can't do it
just with their guns alone. They need to bring the utility, maybe a capitol to push people out of
the mezzanine, maybe a multi to push players from phase back to force them into their own barrel,
where Black Dragons can focus on getting those first picks. The difficulty though,
cyber is going to be on that room more than likely and she's the one player
that Black Dragons could target as well but if they don't could just be a
phased game the whole way through so we'll have to see. We'll have to see maybe
that end was not too far away from here it has to come down to the game itself as
our bands are up please Xenokstabarda take it away.
I'm only gonna have any more luck in the second half, Jake.
I mean, it's a difficult one when you five one down against the reigning back to back
champions to kind of say, yeah, they could do this, they could do that.
The reality is a face around their game.
There's probably not much you can do.
I think that there's probably a couple of rounds that BD would have been disappointed.
They couldn't close out in the first half.
They kind of started to get back into it a little bit.
Obviously, Fox was kind of talking about the opening kills and they got the last two opening kills
Outlaw actually started both rounds off really nicely in the fifth and the sixth round and they didn't convert
You know those the rounds you've got to convert when you got those advantages
They desperately needed to win that fifth round by a game. So I thought they should have won that one
And if they had at least one that two full half gone to the attack of shall I maybe not impossible
But five on down phase on defense shall a 60% defensive win rate in SAO this stage a kickoff
everything's pointing to a phase map 1 win. Good news for Black Dragons is
Nighthaven Labs is their map pick but I mean we know phase of conquered demons on
that map now and they're more than stronger Nighthaven Labs.
Yes they are and look Black Dragons attacking now in this second half they're going up against that
mirror because they decide to go purely for trap bans and aileron thorn which
which means it becomes a lot of problem-solving.
I'm seeing one DMR on the lineup to deal with the Azami,
which I don't think is ideal.
It just puts a lot of pressure on Lender
to be the main person in position
to deal with the Azami scuba barriers.
I don't see any obvious counter to the mirrors
other than maybe some cellmers,
which you also want to be using as your primary hybrid.
So again, I think that Miracle's utility is overloaded here.
So yeah, it's just a lot of problem-solving
to work through for BD.
And while you're doing all that problem-solving, you're gonna get swung by some of the best
fraggers in the game on the face side, on top of everything at the same time.
So it's gonna be a rough, rough half for them, but you've got to start somewhere.
Yeah, I just like to say in these kind of moments, it's about just building momentum in the series.
You might lose the map, but if you can just at least, you can get three or four rounds
in this half and a bit of feel good factor. I start to feel like you can beat them. And
that maybe you just kind of gave them a bit of a head start here on charlay and it's a
little foregone. Impossible to suggest they can they can bring this back to a very good
time to a very good roster. Just phase it always one step ahead into library. Good day
and outlaw double push in together. But I haven't done enough to clear out this resident
position now they have KDS goes down they find the angle still have another one over
the world's library stairs that's handy up close on the asami losing out though the rare
miracle has gone down but they finally clear out handy it's phase though that have got the
extra number and souls wanting to push back up retake top library as he can catch someone
over towards the mezzanine and that's where shield up there avoids the most of the damage
swag headshot evened up now 3v3 technically actually won as KDS is still down to one
1v3 Black Dragons, this is the best way to start the house.
Yeah, Souls knows exactly how to breathe.
Oh, I called last pull up in the magazine.
One hit headshot onto the Black Pierce.
Now, 1v1 swag has the advantage.
He is the solid snake.
This is an off angle though.
I love this angle.
The Souls has got such a good weapon in the close range
with the Vector.
Such a high fire rate, so much damage output.
And he gets the shot.
Unbelievable clutch from souls. That is devastating. James. That is heartbreak.
Even black dragons. They fall through the library. Cooler right there. I mean,
at that point, wait, the white flag here in Charlotte, six, one down. I that is,
that is a huge round from souls. I don't know what else to say. Again,
I think a really good way to encapsulate this map is black dragons have done
some decent things that done some some good things and against honestly any other opponent.
This is not 6-1 you play in phase and so you have to be inch perfect every single round
and that's a difficult thing to do when they're on some there are some days where phase are
a little off and I think that can that can be maybe more you know normal in SAO usually
the international events phases like that upper bracket specialists they very rarely
miss a beat, but in SAO they can have an off day here or there, but they're just on today.
I'm still processing how you fumbled that. That's so rough for BD. I mean, it's not like
they played that the worst ever. It's just that soul is him. Dude, that was insane. Like
we're in the first fight. That's fair enough. Like unlucky lender died on his cut on the window.
then dying to the Blackbeard, like the Blackbeard dying one bullet.
It had to be a headshot. His entire body was covered.
Man, if you're the Blackbeard there, you're kicking yourself.
You didn't really do anything wrong, but you're still kicking yourself.
And now Rare has gone down again.
That was the Blackbeard player from last round.
He's the only hard preacher available for BD in this round.
And he's already gone.
Phase five match points.
And I don't think they're gonna need much more than this one
No, I agree with you James
They're they're on here in Chalet
They're on a heater and it's just gonna be a case of not having labs now whites and we see whether or not
Black dragons can turn things around on the second map of this of the series even if PD were to win this round
They're certainly not winning five straight not the way that face are playing right now and
And they've brought the docker beat the snake and the demos and none of them can really get map control get entry
Yeah, this is
Beatdown it's gonna be seven one. I do want to say on on reflection is you know, this is gonna go in the books as a
Seven one. I don't think this is like seven one beatdown territory when you kind of look at a lot of the rounds how they were played out
BD had some good moments
I don't think they deserve to lose this 71 maybe closer to a 73, but it's flawless and it is 71
That's the reality we live in phase far too good far too dominant on charlotte as they go one up in the series
Poor cyber looks bored. Give him a challenge. Come on. Give us a little bit more than that night Haven labs up next
Handy looks excited KBS cracks a smile. It's one oh up
7-1 for FaZe, PD, look to reply on map 2 in just a few moments, so don't go anywhere.
And it's official. The Kingdom Hearts of FPS games is real. Okay, okay, that's obviously a joke,
but unless you've been hiding in the cave for the past few months, you already know that the main
One character from the Metal Gear franchise is now on a mission inside Rainbow Six.
The legend himself, Solid Snake.
So let's break it down and see what this iconic creation of Hideo Kojima can actually do in
the world of Siege.
Snake is a brand new attacking operator introduced in Operation Silent Hunt and his stats is
got 1 health and 3 speed.
His loadout is just as feisty, the beautiful F2 has his primary weapon and the exclusive
TASIC 0.45S is secondary, which by the way is basically the same suppress pistol he
uses in his own games.
Now, when it comes to secondary gadgets, you've got options, a lot of options.
