I
Next
Man, where is Jonah at?
Well, I'm getting tired of this. What the fuck?
Oh, the weighty's over there.
Thanks, Lacks. I saw your illustration yesterday.
I wanted to do one of my own.
What you're looking at here is the strength of M80.
Not hot and cold, but Maru, his cat in the back.
And what you're about to see is looking technique
unlike I've ever seen.
Watch this path.
Maru takes from the back, all the way over to the front,
step by step, and now you've got a clean cat.
Welcome to day three of the playoffs here in the U.S.
in the NAL kickoff. It is a big day today. We are sending two teams to the Salt Lake City
Major. Welcome in everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jonas Wilinger alongside
Foxe and Laxing as always guys. It is a little cliche. I think it's fair to say expect the
unexpected, but we are two days in and we have seen expectation defying results. I mean,
the whole stage so far has been expecting the unexpected. We had so many rookie teams
They've all been performing well.
We have the opportunity and a guarantee that one of them
will be able to make it to Salt Lake City.
A brand new face there.
MAD got eliminated yesterday.
I mean, there's so many things that we could have not
anticipated that have happened just because this stage has
been so competitive, so close.
And I'm excited to see the rest of the match to play out.
Heartbreaking.
I mean, it definitely is.
You know, you work all this way to this point.
Obviously, we see MAD exit.
We see Cloud9 exit.
I mean, today we aren't sending anyone home,
but we are going to be sending some teams to SLC
And then other teams lower back to see who they will follow in suit and see if they make
SLC or the run goes a little so short.
Well, it was a big day yesterday, as we said.
Heartbreaking.
Yes, we had to send two teams home starting with Cloud9 and SSG.
Yeah, Cloud9 and SSG was a expected matchup.
We wanted to see a lot more from Cloud9, come show us something that we haven't
seen throughout the regular stage.
Some improvement.
And I think it was just a little too late.
There was some glimmers of hope, but that being said, SSG, I mean bouncing
back from that first day one loss. They looked amazing, incredible entries from Raid and Aiden,
the way that they were just playing Systematic Siege. It really was a performance from SSG.
Yeah, and then getting to the second match, I mean this is the one that I think, you know,
all expectations aside, people won't know what we were going to see, especially out of the
side from SR. We already saw what M80 was able to muster in their match in the close game,
but they did have to fight tooth and nail. Both these teams actually, and all three of
these maps had to fight for it, but it was the rebellion at the very end going into maps
who we saw that resurgence. We saw them start to come alive. Once they got it done, once
we got on that third map, they started defense on Clubhouse and they had a stellar defense
where they only need to do so little on their attack. And now it puts them one step closer
to SLC. But with Cloud9 and M80 out of the picture,
and Shopify Rebellion, they move on,
waiting to see who they play next.
Five Fears, one of 30, DarkZero and Wildcard.
Two of those four teams will make the major today.
But they all have two chances here,
so it doesn't mean it's over yet.
And that is what today is all about, Fox.
We are going to see which of these teams
make it in their very first opportunity.
We haven't seen one of 30 or DarkZero
in best of threes yet.
They had the buy coming in.
I mean, what an opportunity for these two teams
to just lay down the law right off the bat.
I mean, I'm glad that you mentioned that we haven't seen
five years and our zero have a chance to play
just because, yes, getting one game away
from being able to make Salt Lake City major is amazing.
But that being said, you sat and you watched
and it's about what teams will do at that time.
And sometimes that pressure, not practicing
in the past few days, getting matches in can ice you
and can bring a situation where you're going up
against teams that already have a win under their belt.
And for the two teams that we're hoping
to see keep the same level of consistency, dark zero in five years.
I think even though this stage has been very rapid, if they can maintain consistency,
it gives us good hopes with them potentially going to Salt Lake City.
Well, it's a big opportunity for these teams to be competing on home soil, essentially,
in Salt Lake City, a U.S. major for the North American League.
Everyone else, you can also join us at the Salt Lake City Major.
Tickets are available now, as I said, an opportunity to catch
your favorite North American League teams right in your very own backyard.
We kick things off May 15th through 17th.
That's when the playoffs, that's when the finals will be.
So you can join us on stage at the Salt Palace Convention Center.
We'll be giving away two tickets later on today.
So stay tuned for that.
Lacks, I heard you know a little bit about Salt Lake.
I know a lot.
Mountains, my family, the Major's going to be there.
I mean, it's, you know, I believe it or not.
You know, I do. I do have a couple cousins out there.
Do they got any pepper out there?
Salt Lake?
It's the first time I've heard that.
I had no idea you had family out there.
That'd be really fun.
But we dive into our very first matchup of the day,
five fears and one of 30.
And this is a big deal here, because we're looking at young teams.
Teams that nobody expected to get to this point.
Five fears especially.
Coming in as the team that almost got relegated
at the end of last year.
now have defined themselves with this identity of aggressive attacks, shield-based attacks,
and it's been working for them so far.
It has. A lot of teams throughout the league pretty much have described Five Fears as one
of those teams that relies a lot on shields. That they're a shield-crushed team. But if
you take it one step further, I mean not everyone's playing shields on the roster,
but if you take it one step further, if you look at it statistically, out of the
four matches that are played in the regular stage, shields have only been three times.
There's so many bands that you could go for and it was only banned three times.
Now why is that?
It's because they have two amazing shield players with JJ Blast and Forest and they can
play each individual shield in a completely different way.
So unless you're using all the bands to ban all the shields, you're really not hurting
Five Fears at all.
But that being said, teams are more focused on the class, on the ying.
Stuff that we haven't seen from Five Fears really that much yet.
And there's a reason for it because they get to practice them.
They see things that we're not going to see on game day.
And I think it just goes to show that Fockers is not a shield crush team.
They have so much to offer and so much that's still hidden that they haven't been able to
perform just because the bands are keeping the glass, keeping the ying out of that conversation.
Yeah, I mean, it speaks into those bands that you're talking about.
I mean, if you want to get rid of the shields, sure, on one front, you're getting rid of
that force.
But if you're using all of your bands to take away from the shields, yeah, then
you're going to be met with Grimm.
You're going to be met with ying.
You're going to be met with capitow that are going to force you out of position
where then maybe those shields don't even get to be utilized in that play.
and saw their match versus SR.
SR didn't get rid of any of the shields on the left house
where you typically would kind of see them.
And it was capitals.
It was everything that was able to be used for executes
that were available.
So it really is a bit of a double-edged sword.
How you want to approach this team in specific,
whether you want to go for a shield,
or you want to go for something a little more traditional.
And we've seen teams in the past, like Dark Zero,
with spirits, they were very dominating
when they had that shield, and then they got figured out.
And it wasn't really working for them anymore.
But that's something that we haven't seen figured out
for five years, because you simply
can't just use all your bands because there's so much else in their bag that they can work with.
And it's funny enough because when you look statistically, there are three best players
on the leaderboard are not even the shield players. And one of the best players specifically, I mean
Snake, he's the best entry right now when it comes to the side of Five Fears. I think we have to
talk about his resurgence because up until the end of the stage last year, we didn't really see
Snake. He was never in the conversation of T1. It's been like three, four years since he
He had that stint on TSM and last stage wasn't that great.
I mean, yeah, Envy had some good, gleaming, shining moments.
But that being said, Snake has found his own
when it's come to this stage because it really is that simple.
You put a drone, you put information in front of him,
and more often than not, he's getting those kills.
So with all the shield players on this roster,
if you have Snake behind him,
he is successfully finding those kills.
And I think it's good to commend him as a player
because he hasn't been in the spotlight for a long time.
So to now come through, be not only in a position to be one game away from winning Salt Lake City,
but to find consistent openings on such a young team, it's a very difficult task, and he's doing it exceptionally well.
We didn't expect to see them here, but one of 30, I think, even less likely that they made it to a major qualifying match.
They made it through Challenger's series just a couple of weeks ago.
They're one of the newest additions to the NA League, and here they are, a chance to make the major.
a situation that Packer, Vino, have found themselves in before.
Yeah, I mean, all of these guys have really gone through the trenches
and trial by fire by all means, especially having to qualify for this alone.
And to do it the way that they did, I mean, they've already got to commend them.
But even in the group stage, you know, we didn't see a whole lot.
We saw some gleam, glimmer of hope of this can be a good roster,
but we don't know what that's going to look like.
They just squeak in by getting that win over 100 leaves.
And then everything changed once we got into that best of three.
Once we saw them yesterday in that match versus SSG,
That's when it really opened my eyes to this team, that they really did take everything that they learned from group stage,
that they took the time off in that week to get up to this play and kickoff,
and then implemented everything, and then specifically on that map 3 on Shelle versus SSG,
and when you go through the trial by fire, doing map 1, doing map 2 after a win to a loss,
and then you have to get to this last map, you should have a perfect understanding and approach of how you want to take on your opponent,
you know their strengths, you know their weaknesses, and specifically on this map, they knew all of SSG's weaknesses,
that they know SSG's likes to get aggressive.
They like to play outside.
They like to play those cuts.
And so they bring the castle to block off line of sight.
They bring the mirrors and the solace to gain information,
whether that's vertical or just straight on from the mirror.
And then they also bring the trap operators.
They brought a lot of the,
they brought Ella for the shield
that they were gonna come in
if they ran to the building.
They made long vertical angles
for holes across the map
to be able to just have crossfires
that SSG was always going to come into.
And that's something that really shows me
that this team is systematically coming to a fruition,
having more structure, having more strategy implemented.
And that's where they faltered in the group stage.
They didn't have a lot of recourse.
They didn't have a lot of what ifs or how can we get to these points.
It was just kind of taken ahead on.
But now they look like a far more developed team,
just showcasing in this battle.
Yeah, and you can see they're getting way more comfortable,
because Packer's calling has also been amazing
with him being able to understand how I said she was going
to approach it, the adaptations that roster.
And you can see it all the rookies as well.
They're performing very well individually too.
Now that they understand fully what the X, Y, Z variable are going to be,
where he's going to come from, trusting in your teammates.
So the more information that they have, the more time together we're seeing,
even the rookies come alive.
We've seen this entire team come alive in a way that really feels like they
are a completely different team than they were a couple of weeks ago in the
group stage.
Volsper as well feels like he has been a completely different player.