Frag grenades, stuns, impacts, smokes, and even brief charges, but the real highlight
right here is his signature gadget, the Salaton Raider MK3. This thing doesn't just reveal
defender positions, it also shows which direction they are facing. But don't get too excited.
Charges are limited and enemies will know when you activate it. So yeah, timing is everything.
And that's not all. Snake can also pick up secondary gadgets from eliminated defenders,
him, even more adaptability as the round goes on. Now, to me, everything sounds pretty solid,
maybe a little too solid if I'm being honest. But what do the pros think about this new and very
famous operator?
Perfect, efficient, adaptable, and with a needy to use gadget. Nothing to complain about.
Editor, go ahead and stamp it.
Uproof!
But what about you guys?
Did you like the new operator?
Do you think he's gonna be meta?
Drop your thoughts in the comments.
I'm out for now.
Thanks for watching everyone.
See you next time!
All right. Welcome back everybody to SAEL. Back in my day, things were different. That's
what they would say. But for phase, nothing is different. Control from start to finish,
701 here on Black Dragons on Chalet. We're expecting maybe some changes. We're seeing
some shifts. We're raising some valid questions throughout all of it. And look what we got
at the end. Phase looking a bit bored. It's in cyber that like said, I was saying, maybe
it needs to take a nap at the end of it or just chill for a sec just because they're
not feeling the challenge. But that's just map one. We got to recap it. Biggest failings
there, biggest successes on the face. I thought you know, in phase one invite, they still
were very nonchalant. So I don't know if this series is bringing them the excitement that
they want. That being said, I mean, they play very consistent. And I think casters hit the
nail on the head towards the end. It did seem like Black Dragons was trying to play a little
bit better. I think phase is just miles above understanding the game where they understand
where the gunfights are going to come from. Again, I think that defensive half from Black
Dragons was just so detrimental for the rest of this series. Obviously, I mean, they went down
and five one, they just were extending using a lot of resources to hold library side to
hold an extended part of the map and then giving it away way too easily so that Black
Dragons then have to bunker up. They have a minute, minute 30 on the clock and they
have no utility really left to be able to stop phase and phase knew that they didn't
have to go for plants. They didn't have to go for excuse. They could just sit, everybody
hold an angle and that's where they would clean up and you can see it. I mean, everybody
on phase. They were just doing their job. It was another day in the office for them.
They held their angles. They got their picks. And it was as simple as that. It really was
a Black Dragons tried their best, even in the rounds where they could get the opening
kill, which was only two. They still did not have a much, that much utility left in the
tank later in the rounds, information later in the rounds. They were just using so much
util to extend, but not fighting for it. And that was the biggest downfall for them.
I mean you talk about utility I talk about a futility in a game like this black dragons try to give it their best
phase victorious cyber 10 to 5
Very good very good for face. Honestly. This is one of the most difficult ways to like
The difficult types of matches to discuss because they're like well moves clearly landslide one way
You can only talk about it so many times without regurgitating with the casters are also talking about yeah during the match itself
So I think it's best not just for us, but for black dragons and their sake to throw that first map out the window
Because you might as well
Imagine that it just does not exist. You have to look into the future
If the gaze into the future and see what's going on there, then you have to focus on map number two in the series and
It's to see should that
actually impact this matchup. Will it go to a map three or not? That has to go to
Night Haven labs and I'm mistaken. Yeah. Black Dragons are starting on the attack
on there. Yeah. Not looking good. Not looking good to start out on attack, but
we talked about it. Chalet, a lot more aggressive in the map labs. Now they're
going to play slow. This is Black Dragons bread and butter. They're a team
similar a phase in a way. They got, you know, three to four supportive players.
either a very slow team. The trade aspect was in their own shell a because it's a very fast-paced map. They tried to do it on a map like labs.
You can do it on defense. I think defense will definitely suit them a lot better. But the thing is with attack, it's very difficult. You're very spread out.
You have to take a lot of positions and right now in the 1v1 game, it's not working. I think Black Dragons is best opportunity is going to bring a shield.
We want to see them push phase back, be able to shove them into corners to be able to take position and then focus on the team play focus on the trades.
I think if Black Dragons goes into it and gets maybe two rounds on attack, that's their best bet going into the defensive side and then they can play a lot slower play that defensive style of siege the trades.
the trades. You can be box up like a fish on labs and find a lot of success because there's so many
natural areas that phase is going to have to raise utility on clearing that once they get to the site
it'll be an even playing field. Time will be a lot better but that's that's defense as if they make
it there. First things first and you make sure that they're using some type of utility I think
the yin the mati to push phase back and not lose anybody in the process that's the first step I
I want to see from BD.
All right, let's bring in our castors then, Dev, Zenox.
I was going to bring you back into this one,
get warmed up for Night Haven Labs.
Is that?
Is it definitely going to be a tough fight for Black Dragons,
regardless of how you cut it?
But I'm trying to look at the bright side of life,
as the song usually goes, James.
And I know the music is already ticking in your head,
because that's how your brain works.
And I know you well enough, my friend.
Looking at Night Haven, this start, Black Dragons.
How do you erase that map one for your memory and just starting you into an idea?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm not sure if you can.
You don't hate it. You don't hate that. I can see it on your face. You don't hate to be the bearer of bad news.
You're not a bearer of human.
I can't deal with this Canadian-American humor from you right now.
I'm just, I've not gotten enough sleep last night to process the journey that you know, just like,
I just watched a 7-1, all right, then like, my brain can't keep up with this.
But to answer your question, Gassan, look, Black Dragons are really gonna have to lock their
link because it's not gonna get easier, it's really not. Especially I think that moment where
they fumbled against souls and enabled the 1v3, 1v4, whatever that monstrosity was,
It's moments like that that are just going to really hurt and
going to be very hard to arise from your memory.
Is that also like how you pulled back in your chair?
You're chilling at this point.
You remind me of cyber during the entire game.
The man was just like that the whole match.
I find that whenever I'm around Fox, I'm just chilling.
You know, it's it's that aura that he has.
I think that the one thing to face is they can't go into
into not having a lot of children.
Like they can't just think, well, this is going to be
foregone conclusion and that you know we've kind of got the better of them because if they do that
black dragons are good enough that they can then string together a few rounds can get that momentum
at the end of the day black dragons are fighting for their life here in kickoff you know they want
to make the major as well they'd love nothing more than to knock out face so they'll come back
with a vengeance i think on nine haven lives but it's going to be very difficult to say i think
the easy thing is to predict that face should get the job done and then if anything else happens we'll
ride that wife and see what happens to get there's a big surprise together there
was a point mentioned here that even during the SI final phase did not look
to phase no matter how they were pushed how how much pressure not the first one
that they lost. Not the first one that they lost since Sao Paulo 2024. They came back
from the brink. They lost everything that they thought they had and they were like,
all right, it can't get any worse than that. And since then they've won two championships.
Actually, you know, you know, gentlemen, you know how the phase logo has these five stars on top of
it. I wonder when like how it's going to look like when phase ended up winning everything.
and dude they're gonna have to make more space for for the stars do they go more
horizontal or to start stacking them vertically that's a question I'll leave
up the chat maybe they have some ideas so it'll look pretty cool when they have
six or seven stars
I looked back at the stats just because I'm full of fun facts today Jake phase and black
dragons never played each other on not having laps before this is the first time and they've
played each other for about a million times in history. These two teams, they
said a million times. About one million. Yeah. Get this between these two teams in
all-time history phase is one 251 rounds to Black Dragons 189. None of those to be
played on my heaven labs until today. It's a historic moment that we're a pilot.
That's pretty historic. I mean, I don't think blackjackets really care that much and they just want to win
But they start on the attack here in the first half and I mean, it's every one which this is going to be like a five on half
To phase I wouldn't put it past them on the defense
They're very very strong not even labs and they played incredibly well on shall a 7-1 result
I still don't want to give up on black dragons because I think that they're a really good team
So I have that respect for them if they were playing against any other team
I mean, even in the SL region, I think they'd have a chance phase is just that clinical phase.
Like they really switched on when the when the games matter.
Like that's when they're at their best.
I put them in the best of one group stage or whatever.
And yeah, you know, my drop one here or there and can be a little susceptible to some misplays or mismoments or just an off day.
But in a series, especially a dual dilimitation series, they just don't lose them.
For them to win 7-1, it wasn't even a grind.
It suggests coming into our heaven labs,
this is gonna be difficult ask for Black Dragons.
The Bands, Kaid with the Bander
and Grimm, Monty Bander away from BD.
Of course, the stakes are very high here,
the both teams very high,
but the expectations on FaZe are definitely much more steep
than they are for Black Dragons.
This is the elimination game here in the lower bracket
of S.A.L. kickoff and after winning this game you're going to have to win two more matches
or sorry one more match to qualify for the Salt Lake City Major and I mean it's not going
to be easy because you're talking about coming up against some very tough opponents it's
either going to be Liquid or NIP I believe, IP Furia or Fluxer either way very tough opponent
after this one.
Let me get the floor, really.
Oh, nice drop down from Miracle.
This is not too bad right now for Black Dragons. I mean, yeah, Miracle's low, but they've got a lot of flash utilities still left.
You've got the Blackbeard up and then Swag finds a kill from the exterior onto Handy, who's playing the smoke roll.
So, suddenly, FaZe do look a little susceptible.
This is a great start for Black Dragons, especially being Command Server.
Arguably in my mind one of the best offensive sites in all those seeds across all maps
It's a very difficult site to break down
And now that you get that extra player advantage
You can play the flood game if the time starts to dwindle to the last 20 seconds of the round
You could just flood in play the trade game
Yeah, but they don't want to expose themselves to any one view ones, but he used that black beard
I'll honestly focus up on a plan, but focus up on using the advantage that you get from
the BB and the mazes.
You certainly help with that.
Wow.
Shotgun kill from KBS, and Souls as well to join the fray.
A second one for Souls.
The Blackbeard is gone, and Black Dragons are looking very, very sore at the end of it.
It was a 4v3.
They had a chance to grasp the round, but they wanted to find a single kill before FaZe
close it. Yeah, there's no chance. I give it a go, but it's not happening.
He gets a ninja, but no kill and phase clan just cruise through the first round
pretty handily. Yeah, James, sorry, I'm not I'm not a penguin. I can't I don't
have the expertise, but we typically in the modern era of night having lives
don't see the blue portion that often these days. And for good reason, it's
a pretty long hallway choke point. You have the footholds opened up. So it's
bit of a trap. Now, if you do have the shield, it is probably more possible to push in through there,
but you'd only want to do that if you've got maybe a pinch pressure from rafters and they didn't
have that. They had a player over towards con that could swing in from electrical, that was about it.
So I just think Black Dragon's kind of threw that opportunity away, opting for the blue push,
thinking that maybe they could catch phase off guard, but that's just never going to work.
They're in sight, so that's on top floor very close. The two rooms together, you've got the
foothole angles that you can watch. You still had the Azami, you still had the Pulse as well for
M plus Nitro Cell. Just think that they tried to overthink it a little bit too much and opted for
maybe the worst entry point that you could take. Yeah, I don't disagree. I think if you want to
save this place to plant, it's probably by going for an execute through the conwall and planting
pillar. But if you're worried about C4s worrying about Pulse Shuddy, if you're worried about being
inverted from below then maybe don't go for a plant. You need to find a way to
flood site, use the Blackbeard to your advantage. The fact that they went from a
4v3 to a 0v3, that's the real red flag for me in that round. I like here that
FaZe on the second defense aren't going down to the basement, keep being a bit
unpredictable, go to control room next instead. It's a very unwieldy bomb site.
FaZe are really good at these late rounds. Both teams have been bloody, maybe
It's a 3v3 2v3 type situations. That's where they're really good and this bomb site lends itself perfectly to rounds like that
What's interesting is here for basement site, we're gonna see the clash which is really strong
It's sort of I don't know why I'm crazy. I thought it was control
Sorry
It's early morning James. You get I didn't get I did not get enough sleep last night
I'm so sorry.
The clash on basement isn't something you see all that often.
You can see it when you're wanting to deny that kind of rush.
So you do see it every now and then.
I just don't know if it's like a strong on basement as compared
to say top floor as a good example or even control storage
because you typically deny the vert from above anyway.
So of the three sites that we typically see clashes
effectiveness basement maybe isn't quite as high as the other two
but it can be really good with the modern changes that it got
in terms of its movement around. So you can kind of play it like this that we're seeing
from Vidiking right now, over towards Vending, kind of deny some of these entry positions
and then late round it's really strong being able to put that shield down, SMG. Well that's
a really good frag grenade, that just kept on rolling. Vidiking takes no damage though.
But he's going to be one to watching this round because it is still high skill ceiling
play clash basement on labs. You have so much room to move around and have impact. You just
can't be in a position though where you have no impact and everyone else dies around you.
Oh they shot from handy. He's got the perfect vertical position as well. Sol's taking out Lender,
no more ram, no more twitch and they really need to make good use of this blackbeard. Never mind,
they're not going to do that at all because handy still above has the verticality onto that position
at vending. Know exactly where the clash is. Clash can just continue feeding information to handy to
to peak these medical holes. Not a lot here for Blackjack Institute, I'ma be honest.
Yeah, and that's what Vitikings done while this round. Get info, push up. You know, he's back down in Exo now because of the vert.
Got pushed away from the stairs. They just started to surround Miracle, who dollars actually got the kill on.
But they just can't push through Vitikings anyway. So even though there's eight seconds, the round is done, it's 2-0 start for FaZe.