I mean, I'm glad you're saying Volsper because I mean,
he's practicing LeBron at this point.
you're throwing on the alley-oops,
and he was absolutely dunking on SSG in that series.
I mean, we were highlighting already throughout that.
He already doubled almost half of his kills,
or doubled his kills in general,
from the group stage in one series of playoffs.
And you can obviously see in the radar stat
of all the statistics, everything in the blue,
it was in his groups, everything in the orange
was in playoffs, everything has drastically improved.
And if we can keep this sort of level of play
and consistency going into this match for Dark Zero,
he's gonna be a real thorn in their side
because there's a couple clips that I even wanted to highlight
because for a new player to be in these situations,
to be in these moments,
to be able to just understand the positioning,
how he can help a teaming,
how we can just get his foot in the door
in these rounds and assist his team,
I mean, it really showcases the talent that Volsper has.
And if he continues to grow,
I mean, the sky is the limit for this kid, honestly.
We've also seen how these little changes
can really impact a team as a whole
and to shift back to five years for a moment.
What I understand is they are playing in person this week
to get all together in a team house.
You guys have been there in a situation.
I know you've lived together for many, many years
in a team house grinding it out.
What is the difference?
Oh my gosh.
What is the difference to play remotely
to be apart versus being in a team house like that?
I mean, that's the difference is
you have moments like that that you can share.
And obviously, everyone when you went around,
you win a series, everyone's hyping you up.
You can fist bump each other.
I mean, it really does make a difference.
I can't say that I had the best experience in the team house
boxing.
Definitely speak more on that.
But in terms of just the sheer being
able to compete next to your friends, your teammates,
it really does make for the experience
to be 10 times better.
When you're in a team environment,
there's just a level of brotherhood
that makes and elevates your guys' game play just
because it's way easier to talk to each other,
to fix issues, to communicate when you are next to each
other, because you're putting a face to the name.
You're able to humanize the other person.
It's not just over a screen.
You know, you know, your words have impact
and it's a way better.
It's a great way to be able to connect to your teammates
and understand each other a lot better.
So not only is the communication better
and being close together also amplifies each other.
I mean, that's just one thing.
When you're next to each other, it's a great experience.
And when we're just seeing this dynamic play out,
like we talk so much about the leadership of JJ,
the leadership that Forrest has brought to this team.
In that team huddle right then,
You saw both JJ and force weighing in on what this series could be like and getting the team into a fighting position.
I was gonna say I was less focused on the huddle and I was more focused back in the beginning shot of Fens and JJ and their hug.
I mean that was replaying my day.
I was focused on the fact that they all had their shoes off.
Like it probably smells crazy in there.
I think I glass off.
Moving on to where this one is actually gonna take place again.
best of three. Our first
opportunity to see five fears
in this best of three setting
because it is now the playoffs
lacks. How do you feel about
the maps we have ahead here?
Well, first I'd have to see the
map so then I could definitely
tell you how I feel about him.
I mean, clubhouse right out the
gate, safe pick for both these
teams now. However, I can't
say I'm too envious on the side
of five years to pick this
because you know when you
saw how one of 30 already
played yesterday, you have
bods. Yes, there is that
sort of comfort on a map like
They look significantly better than the team.
I'd rather have them challenge them early on onto a map where it makes them work a little
harder than just already getting the fundamentals going where then you fall into that border.
And I mean, even then, I think both these maps play fairly well against one another.
It's just more so of a matter of five years.
I think they're taking a little bit of a risk by giving one of 30 a little more
leverage.
I think it's fair maps just because you're eliminating a big aspect of the shield
variable and if there's gonna be a team that tries to target ban the shields I'd
hope if you want a 30 just because they don't want to deal with it the
experience of knowing what to go about dealing with the shield is very
difficult so taking that out of the board on a map like border on a map like
clubhouse clubhouse Monty's really the main threat you get Monty off the
board you can deal with a black read you can deal with the blitz on a map
like border again Monty's still good you can deal with the other shields
it's not as an oppressive shield map it's not something that you're
you're going to imagine you're going to see two shields because then you're losing that gunfight aspect. So I think the map bands honestly favor one of 30 because they understand what they're going to be able to do. They can maintain still the
Ying and glass band to be able to target band the rest of the players on five years. I think honestly it's great mapex for one of 30 that being said it's hard not to believe in five years.
We're going to take a listen in on what our casters have to think guys. Join us now links X. I mean, we saw this match up obviously in the group stage five years took it pretty handily, but we have seen a very different one of 30 just in that opening round of the bracket.
No matter who wins this match up, it could go either way. It feels like this is going to be as storybook as ever. No matter who wins.
And to your point, I feel like that's the only thing that's really worth talking about, right, is that in a world where MAD is already eliminated, like they are literally not going to the major, one of these teams is guaranteed to go.
And, you know, you can talk about analysis, you can talk about strides, you can even talk about, you know, the games we'll see later today, but I think this has got to be the game of the day for that reason alone, is that you really can't make this up.
I think for me, it's about five fears now proven to us that it wasn't necessarily a fluke.
They didn't necessarily have an easy group.
And I'm not saying that they did.
I think they played fantastic siege inside of the group stage,
but to come out as topping the group when you've got M18 in the group,
when you've got Shopify Rebellion in the group, it sets a bit of a statement.
It sets a little bit of a precedent.
And I think there's probably a lot of people that are starting at home now going,
okay, great.
Now do it again and qualify.
Do it again and get all the way.
Well, they had the buy around right can five fears prove to us that they deserved it that that 4 and 0 was well
Meant to be let's see if they can make it happen guys over to you
Thank you very much Jonah, and I am very eager to figure out if that proves to be the case because I think the five
Fears 4 and 0 on its own would have been a pretty incredible result Ali
I mean that 4 and I was not something you see very often, but against the teams like you said I mean
Already I was thinking maybe they would improve themselves in playoffs
and this is the first match, we'll get to see how well that holds.
I think it's incredibly impressive,
and I really, really want to stress that,
and I don't want to take anything away from five fears at the moment,
because whatever happens, they've done very well for a team
that, again, has put themselves together at the start of kick-off,
like many of these teams have, and they've put themselves in a great spot.
My couple of worries and thoughts on it are as follows.
I love the boxers' point about being cold
and often playing more games is better regardless of the position that you might be in whilst you're playing them.
You might be down and out in the lower bracket, but playing games for some teams can be a really good thing.
Sitting cold, it can be a little bit annoying and it can be a bad thing for some teams.
Something else that I'll always think to and always look at is I'll look at big teams across the world.
I'll look at the likes of FaZe, I'll look at the likes of G2,
and whenever they're in performance and whenever they're doing well, whenever they win that event,
You can look at the run up to it and you can often see that there's some trials and tribulations.
It's one thing. It's well and good going 4-0 in a group stage.
But you've got to put the performance in when it matters.
And for five years, we're starting to get to that stage, right?
They've still got another chance, depending on how today goes.
But this is the next step. This is the qualifying for the major.
And then, again, it hits a reset.
And you've got groups, you've got play-ups.
You've got all the sessions of the major that go through as well.
So it's a very long journey.
And I just hope that they've left a little bit in their tank, so to speak.
I hope they've been resting on the laurels just watching these games going.
And no, they're all in a team facility now.
I don't necessarily know if it's a house, but it's definitely a team facility,
and they are all in the same place.
So seeing this team with that much charisma, that much energy in the same place,
I mean, it's got to be a good thing, right?
I think it is a good thing, and I think it's not super surprising given,
I think a lot of us, of course, know you were forced around a long time.
You know, it tends to be a very personality faceplate.
Honestly, in terms of his gameplay,
but like, I mean, when Forrest is on SSG,
we all knew what he was gonna play.
We all knew how he was gonna act,
but especially with JJ as well.
I mean, the confidence, but also,
I think just the grind that he has has been very impressive
and we'll see how that pans out here
because one of 30 newcomers in their own right
and maybe get newer to the field
for a lot of these players
might have a very rude awakening
or very quick beginning to round one.
Double shield play around secret
as no commitment down blue.
Instead, Monty creeping up the red stairs.
Ooh, missed opportunity by Volsberg.
Very narrowly seized the head, but it can only do with T-Fair quite a lot of damage to JJ, rather than completely lethal damage to the Monty.
Well, back off, there's somebody outside the con window, ready with the con. Excellent play by Snake.
The SMG-12 can get the first open kill for five fears, looking to another.
One player dancing around the main stairs will facilitate, or at least effectuate, a retreat.
A lot of 30 women lose one body in the opening round.
One of 30 have kinda gone for that halfway house here in terms of the bands.
The five fares are taking full advantage already.
Both shields in play here in round one.
Both primary shields as well you could argue.
Blackbeard of course has the shield but it's not all that they are about.
Blackbeard and Ace at bannits.
Through that halfway house often we see teams target the hard breach.
We'll see teams target the shields.
One of 30 have kinda split the difference.
By doing so, you leave a lock still open on both sides of that equation, whether that's the hard breach department or indeed on those shields.
Things have started to slow for a time though.
I'm going to see the doke recall.
A couple of players in on the side, everyone dug into very predictable positions.
The biggest problem at the moment with losing that opening pick so early is that you are going to be lacking an angle.
angle you'll be lacking a trade when it matters most. Blue, main stairs, moto, dirt tunnel, kitchen.
There's more ways in than there are guns to watch. That's going to be the concern. But if an impact
trick out onto that kitchen hatch, shouldn't be too much of a problem for friends. Oh, the
factor didn't actually go off. The hatch is open. The line is clear. Now it's about leveraging,
figuring out where this push is going to go.
go.
One knife ready.
Lots of tracking.
Giving credit to the Grimmons when the utility is there and you know that something is going
to come through blue, near window set up for this exact possibility.
Loss of volts for Wilney in the AK's position is much less horrifying than it otherwise
would be so you don't have the keybuss who can turn towards blue or turn towards the
hatch as you mentioned.
So a lot is riding on this mirror window.
A lot is riding on even potentially this keyboard from Packard.
JJ's already quite low so if it lands close enough even with Full Shield it might
just be enough to deal with JJ.
Not going to be enough to stop the attack.
We're already moving quite slow.
17 seconds remaining, but five years of wide in their advantage,
though JJ, softened up early, will fall.
As he turns the other way, suddenly 1 of 30
with a couple sporadic kills, in fact, three in total.