And while Vitaking wasn't the sole reason why they win this round, he did have a large influence on that clash.
It denied the ability to push down vending stairs. It falls back, plays XO. They can't play the vert. They can't clear him. They can't flush him out. The frag grenade didn't really do anything.
And so then what that does is it stalls them out on that first and even second floor. And that's when FaZe just go and pick up a couple of free kills.
Rez had it all. He's just exited the game. Still five more rounds to go at the very least.
released, right? So get back in.
Don't blame the poor guy. And I really love the way that phase
playing. And look, I took a little bit about the striker on
Chalet, talk about a century here. Any operator that Andy
could have picked to go through his room, what did he go for? He
went for the century. He's got an operator with a decent primary.
I mean, the the commander is not everyone's favorite, but it's
pretty good. It's reasonably high damage for a defender weapon.
He's got a shotgun secondary, so he can make Vert for himself.
He's got impacts and a nitro cell.
So if he gets hunted,
he has the most explosives he could possibly ask for to try and 1v1 a shield,
or to go for a Vert with his C4 or his impacts.
I really like that, the choice there from him to go for that operator out of
so many different possible roamers.
Instead of going, okay, I'm going to pick a Goyo,
set up Utilis, I'm entirely picking selfish Util, but he's opting for a century over something like
a vigil, over something like a solace, I guess the solace was taken, certain different options for
him, every Valkyrie even, and I really like that choice there. Didn't even need to use most of his
explosives in the end, I think he used one impact grenade, but had he been hunted he would have had
Plenty in his arsenal.
I'm not expecting black dragons to to get a lot in this first half because phase room defense labs just need to try and find a way to be competitive.
Are you expecting them to find much in the second half either?
Yeah, I mean, I absolutely. Yeah, to answer that honestly, I think black dragons, even against phase should be able to win defensive rounds on labs.
especially on the top floor, right? So like, I just got to try and keep it close. The first round was very winnable. You said it best. It went from a 4v3 to 0v3. I had that chance to steal that top floor, you know, get the momentum early on. Second round was just the shambles because of the way the phase really played it.
than, you know, that and that's the issue is when you get the opportunity, you've got to take it.
And I think on Chalet, that's a good case point that map, they would not, yeah, it's a 7-1, but
there was many rounds in there that were winnable for Black Dragons that could have and maybe should
have been like a 7-3 loss at the very least. And the fact that it ended up being 7-1, clearly,
to me, indicates that they just didn't take the opportunities when they were presented. And
quite literally, you get to the first round on the second map and the same thing happens again.
It's another round that you had an opportunity presented to you and you couldn't take it.
And that's for me the alarming part of the series that's now already followed into this is that
they're losing the rounds where Faiz are playing their best, goes without saying,
but they're also losing the rounds when they've had opportunities.
So that's putting them into this now beatdown territory where Faiz are obviously 7-1 and
on the first map and 2-0 on the second.
Yeah, and look, FaZe beats Flix of W7M on this map just in the upper bracket game not
long ago, on the flip side of that, Black Dragons, they haven't played this or haven't
won this, I should say, since it's this invitational.
And to their credit, they did get an overtime win against G2, and a regulation win, quite
a dominant regulation win against D plus Kia.
It's not terrible results for Black Dragons, but of course BD made a rush to change.
S.I. Whereas FaZe still have their two-time championship winning roster. I just think in terms of recency bias
I would favor FaZe on this map in terms of starting sides
I favor FaZe in the first half and in terms of the caliber of teams these
Both of these teams have played their caliber of their opposition on Nighthaven Labs
They're also favorite FaZe and Flux W7 and BigScarp to take here on Nighthaven
So, well, look, I agree, BD need to not sweat too much if they lose a few attack rounds.
They do still need to gun for two or three.
I mean, I think a one-five here is probably not going to be enough.
Not just because it's hard to come back from a five-one, but it's the mental aspect of it.
Obviously, this team has clearly been very much aware that they're going up against a team that shall after them the last time they burst.
But it's nice to see that there are still a few smiles on the facecamps.
Hopefully that stays even if they start to run away with this league.
I mean the beauty of this game over the years James, we've been privy to quite a lot of
these moments where we say that it's going to be one sided and have every right and same
that, and then it's just at some point something changes and it becomes competitive.
And so you always hold out hope that that's going to be the case.
If you were to put a statistics on it, I mean, 77% of statistics are made up, but I'd say 90% of the time, in this case, phase win, right?
And there's that little 5 to 10% chance that you get one of the historical moments where Black Dragons pull off something incredible.
Now, there hasn't been enough in the series so far to suggest that's going to happen.
But it can happen at any moment.
You know, you could be 3-0 down and then suddenly they just flick the switch, they win three straight attacking rounds and off we go and something crazy happens.
So they've just got a whole
It would be but and in the same moments have happened over the many many years of this game
But it has to happen now because they've had the tactical time out
They're gonna bring a glass blitz combo play and there you go to attacking kills to straight up
Cyber does respond at least with the nitro
Miracle then goes down so 5v3 the 3v3 in the blink of an eye
like the way that souls using that as army to get aggressive and off angle impact does not land and he gets
swung by lender taken down not likely to be safely revived here unless his face can find the pick on
swag and go for a cover I think that is going to try and finish him off with the taser or the laser I
should say he's going to try and go for a rest here the twitching drone is going to see him try to
get as much damage on as he can but won't get quite enough you need 20 damage only 5 per shot
in terms of shotgun in close range big from cyber swag put down now rare force to try and find a
quick plant as lenda moves him to cover cyber's gonna have full information on this with a cardiac
sensor and while the plant will go down a 3v2 retake is very much doable here with cyber
find the first kill with the reaper it's lenda up against the world yeah i mean getting the plant
down great job for BD, but unfortunately then you're in a post plant situation where lender
can't really help out rare. They know exactly where he's going to be. So I can find him
with the heart beat sensor and then it's just an easy kill certainly from above as well.
And now it's just a three V one. They'll push together, double stock cargo, souls as low
as going to be careful side of them from behind. Good pinch with souls between cyber and souls.
Handy then was going to the kids and had all bases car. They had the pinch. Then they got
handy on the care phase with the round and it goes back to what I was saying
before James. It's another missed opportunity for Black Dragons. There were
five feet five five V three up in that round. So they've led in the first round
and they've led in the third round and there's zero three down. I had chances.
It's incredible how phase even in the the minutiae of moments they are just so
damn consistent. They do not make mistakes on that retake that could have
gone wrong so easy that was very clutchable for the twitch but they played it just to perfection
and that's just classic phase for you you're right so many little moments
that turn an advantage for black dragons back into phases favorite now interesting operator
choice band out here with the thermite don't often see that obviously all the other hard
breaches are still in that tin can opens got a subana and maverick but the thermite is what opens up
massive breach with the thermite bands a couple of things firstly you can fight the breaches a lot
more because you have fewer angles to worry about it's a smaller hole even with aces,
cellmers secondly you can retake breaches very aggressively with the Izami because if you keep
those keepers in pocket you can plug up an ace breach a Hibana breach or even a secondary hard
breach very easily with a keeper barrier and then look to make plays on the back of it the
The phase was really good that we saw that attempted by souls last round to try and find that blitz, but it was on a doorway.
Now they can do that on every breach they want, even IT here.
Or they could try and trick the cellars with this mirror window, which might actually be what they're planning on doing.
It's also applicable to the three sites.
And you think about breach basement, you think about IT on both the tertiary and the main floor.
It's a decent ban. I like the clash ban as well. I mean we only saw it in the one round
But it had influence and had impact. It's very strong on top floor very strong on the tertiary
It had damage onto cyber
This is the one side I have blitz with no expectation for black dragons, but they were competitive in the opening round
4v3 advantage at one point
I need to just kind of roll in very nicely though today. They're not doing a lot wrong.
They're not presenting mistakes to black dragons for them to capitalise upon the grounds that
black dragons have been competitive in. It's just when they're stepping up their game for
what he meant to do against that cyber with a wonderful swing from IT onto Miracle. He's
poking and prodding sat around a little too long. That is just clinical and it's those
plays and those short streams that we've seen more way more from phase than we have from
Black Dragons. And notice how he takes out the DMR player and then immediately puts down a
Keeber barrier. As soon as Cyberguess that kills Sol says, well, you're telling me that my Keeber
isn't a lot safer. Of course, there is another DMR on our Lord, but I mean, it's just so smart from
phase BD, you know, try and switch up the attack with the try and take from Conor Cross.
Yeah, these Keeber barriers are really slowing them down swag, finding a big kill
Onto vittikin. This is a nice little angle. Top of the reinforcement opened up.
I think it's going to be ultra cautious about how they expose themselves on the bomb site.
Yeah, and if they don't expose themselves, those kind of angles then diminish. They have the
diminishing returns even though you get a pick from it. Like this is not going to change much in
the last 30 seconds because eventually you're going to have to push into site. I mean, it's why
it's the one who has the diffuser in hand. They lose lenders and they don't have candellas. In fact,
They have a zero utility except for the two smoke bolts from our wall
That's the only utility to execute into the hardest side on the map
Gaby has got all the information you could possibly want he's got the shotgun for the close range fighters
No universe where he loses this but he doesn't even need to take the fight because he can come in with his last gas babe
Now no more you tilt for phase. It's just about gone up in the last 25 seconds
I guess both ways doesn't it and now they got the extra player so phase can play the
trade game to hold the angles not much black dragons are gonna do here.
Not at all.
Swag 1v4, good luck son.
Try to pay out of swing just look at the discipline from phase.
Ice cold as always for the two time more chance just look at their faces it's another day in
the office barely broken a sweat.
the lip board. Four rounds in a row. And Black Dragon's getting no closer to getting an attack
on the board. Yeah, I mean, it's been a devastating half. Again, it's they've had opportunities
in the first and the third round. And that's been about it. But if they had to take in
those opportunities and if it was a two to scoreline, you'd be sitting here singing their
braces and saying, well, two opportunities to go top floor locked away. Maybe this is
on. But reality is for nothing. Like technically, even if Black Dragons win the next two rounds,
James, it's still probably not enough to really solidify themselves a strong position in the map.
Faze are going to be clinical on the attack as much as this is Defender-sided. They're going to be
stealing rounds on the attacking side. Well, look at Nighthaven Labs so far,
SCL for kickoff. It's been played five times up to this point. So a decent sample size. It's
sitting at 62.5% defensive win rate which is about pretty much I would say
par for its overall statistics as a map sense coming into the game. Yeah in theory
I mean Black Dragons could win the next two rounds and then they just need a
4-2 split on their defense to push overtime at which point they would
probably be on defense and overtime but man it's a stretch and one thing's for
sure is if you go any worse than the next two rounds then you can win the next
two by your chances of making salt lake city here and you look at how the track
record's been these last four rounds Jake black dragons have only got one or
two kills in each of the rounds we've played so far that is a grim state of
affairs yeah that handy has the entire teams kills matched himself six that's
It's just handy. It's, you know, it's, uh, yeah, it's grim. It's really grim.
So I think they're just going to try and send it solid snake into rafters.
They got a good opening kill. That's much better. I mean, this is a big power plate
right now from black dragons to just try and overwhelm them in the top floor.
It is basement site. It is completely vacated by the defense. And yet black dragon said,
you know what, screw it. We're just going to play into the Rome game.
Lovely entry on the snake. Oh, and then they catch handy as well. This is much better from black dragons
And now again 5v3, but they've been in this position before James and still lost the rounds
Big round from our law though, and I think the snake is the perfect ingredient for it as well
But swag is low HP and we've seen rare
Give away too many chances when he's on this blackbeard
He should be the instrumental operator bit phase keep finding him big 3k for outlaw
He's finally on the scoreboard and he's found a triple. Now FaZe need to really fire up Viddiking and KDS together.
Viddiking finally puts outlaw down. Ren is to get active. He is the Blackbeard. He can be instrumental.
Viddiking was covered for a brief moment. He managed to get away. Lot of damage done. Very low HP as KDS and Viddiking together
exposed but fall back towards the bomb side. Now it's Black Dragon's chance to try and flood and match them with this energy.
with this energy, but three players are already low.
Yeah, I'm sorry, it's KDS, but as you mentioned,
the low health for Black Dragons is concerning.
For Lender and Rare, they just lost another one as well.
This is 40 seconds, 2v3 now, very winnable for FaZe.
Black Dragons are still gonna have to be very perfect
as they head towards the side.
That's a lot of least eyeball from both of them
and it's totally miracle.
It can't surely happen again.
It was a 5v2.
And it was, and Miracle has been touched in the long time, got a shot, needs to land
another one like that, but KDS on one HP, it doesn't bloody matter if your name is FaZe.
Finally, they crack a smile, they get tested, and yet they come out on top again.
I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. Genuinely speechless. It's basically
just me repeating what I said before, James, which is they've had opportunities in both
maps and every single opportunity, every opportunistic moment. Like, Jackens have either fumbled
it or you could say phase of clutched up to one or the other and maybe a combination of
both. That's to be real. Like it's not a case of Black Dragon's making monumental errors or
mistakes. It's phase clutching up. It's phase winning the big moments. It's phase not giving up on a
round. So there's two ways you can kind of look at it. And I prefer to go down that route because
they're the back to back SFI champions. They're that good. And if you're Black Dragons, you're
sitting back while saying if we were playing anyone else, we've probably won an extra four or five
rounds across the two maps, but you're playing phase and you have to be clinical and flawless
every single round, every single second.