Completely swiped the advantage away,
plus the 10 seconds into the execute,
it seems five fears more scattered than anything,
as 1 of 30 just hold fast and clutch the 3v5.
I don't want to say that it was a free round,
but it was pretty close.
One of thirty. All they had to do was trade. They had the man advantage. Now okay, they've got two shields
So are you gonna really be able to trade off two shields effectively? I mean you should be able to. JJ literally turns his back to the guy playing mannequins
They had no answer for the Goryos
They wasted so much time
It was a full cycle. They got the opening pick and it was boom. You've got the entire map
You have the entire map. Fine
Right from the get-go
I remember 15 seconds left to go, I was scrambling trying to make something happen.
Oh dear, bit of an alarm bell there. I mean, that's the kind of round that you look at and you go, they're cold, right?
They're not warmed up, it's a good job it's a Vesta 3, put it that way.
Because they need to get warmed up, and they need to get warmed up quickly because there was no synergy there, lots to ever.
And that was one of 5F's greatest selling points during the group stage.
It was fantastic.
81% attack and win rate.
That isn't a team that's got an 80% attack and win rate in that last round, I'm sorry.
Well, to your point, you don't expect it to seem like 5F's in the start of the beginning
beginning to really get kind of stuck on that mirror window, especially with how well they dealt with the early round.
I mean, they played around pinching that Azami extremely well.
They had a lot of the right utility for the job. I think definitely a lot of it might just come out of being cold.
I mean, getting stuck in that mirror window, not being able to gain as much from the Grim Utility, or not having
maybe certain specific tools that aren't necessary, but could have been helpful declaring out the AK's position.
But still some good stuff in that round, especially in the early games.
We'll see how they try to apply some of those same successes here as
they're actually meeting in the first 45 seconds the exact same problem of sorts
that they met at the beginning. And Ozami off-site denying them control, but this
time rather than a loose realm, Volscor is instead holding her on the garage with the Kivas.
Riding a little bit of rest fit from the oncoming attack. The Nades go up.
Ooh, almost survives, but there's too much utility being dumped at his feet.
The Nades force him right into Snake's crosshairs. And it's another 5v4,
Here's 4v5 on to Volsper playing that Azami maybe a bit more impactful on the basement site than here
But a 4v5 is still nothing they'll complain about
FD extension inside of cash and CCTV as well
JJ looking to move through and gather that information they've gained control so far
Inside a CC it's all gonna be about breaching through further
Fortunately, heart breach isn't too much of a problem, although Forest has managed to use all of them
I'm not sure where all three exothermics have gotten.
Maybe the bottom of the garage, flat wall.
Could be constructional, I guess. I don't know if the fuse is open just yet, so...
Maybe relying quite a bit on the old Kibana pellets.
JJ can start to move through now.
Option for Con to be open later.
Ooh, used to careful placing that there.
We'll find some bad timing here, but we'll just get away with it.
Listen, all kind of stuff is burned as well. 50 seconds is pretty good time, and all great
pick there from the old Captain Jack, before he gets dreaded out this round, and far much
more as to what we were expecting.
That just kind of ends pretty rapidly once they make their way into construction.
I thought there might be a bit more of a fight there, as you can see.
I mean, JJ, hard breaching, I think there was a soft wall into Lodgy.
It seemed like that could go right for the Monty very quickly.
But for our stable to get a couple big kills in in construction and likely over on the logi side to the point
Where in the bathroom players the only one left?
I mean they've got the Hibana running in from construction people flooded or running Hibana running it from Jim people running it from construction
That a whole lot you can do at that point
We didn't quite see what happened with everything in construction, but hey
Building off the same successes they had in round one able to recreate that opening pick onto an extended player
As you can see right here that much differently before there's a lot more positioning and then pressure from the shields
This one involves a lot more utility coordination with the nades, with the bees, and as you can see, yeah,
force-winning a big fight around construction and another one, two in fact, from that exact same position.
So huge play by force in round two.
All these considering five years just failed to convert a five degree, maybe force doesn't get those kills,
maybe things are a bit more difficult.
One-a-third you're going to give a really attempt up on that top floor, although a different side.
This time, I'm very glad that we see the addition of the Wamai.
The Izami's open, and let's be honest, the Izami is likely to get banned apart.
Next, you've got to give it a little bit of support.
Because if those nades don't land at Izami's feet in the previous round,
then all of a sudden Izami has no real reason to move.
If you've got magnets that are catching that sort of utility as it's being thrown in,
it's giving things a lot of easy for you to hold it.
It's nice to see that Volsper's been given a little bit more utility there to try and hold on.
But likely, knowing that five fears are going to change their approach ever so slightly,
it's still going to be rocking the two shields.
This time looking to play a glass and a daimos in conjunction with that.
Maybe try to go into something a little bit more across, potentially something through construction side.
The deal with these three extended players might be all the way in gym, Vulcan Puck, right at the exact moment.
Ooh, JJ even downed by it in the process.
Hell of a lot of damage done by that Vulcan Puck.
The situation in which another shield player, this again being JJ like round one,
takes a lot of damage early and this would be a lot more exposed than that Monty otherwise would be.
Force taking that position though, catches my W pushing deep into gym, clearly a bit of a gap in the information.
the information. Big trade by 1 of 30 is another 1v1 around the gym and bathroom area. The other
side gets the lead and downing rival in the process.
We need to try to retreat another kill that might come their way but no, it is so close
in this engagement over by bedroom. Most are with the clutch keeper to try and get out
in time. A hell of a pre-fire is forced to ADS's. And that might be the finisher
as it's a 1v2 and Fence has some ability to gather information but with no friends
to rely on his God who would all himself.
Spirit is over, he's in here in round number three.
Good reaction, really from what a 30.
Say, hey, you know what?
We're just gonna try and fight this a little bit heavier.
Hacking needs a bit of help.
And we're gonna be able to run round and just port that.
Nice name. Is he able to find the timing? Yes!
Locks in the one versus one. There's so much time for this, Link.
There's so much time, and even if he doesn't have the damels,
and half the demos. Oh, he knows. Knows exactly where he is and still misses the shots.
Unfortunate fans playing that probably about as well as you could and
just unfortunately loses the fight. One of 30 retake their lead,
but that was a close one if I ever seen one.
I love the Nade usage that I know that I know the one we won was lost in the end,
but I love the Nade usage. The one my magnet burns the first Nade.
He sees the second one I get thrown and still throws the Nade
because obviously you've got the activation time
And it was just perfect because it did such a good job of forcing that player out of position, and there must have been plenty of information about that.
It was both of those two players, well, I mean it's fairly obvious where the damos is, but to know exactly where Volspar is, some good information being gathered.
This would be the cure for me.
Boom.
Volspar onto forest.
Oh, there were shots landed as well there.
Real close stuff.
I think as well as anybody could have in that situation even pre aiming the right angle just unfortunate the way the luck pans out
But extremely close round overall as you said
I mean betting it all on kind of that gym bedroom side push and not you know
I also wonder like how much things would be different of JJ obviously that Vulcan packed timing was perfect by the defender who spotted it
But if you had that blitz alive might be able to get a better pinch inside a logi work a more favorable man advantage
I think that's really where the trade started was that blitz getting stopped and burned so aggressively
really. Quite nice from the
defense overall to keep that
close, but also it's a lot of
good moments from five years
overall pace of the half at
this point to one favoring one
of 30. Definitely think the
first round was probably, you
know, the one missed
opportunity on the board, but
I'll leave now had, I would
say two good rounds by both
teams and especially close
one in the third. Obviously,
I wouldn't say five years
still operating at kind of the
peak that we saw during the
regular season during the
actual group stage, but
and do put some of the pieces back together.
I think it's probably just going to take a little bit of time, isn't it?
Winning is such a mindset and such a habit that as soon as you get out of playing regular
games, as soon as you get out of that machine of just churning grounds out one after the
other, it can be a little bit not daunting necessarily to go in, but I mean, all these
guys are on a brand new setup, right?
They'll have played scrims in this facility.
They'll have been there for a few days, I'm sure.
However, it isn't your own home is it and it is always going to be just a little bit different
So there's that to consider as well, and I think you know once there's that slight adjustment period gone in I
Mean heck I imagine it's a bit of a job playing in a room with JJ
Like at least you can you know take your headphones off when he's screaming at the end of a round if you're in the room with him
What are you doing? You know I?
Think I've seen a desk alarm already
Three rounds in there's a desk clam Jesus
Hey, some people just want it more, and I say that like complimentary, I gotta respect that.
Plus, I mean, especially if you're in person, kind of like you were talking about, I mean,
I feel like it's just so much easier to keep the vibes up in person, which is awesome
the desk talked about, but thinking about the relate to people actually face to face,
be able to like lean over and fist bump people, be able to, I don't know, just kind of I think
to create a more energetic atmosphere than like, you know, when you can over Discord or
TeamSpeak or what have you. So, very happy for five years that they get that opportunity. Of
course either of these teams either of these teams could get that opportunity as even if somebody
loses they still have one more chance of qualification we're currently in the upper bracket of the
playoff stage who's of this will go down and get one more chance against i believe shop of
fire rebellion fire call i'm always about a black bracket flips though so but neither of these
teams will be eliminated if they end up losing this series and both might have a shot to qualify
two salt lake city along well alongside nobody has it right now because nobody's qualified but
alongside teams potentially like dark and zero or wild carb if you have later today
Of course the caveat is no one is called from North America exactly. We are unfortunately a little bit behind
Little bit similar to the time zone as well
true
times behind and
There are a fair few teams that have already made their way over to salt lake
We've concluded course in both South America and in Europe
sale was a
Little bit of a little bit of a mixed bag to be I mean we can speak on it because we you know
We covered a little bit of a sale in here area
NIP phase and lost all confirmed
Who despite topping their grief did drop out in the low bracket
semis so
It doesn't always mean, you know, good things talking to the group.
I don't know if that's foreshadowing or not for Five Fears.
We will not so well speak that into existence.
But back into the game now, round number four, we've joined where we left.
Grimmbark and a bandit band.
I really thought we were going to see the Azzami Bandit,
especially given that it had been played every single time.
I know that the impact of it has been kind of negligible at the moment,
but it is something that can really define a round.