And so we look back at the most recent match results from these two teams, right? So right now
5-0 in favor of phase. Time before that, 7-1 on Chalet. The time before that, 7-0 on Clubhouse.
the two times before that both is eximitational both seven one black dragons man they just
cannot keep pace with phase it has to be mental this is how this team yeah i think it's mentally
about the opposition it's not mechanically and mechanically they've had really good
moments in this series and even strategically they've had good moments just something mentally
they just cannot find a way to deal with their demon who they just have a phase and have their number in it and
That's something that can be worked on but not from putting hours into you know the tech into the into the server
It's probably hours put outside of the server
And I will have such a good previous round
But it looks like this is where they finally falter they finally roll over throwing everything that they've got at face
with the ying, the blackbeard, the lot and the doccabee, but there's nothing to be done.
Bit of damage on the three players from FaZe and yet they still have the confidence to swing.
It won't be flawless, but Solz has found a triple kill. Rare is now the last one standing,
the blackbeard again. He has failed to get it done for BD over and over again. And while he's
got that defuse and he's close to the bomb site, there's no chance, no hope in hell that he could
land it. I mean, thanks for just putting on an absolute show right now. But if you're
blackjackens, you have to really sit back and wonder how are we ever going to beat these
guys if we just mentally crumble every single time?
Big question. I know a perfect person to call in to try to answer that. It's my good friends,
me, Larsson Fox.
Wow, thank you very much, Dev Marta. Yes, indeed. We're on the call here to try to figure out how the hell
Black Dragons get back into the 6-0 for faceclan. There have been some clear rounds that have been
mind-boggling as to quote, it doesn't bloody matter, Fox.
I would say that I don't think there's a world where they come back from it, even in this
round in round 5, where it was a 2v4, and kid, this is one HP, they somehow are just
letting Vita King walk through the whole site, Miracles hiding in a corner, and that unfortunately
I guess all of his teammates killed,
it just looks like Black Dragons are scared for the lives.
I don't think there's a world where they come back from this.
Yes, they're on defense.
Yes, it's not even labs.
Absolutely, it's possible to see the impossible happen.
But that being said, it really comes down
to the mentality of it.
It just looks like Black Dragons have already accepted defeat.
It doesn't seem like they're really playing together
or trusting in their systems at all.
And it looks like each individual player is also just scared.
I think that round five really pictures there
gives you the picture of that
because miracle is supposed to be watching for the push he's hiding
everybody else is alone there's one view once
no trades happening no communication happening
these are just a mile amount above these guys because they're shutting down
the information
they're constantly repositioning themselves so you never know what they're
going to be
and they are just amazing players individually it's their possible to be
there's a lot of these rounds where you can see an opening
fundamentally it just looks like black dragons have already lost it mentally
and that's the biggest downfall so i don't imagine
is a way that they come back.
I mean, defense night having labs,
that's I guess the one possibility,
a 1% chance where they can bring it back
is because it is a very small map
and they could just win based off of the map aspects.
A fear of the dark, in this case,
a fear of face clan.
They're Martin Xenox, all yours.
Look, Jake, I know you're the king of comebacks
on not having labs, but so.
No, not happening.
Not happening.
Yeah.
I would say it convinced her there's a fair chance.
There's a fair chance, but.
Mentally, I wouldn't be surprised that they're just already boomed.
Right.
I don't.
I'd love to be in their position or even just ask them right now.
Live.
Live.
Live.
Live.
Live.
Live.
Live.
Live.
Live.
What are you guys even thinking like you're on the second map you six are down. You're not going to go to the major you're going to get knocked out here kickoff.
Do they still hold hope is there a semblance of hope even if minor is it just sort of one round at a time mentality like I'd just love to be a fly on the wall.
In the black dragon camp and figure out just sort of what they're thinking about because this must be an awful position to be in when you know you're essentially done.
done. And you're kind of just playing it out now. Do you throw caution to the wind? I mean,
but it's command server. How much could you really do to dictate things? They'll be disappointed
that again, they've just completely gotten destroyed in terms of the map scorelines as
you were referencing before. You know, seven one on Chalet, six zero here on my head from
labs as positive as I've tried to be. The reality is that they've just not taken their
opportunities when presented, and there certainly has been opportunities, but
FaZe have just been able to be so clinical and so good and rise above to
a really high level in this series that Black Dragons haven't had a chance.
Yeah, unless Black Dragons win the next two rounds in a row, that'll be the last
five maps these teams have played each other either being seven or seven one
for FaZe, which is an insane head to head result. Like we've said, like you
talking about last round. It's not just that FaZe are better than Black Dragons, that we know.
There's something about the specific matchup between these two teams that FaZe kind of really
become the bogeyman for Black Dragons. The team that just cannot get past that mental block for.
That's the thing. I think it is just mental. I genuinely believe that. And it's a pretty common
in sports he sports alike that there are just some match up some teams v teams players who players where it is actually more mental than anything
I'd love for black dragons to kind of go away from kickoff heading into stage one and just work on that
There's nothing wrong with the way that they've played strategy wise and certainly mechanics haven't been an issue either
just a lot of rounds that have lost 5v3s, 4v3s, not able to close rounds out when they've
had advantages late round. And I think just against this team in particular, it's just
like a nightmare matchup. We're not going to go down without a fight, which is good.
In fact, they get the second. Again, none of them in labs, defense, especially command
servers very very strong still I meant what a counterface that even in the
3v5 and seen too many rounds from a disadvantage deployed back you can't
be losing this you certainly can't afford to but souls brings it back rare
struggled on the blackbeard how you're struggling against it but why is he
There's a way open sport. It's a great question and one that sadly we're probably not gonna get an answer for
Rare just taking unnecessary risk in your 5d3s. You need to be just consolidating
Don't need to go for plays. We've got two C4s. We've just lost one C4 from rare going down
Give phase an inch and I'll take a mile here
How did the plan will be electrical con side play off the black beard kind of do what black
dragon should have done in the first half of your call when they went to the blue push
and they probably should have gone this way instead.
They do still have a frag grenade smokes as well from both Vidikin and KDS so it's always
just going to check.
He doesn't have anyone here though there is one electrical guy he's got his own gun on
Vidikin did fall 2v3 15 seconds.
This is actually so winnable, but no, maybe that kill will make it not so.
It's possible for souls to open up and entrance into the site, KDS finds one, but Lender replies
and we finally get around on the board for Black Dragons.
It's time to fire up and make sure that they make this a second and a third.
It's a long road back to overtime.
Yeah, I mean, look, command server is a very difficult egg to crack when you're a 5v3,
even 4 phase, but this is when now this opens up.
Look, comebacks happen basically this more than anyone, especially on this map.