Five fears opt in to just make opening these walls even easier and then from the 1 of 30 side of things
It's like I was convinced people gonna either continue to target the hard breach and take away the fair might or take away that monty
But they drifted open
I do think targeting targeting the grim at least it's something that 1 of 30 have made a fair bit of use seven
I think is a good job at a
Shields you great spot by the drone though he will go out and actually ends up creating a bit of a one way
would not be able to see the asami had she swung an angle I think it's
possibility ooh Mike W think killing the player on the chain repel really
impressive swing right there and takes down the ram as well and there's some
redundancy with the buck but you know the setup for get a barbridge really is
not going to work seems like having a lot of ratting from one authority throughout
this round and obviously you've got the player lurking around main stairs
have the player lurking inside his keeper he's trying to I think get a
little bit ahead of the information gathered by five years and ends up
really hurting them is again they've got some redundancy with his vertical
destruction but I mean they're still throning you're still taking time and
when you by liking that grim sure you can bring the candelas to follow up but
it's really only bit of decisive execute utility you have and you look at the
shields those have been very inconsistent for five years so far this
route this map and you know maybe that leads into why they've not been
totally removed it's something that one of 30 news we're going up against it's
something they're happy to deal with they know that the player inside a
Bar they won now though as Packers had to be killed on to Fens,
dripped the C4 already, shot the... fire.
Surely his moments are numbered here.
Horace is only a short distance away on that blade.
He's gonna hit it with full flash.
Is he gonna finish it before he runs out of bullets just about?
Packer, scrapping for his life there.
Well, you've got to look at that job done, especially when defending downstairs.
There's still a utility exchange going on to open this kitchen hatch.
And five stairs or a man down.
I mean, in terms of utility, this has been a very scuffed round.
I mean, the candela getting caught, I think on Forest there,
and only detonating on the top half of the stairs,
dedicating one to Packer, who was ratting around a bar.
You lose another player in the process who, by the way,
is your other source of vertical destruction.
So even though redundancy has been completely eliminated
before you could gain any effect from it,
It's not a chalked round for five years.
I mean, we've seen three V-fives here covered in this matchup specifically,
but it's looking very difficult for five years to make it back.
All the Kindel is used in JJ, even though he gets one immediately traded by one of 30.
Still a slim advantage for the defense, but an advantage nonetheless than one that
now Forest fights himself, the only player remaining.
Does have time, and well, had time, no longer have the opportunity to pick up that Hibana.
That's a nice shot on the silo, that's all well and good, but you can see the defenders reacting accordingly back up, trying to hold a longer crossfire and the key button to phase two, it's insult to injury.
As one of 30 will widen their lead over five years and frankly this attacking team is still taking a long time to warm up.
They really are aren't they? 80% in the group stage.
So far they've been good for one round on the attack on Clubhouse of all maps as well
With these bands in this economy
I'm only guessing and I will check
But I'm pretty convinced that
Sidestats or Clubhouse. I mean it's in the 48%
I
That's neat. You know, it's as close to even really, especially with the sample size that we've got, which isn't going to be absolutely massive.
So there's always potential for a big one-sided game in there. Like, I don't know.
But I feel as obviously feeling the heat taking their tactical time out and taking it fairly early.
Obviously we have the mandatory half time time out at the moment as well or now in the game.
So teams it's really switched up the way that teams like to take their bands
They often will use a timeout after three or maybe even four rounds on a particular side usually the first half or the side that they're
Expected is going to be the most difficult or just decide to find the most bold and they know that they're going to get a bit of a
Mentally reset
Strategy and things you've seen because well you've not seen them yet at the halfway point
But you could at least hit that mental reset and go in with the refresh of what the plan is going to be for that second half
Five days feeling the pressure. They know that one free score line isn't good enough at the moment
And they're gonna scramble to try and level this up to a three three half, but I'll be honest links. I'm not too sure
Yeah, neither am I especially if this is how vikers are coming in on their map pick as well something
I think we have to mention at this point, I mean, obviously, you know, you're coming in cold one of thirties played a whole best of three up particularly
particularly close and contentious about the three as well going to all three maps require a bit of effort to pull through. I mean
the kind of thing that will I think make anybody excited and kind of get anybody's blood pumping, but you know
this is clubhouse amount that sheer one of 30 will likely know how to play more than say layer or fortress or more complicated or newer maps, but
And this is the clubhouse amount that requires, you know, a decent bit of thought put into it that 530s has shown they have, and, at least right now, it's not sticking.
And 1 of 30 as well is gotta say, playing a very good game so far.
We don't have any massive standout performances, this is a generally solid team game and team defense.
Holding their power positions, not getting too aggressive, but then last round, doing so in a calculated way,
to take advantage of a clear gap in 5 years' information game.
You can see likely why Fenn's switching to that snake and operative.
I don't think we've seen so far this half and given, you know, the woes of last round.
Let's get a polyp on Scanner end.
You're a five-year spend.
You're going to hope to find some of these defenders, two of which are on the top
four at the moment.
You need to try and gather some of that same success, but of course, why not that
part of the sight in the grand scheme of things.
seen a little bit of snake play.
Fenn's gonna be rocking that salt on a scanner.
Information doesn't feel like info has been a difficulty at the moment for five fears.
Maybe it's more of a comfort thing and knowing exactly where somebody is.
Already seen how devastating an operator snake can be.
I love this position here.
He's got a magnet to save that shield from a couple of strain aids.
See if he's already ripped and ready. That's a guaranteed kill.
Ooh! Just gets a little bit too far away.
A bit of a pack of overplays his hand, gives away that position.
I mean, does he overplay it though? I'm already sort of contradicting myself
because I look up at the time and there was a minute at 20 on the clock when he died there.
It's not bad timing, really. Especially for this sort of an extension.
And especially when you look at the players that are actually staffed around the site.
You've got mirror windows, you've got Kiba barriers, you've got Magnus and a deployable shield.
You can have a C4, but they know to rotate down and throw up at the floor.
Sure, it's a 4v5 and that's risky, but you have a lot of tools that can stall out the attack.
Tools, by the way, that have done so successfully.
The mirror window in blue was the exact kind of thing that stalled out five years
all the way back in round one, and that was a 3v5.
Worse odds than what 1 of 30 you're facing right now.
The defenses set themselves up very well.
The attack also has some good tools to counter.
The deathmark tracker of course, the soliton scanner, and a plethora of secondary utility
fans even working his way in!
Found a bit of a gap in the defense, is set up good for one, not the second as a big trade
for Mike W.
Holding onto that position, but with the gym control immediately secured, JJ on low HP,
look to put this diffuser down.
They've got all the core angles covered as Zamy can't quite creep up, sticks their
face where it does not belong and five fears keep a lid on things quite nicely.
That's the five fears that we wanted to see.
They found their mojo.
The first time we've actually seen them attempt to plant the diffuser.
That hasn't been in the game plan up until this point.
And I'm looking at this team and I'm thinking, like, guys,
we know that you like to get the plant down.
You got the plant down five times previously.
Okay, it's not the be all and end all of you strategy.
But when you're given that space and you're given that time,
instead of searching out for those last couple of kills,
instead of rolling the dice there, put the pressure back on.
Especially against a team like 1 of 30.
One of the two rounds required to level it up to a 3-3 half.
Five beers could bring a slight fire of relief but...
Again, for 1 of 30, don't think that they're in too bad of a spot.
This of course being around that they were successfully last time they attempted it,
Link restore a very across clear.
from five beers they got QZ wall open, worked for the bedroom area, there was a big old
scrapping bedroom again, packer, playing a little bit out on an island, just trying to
be that time sink. Performing that job every single time we've seen him try to do it he's
done a great job of it. And then of course coming down to the infamous one versus one.
I don't think it's going to be the same sort of strike this time though, just purely through
the difference in hardware that's being brought when we got the Hibana this time.
It seems like, especially with the early emphasis on rafters as well, likely going to be a bit
more of a garage-shotted clear, focus on the normal avenues through the platform,
the rafters. Especially with all these DMRs, we've got two main ones to deal with these
keybugs. Silo also, DMR of his own, helping down below playing FOILTA with an ADS as well,
so a bit more of a fortified position. Modded gates as well. Maybe now the FOILTA shield
with Castle Barricades to really bolster it, but an ability at least to aid the player
playing on rafters that otherwise they would not be able to. Likely allowed them
to get away with only bringing those ADSs and not the full ADS-magnet combo.
Ooh!
Big spot by Snake though.
Just so many drones flying at silo's feet, ends up walking in front of the doorway and
the patience by five years pays off.
So 5v4 they start turning their full attention towards rafters.
They go and pick that.
You know, I'm in the best position, playing there at the top of Cache just needs to
back up a little bit sensually.
Boris now trying to push full sprout.
The ADS is, of course, making it a lot more difficult this time to nade out this player.
He would like to have some secondary EMTs potentially.
Volsper, he caught out on the deathmark there as well.
Big kill from Mike, taking JJ down.
Removes the half-reach.
Anything that isn't open now is gonna remain closed.
And they're really struggling for an answer on this catwalk player.
One of thirty have been so good at disrupting it.
Initially ex pyros were placed on that interior reinforcement, but they got shot by Mike W who later killed JJ outright
Snake also can't fight at a good angle on those nades because if he does you might end up walking in front of Wolfsburg's crosshairs
Finally though four St. ADS's almost picked some both up
But at a big switch packer lands that kill in conjunction with another
This stalemate around garage finally breaks the defense's way the utility is good. It lands a 2v2
Look at the control that 1 of 30 have in terms of the time they've kept five years at bay.
Mike W can still play around the CCTV position, but how he has to retreat is to attack them heavy by the DMR.
As the rest is now isolated into CCTV, it's a big prefire by Fens, but cannot land the shots required.
Uncontested lead by 1 of 30, starting and ending this half with a win.
1 of 30 doing such a good job of holding space right now.
and nobody is trying to work too hard.
Nobody is trying to do too much.
Let's see what our desk has to say at the halfway point.
Thanks, X. Four to two so far right now.
One of 30.
The vibes are clearly high.
They're clearly feeling pretty good.
Here's what they sound like while they're doing that.
Yeah, really good couple for that.
Well, I mean, it's hard to make out really what it was.
But I mean, it really goes to show the confidence
that they have. They're feeling good.
I mean, the 4-2 half box, you were right.
You can't just ban out the shields against this team.
They got rid of one of the shields.
They get rid of the ace.
But they have the go-go canisters
ready to thwart off any of the shields
coming from J.J. Air Force.
Then they were also using the smokes very early on,
where typically you'd see the smokes be used
in the later half of the round when executes are going.
But they know that those shields
are going to cause that executed.
They can eliminate those shields.
They can push back those shields.
shields that can get clamps on those shields very early on they don't need to
rely on that Tility in the end because that is where 5 Fears excels is when
they have those shields in front of them that they can then play off that take
the site take the control but again I mean this was a great thought-out
strap from 1 of 30 and how they were countering what 5 Fears wants to get
done. It's the early game that's 5 Fears is a strength running the
double shield running one shield over the case may be them getting that
first pick is the strength so 1 of 30 being smart using the utility
correctly stalling out five years as best as they can and then falling back into
sight a lot of those basements rounds too we'd see it come down to the last 30
seconds and then the shield players are just getting too aggressive JJ Blaster
Forrest the better nature and then they just over push over aggression and then
the shield gets taken down and that's what I love to see at 1-30 really in
the late round they're playing a lot of these rat positions now the side
swap and it's gonna be the same type of utility usage to be able to find
those opening kills. I believe that the game plan is one for one of 30 in the early game. If they
can get somebody off of the board very early on using utility, I think they'll be able to clean it
out when it comes down to the latter half of these rounds. And attacking has been one of five
fears strengths throughout the entire group stage. That's how they've separated themselves
from the pack to be able to shut them down on clubhouse, limit them to two rounds. I mean
that is a very good place for them to be guys. Yeah, thank you very much. Do think
Unfortunately, we might have a pause after these bands, but at least gives us something to talk about and to I believe it was
Fox's point as well early rounds for definitely 535 30s five fears
Strength on the attacking side that was where the coordination was at its best
Especially utilizing those shields, but after that things would get a little shaky
And I think one of 30 had an exceptionally good game plan to last through that and withstand it
I mean now that we see the sides off. We'll see how things are how things pan out
Did you have a tech pause?
Unfortunately we are going to be paused before we move into the half, but
So we're just getting everything ready
Looks like all five players from five fairs are at least on the in the game
It may just be a one of 30 straggler that we are waiting for to join in and get set up
I
Know Fox mentioned it, but it's Jeremy a little bit all the shoes on the floor
Yeah, I was you know I
Didn't really think of anything when he when he pointed it out
But it is kind of it is kind of crazy right like not a single person in their shoes
Like
You know, you don't know what's on those floors
You don't you don't know where that you don't know where that's been
You don't know who's cleaned it. I mean, I don't know. I'm sure the facilities up today
But like you don't know unless they cleaned it themselves
Which given for a six experience with the call-out system. Maybe that was a team building thing a
Team clean of the room to make sure that the space is you know, copacetic the feng shui is all
A little pain. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, like it teaches you to be detail oriented. It teaches you to be thorough
you to really take care of the space and what you're putting out into the world.
A lot of translatable skills, a lot of translatable values from that into Rainbow Six.
When was the last time you deep cleaned your PC?
My PC? You know the answer to that question.
You said that in a way like I was attacking you.
well see I see could see cuz I was like I want one I was like I thought you're
gonna ask how one of one is the last time you deep cleaned your room because
we're talking about rooms they're like when was the last time you deep cleaned
your PC and I'm like oh probably probably never to be honest with you but
I also like you know I'm not doing I'm not doing eight to twelve hour gaming
sessions on a recurring basis like I was when I was younger so like I don't
know how much dust is actually accumulated actually I guess if I'm
I'm using it less.
More, more, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, actually, that's true.
I've always said that.
I've always said so.
I'm not actually too sure what it is that's causing us to delay.
And for you guys at home, I want to listen to about cleaning up
PCs.
I'll hold my hands up and say I've never cleaned my PC.
You know, honestly, I was kind of scared of you.
But since you've said that, I will also hold my hands up.
I have no I've never cleaned my PC. That's actually technically speaking not I've not cleaned this PC
I have cleaned when I had the PC before this one. Yes. Yeah, I clean I clean someone else's
I what I would do was I'd break into people's houses at night and I clean their PCs
It was kind of like a Robin Hood type situation actually not really Robin Hood because I wasn't stealing or converting any property
whatever it was actually
Leaving the door from the poor and giving it to the rich
exactly yeah I would I would blow out all the dust into a bag and then I would go
to the Hamptons I don't live in the Hamptons but I would go there and I would
throw all the dust in the rich people's houses
I would lose no minds already it's like it's halfway through my one what's
tech pause that's why we're always you always are sanctioned to lose your
mind on a tech pause here's a good one and this is like a genuine frequency
of mouse mat cleaning, or are you like a buy a new one kind of guy?
Um, so, I will say I, I abide a bit by our mutual friend, Jackers, I abide by his philosophy
of just generally trying to avoid situations which you have to clean your mouse pad at
all.
Um, like sometimes, you know, like if I have to work on something, I'll eat food at
the desk.
Like I generally try to avoid that.
Um, so the main issue I have is like my mouse mat or parts of it will get like,
all my monitors and stuff are all on the mouse pad as well because I have a super long and big one.
But like, you know, it'll get like dusty and I'll clean that but generally speaking,
there aren't a lot of situations in which I desperately need to clean the mouse pad.
Like there's a bit of a stain on like the bottom, kind of bottom right side,
but aside from that it's generally pretty fine. Hey, Brian, it's dusting, but aside from that
it's pretty, what about you? Well, I've only ever cleaned one once. It took quite a long time
to dry and I had to change my sense afterwards because it was so fast I don't
know if I did the wrong thing but like I feel like I smoothed it you know I'm
like off the outside it was just it was just sleepy well that makes sense
because like if there's a bunch of particulates on this gonna get super
nerdy there's a bunch of particulates on your mouse pad it probably is like
inhibiting like it's probably like increasing the friction with which like
your mouse pad is facing when it like slides across or that your mouse is facing when it
slides across the mouse pad.
So like if you get rid of all of those your mouse is more of your mouse is making contact
with the actual surface of the mouse pad rather than just the particulates and also the
mouse pad which should allow you to glide.
Now the fact that you had to change your sends because of how smooth it was is more
of a statement at how rancid and dirty that mouse pad must have been.
No, it's that's how in tune I am.
It's like one was wrong with the cell, like one with my sense.
I'm at one with my sensitivity.
So there was there was a slight thing wrong and I had to had to course correct.
Being at one of your sensitivities.
That's something you worked on in therapy every week.
Every week, shout out.
and uh you know shout out to nobody in particular because we're still in this tech pause so nothing uh
this is probably the worst thing by the way for five years because they feel like they've
underperformed in the first half they've had the halftime talk to sort of stabilize and say look
guys it's okay it's the best of three you know we've got plenty of chances here this is you
know it's it's a map that we've picked granted but it's clubhouse everyone can play a club it's
a very risky move playing a picking clubhouse in the best of three series but teams will continue to
do it. But I just genuinely think that this is the worst position that they could now be in,
having to go through this waiting period of just hanging about again, you know, still,
this is what they've been doing for the last couple of weeks. They've been waiting for the
games to go ahead and to get their turn to take part. But looking at their attacks over
all links. I think they got the opening pick in all but one round in that first half. On
the attack nonetheless, unable to convert. Like, are we talking, what level of worry do
we have? Are we talking alarm bell level of like, this is a big problem or just something
that needs to be gotten on top of quite quickly? Because if they're struggling to attack
on club, board is going to be, again, very difficult for them here tonight.
Yeah, I'd be reluctant to say alarm bells only because it's like the first six rounds.
But if I think we start seeing problems in the next three, I think if you're a five years
fan alarm bells might be warranted.
But also I think if you're a one of 30 fan, I mean, obviously, so far in the first six
rounds, you got to be happy.
I mean, your team is performing about as well as you could hope given, you know, the
predictions that were had towards the group stage, given the, you know, the new
like status of a lot of these players, given the fact that five years were coming
in flawless.
You've got to be jazzed by these first four rounds and you know, on the one side,
while I think alarm bells might start ringing for me in a lot of five years,
fans, if the next, say two,
maybe three defenses start looking a bit rough as well.
I think on the flip side for one of 30 or in one of 30 fans, like one,
that's great for you.
But also if you see a lot of that same togetherness that we saw on the
defense as in like one,
like generally all playing with an arms reach of each other,
but also all buying into a plan and sticking with that idea,
even if it involves Packer playing a bit on an island,
but you see a lot of investment in the support
or the strategy of whatever they're doing.
For one of 30, I mean, you've got to be feeling pretty good
if that happens in the next couple of rounds.
I thought we were getting back into it,
but it appears that we actually aren't right now, so.
Yeah, unfortunately so.
I don't believe that we have an ETA for this
at the moment.
I believe a player has dropped connection
and isn't actually able to get back in at the moment,
I'm not sure if it's an internet thing or not, but we are going to cut to a very short break and as soon as that player is back in, we'll be back with you. Don't go anywhere.
Everybody and I have an update. Well, we have an update me and Ali and also just collectively the NL
Basically what happened was Bino were affectionately referred to by Packer as a carrot
Given the color of his hair
unfortunately lost internet connection, but fear not because
our
Expert NL tech team and NASA got on the problem and he will be apparently playing on a hotspot
Which is not an ideal solution for be know but very funny for all of us
And I hope it does work out because I would like to continue this matchup
And I would like to see who is the better team between one of 30 and five years on a hot spot
On a hot spot. That's dedication to the horse. Yeah, I
Thought you're gonna say who's the better team on a hot spot?
I'm like only one of them are playing on a hot spot so we can't make we can't come to a definitive conclusion about that I
I wonder if they have it set up already or if we have to wait for them to go through like
the painful process.
I don't know.
I feel like this is like a bit of a public service announcement because I've experienced
this quite a bit.
My ASP is not great and I've now got my setup so that my phone is just there ready as
a backup for like a little hotspot here and there as needed.
And I'll sometimes even do a broadcast on a hotspot because it is genuinely quite good
nowadays.
But the first time that you do it, sometimes there's things that you need to install onto
the computer and there's just a lot of irony in the fact that you need to install something
on a computer that doesn't have access to the internet.
So I hope for everyone's sake, especially Bina, that he has the sufficient drivers
or whatever it is that they need to have installed, installed so that we can get proceedings
underway nice and quickly. But as everybody knows and I'm sure everyone can appreciate watching
and listening, internet issues do suck and they are very much out of your control.