And if you're Black Dragons, it's now a case of can you win basement, can you win the
Territory?
At that point, you get to go back to top floor, and before you know it, blink, and it's
from six zero to six four. And then you can start to build that belief. And at that point,
if you get to six four, it's like, well, why can't we do this again? We just did it now.
Easy said than done. And it's just kind of painting the path, the potential pathway.
So these next two rounds, and that's kind of like framing from a mental side of things,
the aspect of what's at hand. You don't look at this as a six one scoreline. You look at
from site and round by round perspective. There's an old man who used to say he didn't look at the
scoreboard. I think his name was digital many many years ago. The scoreboard was irrelevant
and every round was like zero zero and that's the thinking that black dragons need to be
mindset wise in right now. Focus on this round then the next one. Guess what? Back to the safe
Haven of Top 4. Comebacks happen all the time in Siege. They do, they do. It would be a hell of a
long break for Black Dragons after today if they get eliminated here. It's a long time between now
and stage one. You sit back and you're eliminated from the rest of kickoff, get on your scrims,
Romek, Salt Lake City. No chance to fight in the Major again. And it'd be a long time
between drinks and playing in official tournaments. Not really what you want if you're a professional
player. Faze Clan have so many second chances. They just look to put some pressure on these
Roma's swag and Lenda tempted to peel back but I think swag is still holding on.
I'm kind of looking at the way they're playing this right now is the outlaw in the off-menoposition
of meeting pop-floor, whereas like vending cargo, pretty normal positions, Miracles just
just going to play basement and then swag, we're in that sort of kitchen area as well.
So Alan swag are going to be the two that need to be the most careful, but also the
most active here on the defense for black dragons. So I just have rotated. He's gone
vending outlaws, giving up top floors only minute 20 left to do. That's a lovely entry
from Katie. Yeah. So that is not as easy as he's made it look.
Oh well, we're done. Back to back 7-1s.
Mate, it's something about BO3s between these teams. It was back-to-back 7-1s at SI, and
maybe it looks to repeat itself here. KDS, and let's follow this guy on the Solid Snake.
He's very close to getting the ability to detect swag in the cafeteria hallway, and he
He wants to make his way down the stairs.
Miracle on the bomb site.
Somewhat exposed on the other side of a soft wall.
And Cyber and Sol's together are very close.
As soon as Handy rounds his corner, Miracle will be exposed surely.
He wants to make the entry half and be among at the ready.
So he's the first one.
He's going to be down, he's going to be up for an accident.
Finishes it off!
Swag has been taken down.
Triple in the round for KDS!
Five versus one.
Let's see how many kills you can get. It's already been called by Vita King, FaZe, Stride,
past black dragons, eliminating them from kickoff. And they start this lower bracket
run to the major.
I don't even know if it was intentional. BM with the FF, which is kind of short for
for and then obviously F and G on the keyboard next to each other. So maybe you did actually
mean GG, which is what he said in the chat as well. So one, seven, one, as much as we
want to try and frame this as much as I've tried to frame this as BD having opportunities
and having okay moments and just maybe the mental scars and the mental demons of playing
this phase roster who again just made zero mistakes. I think that's the biggest takeaway
for me. So when you play that many rounds of siege and how often did we really see phase
make mistakes or make errors or not take certain opportunities? Very pretty much like never.
Like let's be honest. So they were pretty much on from the get go. They're now one series away
from the major James. And that's all that's important. That means that one of the teams
that's still in that upper bracket is going to lose that first best of three drop and play phase and has a
Difficult task ahead of them. So they there is one team up there
That's like with one best of three away from the major
They're gonna lose and then they're gonna have to play phase. It's it's difficult. Yeah, it's crazy
I mean, I really get to see back-to-back seven ones in a beer three
But the only real surprise today is that phase is even in the long bracket to begin with and of course we've got our analyst segment
Let's please break that down. If there is anything left to break down
You know, maybe I should be breaking down after that
Well, it seems like black dragons definitely were face client victorious. No two ways around it
Let's try not to recurgitate all of the same points that we've been on about the entire night Fox phase
Or the best team in the world for a very good reason. I think they've proven that again
They looked very bored
Just like they were playing with their food the entire game black dragons gave it their own by no means are they a bad team?
But at the same time it just shows you the level of
Quality of difference that we have in a matchup like this
That's just how it goes forgive forgive my French my analysis in this point
I don't want to take too much away from your points Fox, but to me sometimes even for
or an old man like myself that doesn't know anything about anything. Some things are very
clear. Yeah, sometimes that's just how the cookie crumbles. And just goes to show that
there really is levels to it. I mean, you don't win back to back invites with having
off days really. I mean, even in phases lost, that's what W7NM literally two rounds could
have completely changed the tides for phase being the winners in that match. And I've
to show how much of a positive
what it was for flexor W7M.
How good phase is how much of a
level difference there really is
compared to being able to win
invite, let alone participate
in your own professional leads
in the SAO or whatever region it
must be. So for phase at the end
of the day, they didn't look like
they have taken the foot off the gas.
It really did look like they were
playing with a chip on their
shoulder. If this was the type of
I'm sure they were one a lot more convincingly to phase just look the very good very confident and you can see the levels of it because we don't get games like this often where one of the best teams in the world is able to just show out each individual player can have highly after highlight when you watch international tournaments.
see it's you know most of the time one kill gets traded immediately two top
teams kill trade kill trade today we saw a lot of big individual performances I
mean so had a huge clutch on Chalet he continued that run of terror dominating
into night haven labs so it's great and it's entertaining to see despite it
being a 7-1 big players from phase be able to have those huge standout rounds
be able to go on killing sprees so you know not to harp on you know trying to
I'm trying to think of things that you haven't already said, but that being said, I mean Black Dragons
as a whole, it was an all right season. You know, they started out pretty hot.
There's a lot to take away going into stage one as for phase the run continues.
I don't see them letting up. I can't imagine them not making Salt Lake City.
So hopefully they don't have any more hiccups and continue this run of having,
you know, chip on their shoulder, like I've said, and hopefully we'll see them.
Hopefully, hopefully for them, hopefully for all the fans, mostly probably from North
America that will be attending the event, looking forward probably to seeing phase and
action for those that were not able to witness them in Boston at the Invitational because
that was a great showing in its own way.
If there's looking so, so good through it, I it's just, they're just, just so good.
And it's just you watch face play and you're like, this is why I watched this game.
why I love watching professional Siege because they're just the epitome of the best of the best.
Anyways, let's have a chat with JP and see if he can explain anything more to us.
Hello, hello JP. Good to see you once again. It seems like the entire team was a bit bored today.
Maybe they needed a bit more action to get them started, but I want to talk to you about a bit
bit of the action that happened on the last playday on Sunday, your game against
Flexor W7M. Talk to me about what happened there because it was so close
between you two. Great match, but I'm sure that you guys were not super happy
with the result. Yeah, we had a good start on LAPS, our pick. Things were the way we
planned, but the second map and Consulate, things start to like to be harder than
the usual, but not because it was hard.
You were playing the situations.
The way we used to play on screens,
and the game started to get out of our control at some point.
And on child, I was basically thinking,
as a conflict, by the end of the game, we talked.
We can't let this happen again.
We have to play 100% the way we play on screens on game day.
I don't know what happened that day with us.
even though I was weird, you know this.
But yeah, to me it was a different mindset
before they can start and it'll be a good.
Yeah, I mean, it sure looked like a different mindset.
And my question is mostly about the mindset.
I mean, we see plenty of teams, they'll win an event,
they come back home, they get complacent,
they don't take it as seriously because they won.
You guys never really had that.
You guys have always been so consistent.
But that being said, that loss to flexor W7M, is it good sometimes to lose, to just have
a little bit of a wake up call, a little bit of a refreshing moment of, oh, okay, well,
we don't want to lose again because it looked like you guys came today, like you said, with
a different mindset, a little angry, like you wanted to make a statement.
Yeah, at some point, losing games, it's better to you that you just won.
Like, did you, did you gain that feel awesome?
I during the group stage wasn't a good example too because we get this as fuck to look at
game but people thought like we were playing border because we are throwing the game but
was our first test of the map and losing that the way it was like throwing clutches to them
was one of the lessons to bring the hammer back home again and I think like last game
against Luxo was like one of the examples too. We left a little bit in that game and was a game
that showed us we can do it again. Even if it's like a kickoff in an original tournament,
we have like great things here. If you sleep a little bit, they will not fuck up you. So yeah.
Yeah, like honestly, you take me back to that G2 match you had in that side. It's a very good
point that you raise you should have beaten them 17 times over in that match
but hey that's just it doesn't matter at this point right you won the whole
thing you celebrated you you took it all that's at the end of the day that loss
might have been the catalyst that took you to the final and got you to win in
the way that you did nobody knows we can't really predict it isn't in the
day it was phase that was victorious so now my question is to you I don't know
exactly how the bracket is functioning I would assume that you no longer can
face, flex it up seven months at the very end. So I'm expecting you would either play
Liquid or Ninjas Pajamas. Who do you think you're going to play against in the lower
bracket?
I mean, we're going to be prepared, no matter the team, but today I think Liquid needs a
better team than NIP. So I think we can play NIP, most of the day.
All right, very much looking forward to it then. JP, thank you again. Congratulations
on a massive massive win today against Black Dragon 7171. We'll get to see you this weekend then
as you continue your run in your lower bracket. Until then, take care my friend. Bye bye.
And there it is, JP wrapping things up. This is our match summary. It was a quick one.
Honestly, I was expecting to stay up until five, six a.m. It's 2.45. I think we're calling it a
quick and easy night with these two matches. I expected a bit more maybe, but at the end of the day
we got what we got and FaZe are victorious, Los are victorious, as well as the defeated
Aintesed. Both Aintesed and Black Dragons are out of their running for the Salt Lake City
Major. They'll be watching from home and trying to down as many sugar-filled cookies and sugar
drinks that are not coffee as if they are in Utah, Fox.
Is that a thing? I don't know that.
Yes, they don't do sugar.
No sugar.
They don't.
That's what that's the thing. No, no, no caffeine.
No caffeine.
Okay. Well, sugar and spice and everything nice.
Cyber as the MVP for the matchup today.
I mean, when is he?
He's the bojo judge of the game.
Yeah, I guess, you know, he is just always showing up. And I think it's, it's great to see him participate in games like these where she is just dominating because we've seen phases transition throughout the years of them trying to incorporate cyber in different roles, adjusting him.
People know what cyber is going to be doing. They know he's on alert. They know he's getting these kills and at events
We'll see phase transition into different areas, but when you get to watch him in his element phase
dominate
They do indeed there is you see four teams will be qualified to the Salt Lake City Major
But that is not until
The end of this week by Sunday night will know all four teams
We've got three teams, two in the grand final on the upper bracket and the winner of the lower bracket final
They advanced into phase two of the major whereas the team that loses in the lower bracket
Yes, they qualify but they will be playing from phase one
Which is a lot more complicated if you ask me and I think they know it themselves
Faze are definitely looking to take the win all the way to the end
and get themselves ahead at the Salt Lake City Major at the top.
It's looking pretty hot.
No two ways around it.
Team Liquid Alienware NIP, Fury Yard, Foxo W7M.
I'm telling you that next playday on Saturday is going to be a lot of fun.
Fox, is this your last day here?
Yeah, sure is because in a couple of days I have to go do NA and I believe I will be
flying to Denmark to do it in studio with everybody.
Very much looking forward to the action there.
So it'll be your first time in that studio, right?
Yeah, first time in that studio,
first time in Denmark, I believe.
So that'll be exciting.
I've never been there.
Don't know what they got out there though.
Great pastry.
Tell you that.
English pastry.
Okay.
Don't show this to my local French immigration office,
but the Danes do pastry better than the French,
which is a very high bar to clear already.
So there's something for you to enjoy.
Maybe in the meantime,
you can bring some gifts over to the team in Denmark.
Maybe some recommendations and what they can do in Utah,
come to Salt Lake City Major.
So Fox, thank you very much.
Not just for tonight, but for previous playday
and for spending time here together,
talking about some of the best teams out there and seeing their ones so far,
which are the best in NAL as you prepare for your travels.
Many kisses to your beautiful cat because very, very pretty.
It's, uh, it's always part of the pre-show as we set ourselves up for today.
Anything like to say, anything expectations ahead of the weekend.
I'd like to hear who do you think is actually going to qualify for
Masay out to Salt Lake city.
I was going to try to find where my cat is, but I think she's outside.
I think from the SAL, if I had to predict and if this is how the bracket goes, Liquid
beats NIP.
So NIP would play phase.
Phase obviously wins.
Furia versus Flexo wins.
Flexo play or Furia plays Los Furia wins.
So I'd imagine it would be Liquid, Furia, Flexo, Phase qualifying.
That's my opinion. Of course, it's going to be the probably the most the lightest take
because those are currently the four best teams in the SAO. But that being said, it's
exciting when they go up against each other. So very much looking forward to it. Thank
you very much, Fox. Again, wish you all the best with the NAL broadcast in the studio.
We'll be done with SAO kickoff this weekend. So I'm telling you the next few days between
I guess between EML, between APL, between CNL that's going on, SAO, and NAO, it's going
to be so much that's going on to just wrap things up and kick off and see all the teams
that are qualifying to the Major.
So then, wish you a wonderful night.
We'll see you on Saturday and Sunday, the last two days of SAO.
Take care.
We love you.
Good night.
I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going till I hate you