Well this break is going to do one of two things for both of these teams, right? One
of three, I've had a great start. This now being a big bump in the road, is that
going to be something that knocks them. And then for the side of five years, I mean, they
must just feel like they're in limbo, like they're all there ready to go, locked in like
connects like they're just itching to start, you know, right in the wrongs that they made
in the first half as it were and to play better. And yet here we sit waiting for Beano
to sort things out.
JJ is literally dissociating at his PC right now.
That man is somewhere else.
And what else is fidgeting?
Fence is literally spitting a weapon skin around multiple times.
JJ is like, now he's moved.
I got worried for a second there.
But he's back.
You thought he'd frozen an IRL?
Not that I thought he was frozen.
I don't like that he looked at me just then.
We've got people putting their feet up on the mouse mat, I don't know what this is.
On the mouse mat? That's crazy. Who put their feet on the mouse mat?
I think it was Snipey. Oh, I think I was sliding. Good for that guy. Shout out, getting traction.
Do you think like, oh, actually also Jonah informed me on what it says.
Apparently Millie from Outlast Gaming made Pro League on a hot spot, so that's nice.
I didn't have my notebook out to take notes on that, and I did now, so that's very nice.
Do you- did- I know I'm like a little bit younger than you.
Did- did- were there like Heelys in school when you were a kid?
Get out.
Oh no, just get out.
What?
Of course, of course, I'm not too old that I don't know what a heel is.
I'm just trying to be polite.
I don't want to assume.
Getting mad, literally getting yelled at being courteous is actually crazy.
Being polite by starting it with, I know that I'm younger than you, but...
I said I know I'm a little bit odd, dude.
I'm clearly not working on your sensitivity and therapy because, geez, you got some
issues to figure out.
I never owned a pair of Heelys, and I don't really know why, because I think that they
would have been quite fun, or I distinctly out of memory of my sister bombing around
with them.
Old or younger sister?
Younger.
Gotcha.
Those things were deadly though.
Well, so that, well, I was going to say two things.
One, I was curious because if she was closer in my age, it'd make me feel less
bad about asking, or about mentioning that I was younger, but also yes, those things
were
i mean i've heard stories they were deadly i don't know any kid at my school
or my schools who had like issues with them but i did hear story
you know what there were a lot of issues with is actually nothing to do with
helix but everything to do with my school
i it was a rollerblading a roller skating unit in
gym class that i had to do for a whole week
really and
yeah it was and don't get done wrong this is weird
i've only met one other person in my entire life who also had to do this
and they were not from my state.
I had to do it, there's a whole week
we had to do roller skating.
And like two days in, some kid behind me
kicked my arm and broke it, which was like super cool.
And as the gym teacher was walking me to the nurse,
she was like, man, normally doesn't happen this early.
And I just thought that was a crazy statement.
And so anyway, a couple of days later,
some kid broke his leg and my broke his leg.
I mean like literally snapped it clean
in half, it was a really bad break.
And they stopped having people roller skate after that.
The craziest thing we did was play table tennis in gym.
Oh, OK.
Well, he's like he's like pulling the Michael Jackson almost
that he's actually not pulling Michael Jackson.
That's moonwalks a very different thing.
You don't apparently the new Michael Jackson movies of part one of two.
Oh, really?
Is it like a hologram AI sort of thing?
No, they have an actor playing him.
Oh, I don't know, it's a genuine question, like I don't know, because I know they can do a lot with the AI stuff, aren't they?
A social old. They can do a lot with the AI stuff, like what am I even saying?
But no, but no, there is a real actor. Not to spoil potentially any big Jackson movie fans.
I have not seen it, but yeah, apparently it's going to be a part too.
I think I'm gonna call it Jackson.
I mean, I don't know.
Jackson won.
Jackson's the first the first one is called Michael.
Okay.
So like the second one could be like Jackson.
That's a free one.
I don't know who makes that movie.
But they can take that.
Guess who is the biggest Michael Jackson fan in the talent
team?
Oh, that's actually a good question. I really like Michael Jackson. It's not me, but I do really like Michael Jackson
My biggest I mean at their engagement party I have distinct memory of them
Dancing and singing to Michael Jackson songs like
It's like almost a bit of a performance gotta be it's gotta be Tim, right? Yeah
Yeah, I was going to say, so either way, we will be back after this break, as unfortunately,
it's still going, so we'll see you back with more Michael Jackson conversation right after
this.
I think that's meant to happen, that is honestly meant to happen.
Nope, it's not gonna happen.
I was joking.
So we've had two very different understand- well, I don't know.
My understanding was, my understanding was that we were gonna come back to the game,
they were gonna replay the round with Bino Absent,
and then they were gonna sub in a coach for the next round.
I thought that that was the call, but
seems as though it has been different.
Well, I do want to correct the record real quick.
Actually, two other people in my life had to roller skate in gym.
Two of my friends.
Okay, so-
I wasn't inaccurate earlier.
Oh, so, okay, so I guess your understanding was correct.
We'd like to be playing out this round.
the thing is we've got to we've just got to get the game on the way we
unfortunately as bad as it is with internet issues we just can't sit around
all night there's three games to play tonight and we've got to get running
through them and it isn't fair to anyone involved least of all one of 30 but
you know five years as well so three versus five surely we will see five
fears trying to narrow that lead again by around here in round number seven
Reminder for everybody first six rounds one of 30 came out for two on top five
figures despite their impressive attacking wind percentage inside of the
regular stage of kickoff and struggle so far tonight but this is their chance to
redeem themselves my defensive side and with a pretty hefty advantage this
This should just be a formality.
Ooh, perhaps not, though.
As, ooh, that could have been crazy.
Now it seems like it might just be a formality, guys.
This might be a bit tricky to get the line around forest.
Imagine a lot of defenders now swamping.
But this could also be a moment where this is a serious...
serious do not troll com right now.
Don't want to risk throwing something like this away.
Trying to pre-fire on the class shield.
Ooh, good shot by Silo, but C4 will land
fans taken down. So, remember the call was that they were going to replay this round
even if Bino DC'd. Unfortunately, I think somebody's still left even though they technically weren't
supposed to and that meant they had to play out the round 3v5, even though this guy's played
out 4v5. Now, now, I don't know. Now we sub the coach in. We get back in the lobby,
with sub-coaching because Bino has been given, I'm guessing, I'm not an admin so don't hold me to it,
but I'm guessing the call is that Bino has been given fair enough opportunity to be able to rejoin,
isn't able to maintain stable connection, and therefore it's one of two options, isn't it?
You either substitute a player or you, I don't know, maybe one of three, you substitute a
player, you play four versus five, or you just forfeit, because I know there is a rule
I'm going to go in and play with
the boys and hold my own. Because
as a coach, you know a lot of
things. So the option here is
fortunately one of 30. I've got
a coach and we should be able
to get that coaching now. I
don't know about you, Lynx. But
and I've not given coaching any
great length of thought, but
this particular point in being
a coach isn't really somewhere
that I'd want to be. You're
still there now, and you're
Because as a coach you know a lot of things, but there's a reason people are coaches and not players, right?
No, I definitely agree with that. I'm not something that I would think that one would think that
When you're hiring a coach or picking a coach, you're like, what if hear me out
What if one of our players internet literally implodes and we need somebody to sub in I understand that you know
You are you know Fabian you are the greatest mind to ever play the game
But could you really could you really fight against JJ now Fabian obviously being an ironic example because he is a two-time world champion
So that's why I know three-time world champion. I forgot about that
Can make a mistake like that
But Fabian being a funny example because he actually did it
But I believe one of 30s head coach. I believe his name is Roy's
Um, obviously this is all online, but I believe they're all in at least the same hemisphere
So hopefully the ping isn't too bad
But we've got all good Roy's in Mexico
all we have
Piker in the United Kingdom, so I'm guessing through ping reasons
It's probably gonna be Roy's Roy's is listed as the head coach anyway
So it would make a lot of sense for them to step in and fill those shoes
you know, not really, but
you know, you know, you know,
you've got to be, you know,
you've got to be on the news.
Um, but yeah, I mean, could
you imagine being? Imagine
being a player like action
and all of a sudden instead
of, you know, hot and cold
and other people inside of the
team sort of calling the shots.
You've got you've got fabbing
in the lobby and you're
like you've been put on a
leave sort of thing. I just
think it would be a little
bit of an undertaking. But
again, you know, for one of
and now to face these sort of trials and tribulations, it really does feel like they've caught an unfortunate streak of bad luck here as we enter.
What is the most critical portion of kickoff?
Well, and then once I do that point that like obviously, you know, the ideal, the perfect scenario is that something like this just never happens, right?
That we don't have to talk about this and that. If, you know, assuming that this Royce will play out the whole series with one authority, that, you know, the series won't have such a blemish on it.
But at the same time, I think it's worth pointing out that this is not one of 30s only chance to qualify for the major
They are in the upper bracket semi-final. They technically speaking have one more shot now
It will be playing Shopify rebellion in the lower bracket. So it is don't get me wrong
It's not like they have an easy road if they end up losing here
But it is not the end for them
Even if they go down a bit whether because or because not of this situation that we have in front of us
So we will have the head coach for one of 30 sighing in and we will just continue to hang out in vibe as
Fences trying to meditate
Performing yoga
Just generally one warrior T. I
Don't know was that either of the Warriors? I don't think it was I don't think it was either
I think I know warrior to is that the only you like lean forward. Why that was a bad descriptor
Is that the one where you like you like arms are out like one. Yeah, you put your arms out don't you yeah
So I don't know if we want I bet the desk probably knows what warrior two is so can we just like can we throw them in here?
Cuz I don't really have any concrete
I reckon now Fox looks you think I do yoga absolutely not I am not doing
You're the active one of the group, right?
Wait, what?
You're the active one of the group.
Yeah, but it doesn't mean I'm doing yoga.
Active?
What does that even mean, though?
I respect all yoga, all Pilates and stuff like that, but the last thing that I'm going
to do to spend my hour is either going into a hot, sweaty yoga session.
Dude, hot yoga is awesome.
No, it's not.
It is so fun.
No, it's okay.
Absolutely not.
I can do it before this year.
My girlfriend started teaching hot yoga.
Okay, I have to go hotel room because there's no way. Okay.
Forced hot yoga is not fun, but you go in and you just drip it.
You should try it.
It's very satisfying.
You should try to pull off.
Well, I just, just to be, just to be clear, if I am running on a campaign for
president 2028 of mandatory hot yoga, that is a cornerstone of my campaign
platform. So there will be compulsatory mandatory.
And you're going to get no votes and it's not going to work out well.
That's not true because in front of the line.
Yeah, I do that mandatory bad you got to know what you're walking into if you're ready if you're prepared it's fine
You don't do yoga box. I don't even know why you look at me like you don't do yoga
You just complain to us that your back hurts. Yeah, my back does hurt yoga might
Facing dog on broadcast downward facing that's not even it's downward. How about how about warrior to have a warrior wanting to warrior to
Well, I don't know what the warriors are
I've seen a lot of us toes more times than I can count you have yeah, wow these stretches real nice
Well obviously as you could tell we're just we're we're buying some time here because we are waiting to see what the situation is
For these guys as they get into the lot about what it's like being in this situation
You're being iced out especially yeah on the side of five years being down for two
I mean you never want to find yourself in this situation on either side
I mean everyone wants you know a fairly competitive match
No one wants to even play that recent one where it was a 5v3 and it is unfortunate that you know these things do happen
It's technical errors. It's ISPs. I've been in situations like that where all of a sudden it's well internet's gone
Can't do anything about it, but it's the most important thing is there. Yeah, I mean
On your lease I got a new place so you could
Do the stream but it's very difficult
It's definitely important for them to get up move around stay composed and you just got acceptable kind of fate throws at you at
that point. It's a it's a mental aspect for sure because you have to sit there
and you can only you know beat the horse, beat the bush, beat the horse, don't beat
a dead horse that's the term. You don't want to beat the dead horse that many times because
you can only talk about what you're gonna do next, what just happened. So many
times before you're over analyzing it, before it gets boring, everyone knows
at a certain point what you're gonna be doing so at that point it's just
staying mentally active, just making sure that everyone's there, maybe
maybe cracking some jokes, making sure that you're not getting ice, you got the blood
flowing.
That's the biggest take away that you need to do, you know, we've been there many times
and the best way is just, you know, everyone is laughing, saying jokes inside jokes as best
as you can and keep people mentally there.
Do you remember on Oxygen when, I mean this isn't in the exact same snare, but we were
in Charlotte and I had the Snapchat filter where it was making everyone's face sad
and I think we couldn't scrim because the internet was down in the rooms but I
kept going around everyone's face and making them put the crying do it do it
anything to keep yeah I mean yeah you gotta get the spirits up I mean the more
you sit here and dwell and just be like oh this is a drag we can't play oh we
were up in rounds now if they come back you know this is the only reason no you
got you got to stay focused on what you can and what's within the round of
possibilities and if it's doing whatever you're doing or doing some yoga or
doing what, you know, roller, roller, roller skating,
like they're doing maybe, you know,
you gotta find something.
Yeah, everyone hit the scuba.
I saw that.
I was just hanging up, I was having a good time.
Yeah.
As you can see, we are just biding time here,
really at the very last,
you know what I'm saying?
Someone who's significantly less online than Fox,
I have no idea what the scuba is.
Could you please explain to me?
It's just a dance move, and then people
started doing the AI.
They take those little cats, and they'd
make the cat do an AI thing, the AI dance move.
And now there's all kinds of, oh, it started with, what's
that one, Zootopia?
No, with the fox and the bunny?
Yeah, that's Zootopia.
Right, right.
That's Zootopia.
People took the fox, and he was the first AI of him
just doing that.
So I don't know why.
I think I was teamed with this for five years.
Five years.
It's crazy.
I've dealt with this.
Lex, can you imagine, can you imagine
teeming with Fox with AI stuff or something
that you might have to scroll through?
I mean, Fox has definitely taught me a lot too.
I mean, don't let me discredit, you know,
his TikTok dances and staying on top of things.
I mean, Fox has definitely taught me
some things throughout our time.
You gotta find a way to stay relevant, you know,
and keep a guy like him around.
You'll know.
I mean, definitely keeps you up to date
with all the trends that are going on.
I mean, whether it's Ashwagandha,
whether it's that's good it's good that's good that's good it's good stuff I
think this is a perfect time to step aside before things get too crazy here on
the desk we're gonna we're gonna give it a bite a minute talking about yoga and
that's that's where we draw the line I don't know I don't know if we should talk
about substances too much so substance of vitamin Jonah hit a scoop but I send
us off to it but in between let them do it do well what is it yeah looking
camera dude like that's where we draw the line at vitamins I don't know you're
over here talking about the breakdown of a cat cleaning itself that was in a
little dry line there that was insightful I mean if you could lick
yourself would you not what you just said I'm sorry what the hell did you
say yourself like a cat would you not take advantage and we're gonna start for
a moment when we come back we hope to get into this game thanks for your
patience we'll see you in a few minutes
I
the game. Well, welcome back
everybody. Hopefully we'll be
able to get back in the game
shortly. It's still me and
Ali. Slowly pushing that
boulder up the hill. If you've
been absent for I don't know
like the past little bit or
so. It's currently at four
to between one of 30 and
five years, one of 30 were
getting a lead. But of course
Ali we could not. Well, we
One of 30 will have to play with a coach against five fears and for five years couldn't think of anything more beneficial
Yeah, I mean there's arguments here that five fears kind of needed it, right?
We've only seen half of the game so far half of a map
So it'd be pretty bold of us to go out there and say, you know one one of these two teams is struggling or not
I think the overarching thing in this now is is obviously be nos internet connection and the fact that they aren't able to maintain a stable enough
and that's causing the biggest problem at the moment, as you say, four to three now, five
fears on that come up there, three rounds, one of 30 of course, have four, one of 30 did
really well on that first defensive half and five fears from whatever that we expected them
to do well was that attack, but we didn't really see it transpire. Obviously now it's
going to be a very different playing field. I believe we're still trying to get the
coach in. The coach is going to be Roy's. I don't really know all that much about them.
Obviously, from a player perspective, it's, you know, we can all play the game a little
bit, but it's, you know, you'd be silly to think it's anything other than a severe handicap
going into this now, especially with the position that one of 30 have got themselves
in with that brilliant win that they got yesterday. So it just sort of, you know,
makes you feel a bit bad for them, right?
Yeah, and just to again highlight kind of the stakes that are going on. This
This is not an elimination match, so while this did happen to 1-30 and that sucks, this
is not like Internet DC on their only chance of making the major.
They do have an extra shot even if they were to go down to five years, which it's only
map one.
There's a total of three.
There's also five years pick, so there's a lot of room to go.
And also with border coming up next, as long as Royce can shoot back, there's a decent
chance that border might not go all that much worse than it otherwise would have,
given how chaotic a border can be.
But unfortunately, we do not have the players back just yet, so we will have to take another
break.
So don't go anywhere.
We'll be right back with Clubhouse right after this.
And
we've got the game for you thankfully.
Now, obviously, of course, must address, unfortunately, while we are back, Holly, 1-30 will actually
have to play out with a 4v5 for the rest of at least the map, potentially the series as
well.
It's of course nothing that I think anybody is particularly happy with, including in
most of all, 1-30, especially since they currently see themselves up 4-2.
I'm guessing that the 7th round didn't stand.
I suppose not.
Okay, well, I mean, it is what it is.
This is from my landscape, right?
I believe that we will have to, I mean, pick the same bomb site at least, which we have done.
That's a tick in the box.
I'm going to be real, I can't remember the exact operators, but I do remember being flashed.
So I'm going to say that if you haven't picked the right half of them, let's just get underway.
and not allow any further delays in this one.
Obviously, unfortunate for 1 of 30 and I guess, you know,
we will cover the game through the lens that we see it,
and that is that they are going to be a man down,
so it's going to be big praise on to 1 of 30
for things that they still managed to do well
in this circumstance.
And, you know, big criticism on the side of 5-5,
for any mistakes they make,
because these should all be winnable rounds.
However, something that I would draw attention to
is the fact that throughout the first six rounds of play,
five players got the opening pick in every single round bar one,
so five out of those six, and yet they still only managed to win two rounds.
So even with the advantage links, they're not all that, you know,
it's not like they're a tear in a way when they have that advantage.
I think more of the mental aspects of going up four versus five
is something to consider in this.
So we will see how the game develops.
At least for now, we've got a good push over through that top side.
There's maybe a thought from one of 30 that they want to try and move quite speedily through the map here.
You get that vibe, especially when they start creeping into construction, so you might W going for a bit of a lurk there,
trying to cast what presence there is over by the logistic side.
Close B on the Loggy wall to allow Mike W to drone, but people will fly out of the gym window and one of one of 30's P remaining players.
25% of them will go down to it.
Not even from the player inside of gym.
That's currently JJ on the Azami holding down
on the weight rack.
We need some D to key utility.
We need every advantage you can get.
There's no room to error for one or 30 at the moment.
So the Mike W push deeper, spots one prone on the floor.
Just one more kill to level this up.
Half and half, unfortunately,
Snake swinging down will find Patrick.
So next up, has the shield.
Is that like three people all around the bathroom
the top of main stairs five years all basically stacking on top of each other in one part of
the site and slowly begin their comeback.
It's, well, slowly is one way of describing how tonight has gone and five years are going
to want to try and speed things up.
Of course, reminder, this is the best of three.
There are three maps.
If we so need them, we will at least see two clubhouse, of course, the map that
we are in and border is the next map in the series.
Again, I'm not sure if there's going to be any sort of delay in between this map and border if we are going to try and get some of the extra in for 1 of 30.
Time will tell.
Back upstairs.
By first so far, I've avoided going down to the basement, and instead they are going to be giving us a bit of a tour of this top floor.
Above electrification ban, so everything should be fairly straightforward to get open here for 1 of 30.
Again, it comes down to that age-old and we're gonna sound like broken records, they're links, you know
Have they got the sufficient manpower to really, you know open everything up?
I understand that they've won rounds for B5, but it's missing that utility
That's the key factor, isn't it? Because someone can die on an open pick and their utility is still placed, it's still used
It still has impact
Well, especially when you look at, you know, some line-ups that attacking teams will bring where there's no like there's no core like
powerful or cheesy operator being brought by the attack, but they make up for in the aggregate, right?
Like, you know, the operator line of some talking or about when it's like, you know, one or two hard breaches,
capitao, some kind of vertical destruction, you know, what I would say is kind of like a baseline standard rainbow sex style operator line up.
But you can't really get away with that when it's only four players because
there's just something powerful you're missing that is going to make a bad situation.
Like, you can get away with, you know, maybe weaker utility when you've got five players you can all work towards the same vision,
But you know, in a situation like this, you've got to bring this to Grim in a demo.
It's just to give yourself some kind of advantage and beyond that, it gets really difficult.
Ooh, spotting one player, Packer.
Not even his fault, of course, just pushed a little far up,
and I think Packer can physically look down further than that.
Other enforcement starters, one authority keeps trying to get a leg up on five years
and is just, yeah, continuously thwarted by this defense.
They're ashamed for that because I think the intention and the idea was there wasn't it?
They're good info they knew exactly where Forrest was, weren't able to convert any of
those horrible awkward angles.
Ooh, there's a lack of info here, Snake tucked into gym.
We'll find one onto Mike, bees or not, doesn't matter.
As this is again likely going to be a lockout round.
and half remaining to Volsper and Silo to try and make something happen.
I know that somebody is inside a construction, but with Snake picking up his second,
JJ collects in the final kill by fears of levelling themselves up here.
Tie the whole game. Second time that has happened is the first one both teams traded
around back and forth on Basement Gym respectively and now it's five years and two in Real
else be the second time either team has a clear lead.
Our basement will be the next bomb site
on the rotation for Five Fears is obviously,
I was gonna say obviously they have fixed their opening
kill pick, but they're still continuing to get them
as the conversions that are obviously a bit easier now
that they're starting inherently with a 5v4.
Defense setups are also, I will say,
not doing one of 30 any favors.
I mean, Five Fears, these past couple rounds
have thrown Azami and Mira and some combination
flash or castle at the attack and that requires a lot of utility so going back to my point about
the you know inherent downside to having one less player aside from the fact you only have one less
player you're gonna have to bring a lot more of those super powerful operators to give yourself an
advantage like snake and grim, game osu! and grim that sort of thing and i mean you have less
of an ability to open up a mirror window to break down the castle barricades or deal with those
q barriers because if you take a look at this lineup right now only one player has a dmr well two
players. Now with DMR, the trade-out is you lose your grip and wouldn't that be a nice
utility halftie even things up? Oh and he's got a shotgun itself.
Doubly wrong for me. Yeah, I think for me as well. Especially with the position that
the F2s are in at the moment. It's quite literally the best game of the time, but we see teams
that run both a twitch and a snake just in order to get as many of them in the lineup as
possible. Mike W's found himself in a bit of a curious spot. Choked all of it quite early,
but I think that Five Fears know exactly where he is, and it's the keeper barricades over towards
his direction. It's nice the way that Five Fears are playing this by the way. They're not
looking to roam, they're not looking to contest, they're just instantly consolidating.
That could be a bit of a problem when you give so much map control over though,
And especially when your opponent gets the open pick,
how do we take fans out?
Levels things up 3-3.
Now with the amount of map control that has just been given over,
there's very real possibility for 1 of 30 to try and work something here.
It's vertical.
We all know how powerful it can be.
It's an exciting situation in which 1 of 30 might have a much better shot
just because of that early lurk by Mike W.
Of course with the vertical destruction paths, it's going to be this slower because of the nature of the sledge.
Love this safe, former seller breaching that we're staying from Volsper.
Don't give up. It's not an advantage, but at least some kind of hope, something.
Quick play in with the shotgun by Silo. Flashbangs in to facilitate the entry.
It's a big trade by Five Fears.
You can see One of Thirty are not letting anything slip, but JJ creeping around the corner.
Volsper with a double spray!
And now Snake in a 1v2.
Five years might not get any lead whatsoever, as one of thirty have played this, I mean, just about perfectly, starting in the 4v5.
Great idea with the flashbang and the shotgun, but just as Volsper lined the two up.
Snake has a good idea of where these attackers might come from, spotted on the drone.
We'll take it down.
Still wandering around the site.
C4 briefly ripped as the flashbang goes through, ready for the drop-down mode over,
it won't find much of anything.
Classes around the corner, but only one flashbang left to speak of.
And there we have it!
Mike W threads the needle and 4v5 be damned.
1 of 30 maintained their lead.
This is shaping up to be a fairly interesting match for a lot of different reasons right now.
1 of 30 holding the line at the moment.
The first six rounds of this game might come to be more important than we first realized.
The basement is a site that is unable to be locked in by five fears.
They have a little bit of a problem on their hands.
Potential for an overtime.
That's not anywhere that any of these players want to be at the moment.
30 included within that if they're gonna win they want to win in regulation. Back
up to the top floor we go then. This was fairly no-nonsense. It was a fairly
straightforward hold from Five Fears but a lot of it did hinge around the clash
which has now been removed by one of 30. So JJ and the clash inside a cash
inside a CC. It wasn't gonna be a factor this time he switched over onto the
mute instead. You have a thorn in place, a little bit of trap potential, quite a bit
of anti-walking gear getting sent down as well. Of course, got the laser gates, got
those malusia banshees. I'm a thorn to a degree, all of which just great tools in stopping
players from just walking in and taking space. Now imagine the space that is going
to be contested is again gonna be able to walk this DC uncached side. Straight in from
my Dui.
I mean, why try and switch up a good thing, right? You will find the initiative last time
I dropped in on Oil Pit. I'm just gonna be a high street player on one of thirty. I'm
certainly play the high person who's very excited to walk inside of the NALs and making
a lot of good waves in T2 and Challenger series.
A moment like this, you need a player like that
who can squeeze their potential for all of the work.
Only two rounds away from a regulation.
Even if it's two flukes, that is enough
just to get your opponents hit, by the way.
And border coming up, I mean, it's a 4v5, it's not great, but...
It'll be too early to start hoping that something might happen.
Volsper creeping up another 4v4 to start as silo.
Massive frag on a forest and Volsper finds another!
Just Dome's rival holding the angle heart scoping for eight years it felt like.
And what a 30-hp just narrowed, they've advantaged, they have a 4v2!
JJ and Fens now in a real tough spot, Fens caught out on the deathmark tracker.
JJ gonna move up, try and play this A-bomb chassis.
Probably feels like he needs to extend here and get a pick because he knows that the pressure is just gonna be too much.
There's a global man advantage, it's a four versus two.
Been drowned inside of that room.
C4 could be massive here, especially onto those windows.
Oh, but Fens!
Blinds everybody up inside a lodge, you pack her down in the process and a 4v2 shifts hands just like that.
No need to rely on, it's just Mike W's gotta make it work.
Little bit of a line on the player top main, but the fuser not only in Sino-Logy, but trapped, spotted on a BP
Something like they might have an opportunity, but slowly trudging his way through the Banshee
Give information to five fears
To close Shotgun around the corner, such limited ammunition
Gotta face a Shotgun of his own on the opposite side, put to two HP and then nothing! Five fears!
A recovery!
It's shocking as it is to say down to v4 one 30 didn't drop a single body before that point
I mean even then with that round five fears. It's mixed feelings, isn't it because yes
You can be happy that you won the two versus four and fends and jj played really well to be able to facilitate that
But you've got a question. How did it get that bad in the first place? How did they lose?
three bodies
with nothing in response
If one of thirty had a slightly better push there, and not just all tried to barrel in through logistics,
it would have been a very different story.
It was time to take your foot off the gas, get that reset, send somebody up main stairs,
get somebody on the windows, send someone through condor, pinch them from all four sides.
As two players you can't look everywhere, you can't be holding multiple angles.
When you all sort of funnel into one area, same way that 1 of 30 did, the result is usually the same.
10 seconds remaining.
Ground at 4-5 fares to keep things level here. Neither team really giving the other an inch at the moment.
It's great to see how hard 1 of 30 are fighting despite the odds.
I mean it is highly impressive and I mean the sheer possibility that this could be 6-4 and
the round looked like that up until the 4v2.
It's not only speaks to the measure belief of 1-30 but just speaks to that this match
is far from over.
I mean it's 5-5.
This could still go all the way to OT.
The line we have from 1-30 right here.
Again, bringing operators to try and even the odds and Ying to do their best.
There's no warden on the opposite side.
You won't have to worry about any of those glasses peering through the cannellas or any of the smoke grenades that she might throw.
One of thirty keeps trying to find these little ways through.
New jammer might trip things up a little bit.
We can see especially as we saw with the twitch flashbangs by on basement, this is a good idea to try and just run and put to the shotgun for anybody can react.
Might have to be again straight in.
in. He doesn't waste any time taking early ground. And I guess why not? Bifurze is certainly
giving a lot of this map control up and looking to consolidate to just play trades which I guess,
you know, it's the right way to approach things.
Ulspur? Thinking about something inside of Conn. Essentially waiting for his team to
get into a bit of a position. Pack it. Like we're gonna drop this logistic hatch now.
In some good information on this, the second candela going to get sent out as well.
Puck's drop here needs to be impactful, might be walking up main stairs as well, I like this much more.
Adding some different angles, of course some character goes down early, puts a tough burden on the side of 1 of 30,
especially as this individual con push is not worked out, rival continuing the domination of the main stairs side.
Silo hopping in, but just the most dominant round for 5-3 so far, since the 4 of E5 for 1 of 30.
Now a single player I think dropped on the 5-3 side.
Now the match point has finally shifted hands the only by one five years up six to five
Well five shares are gonna breathe a small sigh of relief now, I think
It's gonna be the first time in this game where they've actually held any league whatsoever
But it's what it matters the most they are on that point
It really matters how you get there people tend to on the river but the results not necessarily the journey
for five years are primed and ready to take their own map choice here in Club
House. One of 30's map choice of border will be coming up next. We're down to the
basement for what could be the final round of club. Although it is worth reiterating.
This was a bit of a tough round for five years last time we played it. It was
It's the only map, or the only site, excuse me, that one of 30 have actually won on their attack so far,
despite a couple of them coming quite close.
I think in part due to some good early pressure in down toward oil pit,
and five fears, kind of giving away quite a lot of the map control.
Imagine that they're going to do similar again,
just because one of 30 can't really, they're going to get the enough tools
to really leverage that, although we do have Snake,
just looking for a little cheeky peak there.
outside of stock using to find it though
especially how he's in one of thirty
but you get those
friends presented with them i think i'd be careful even in the forty five
even it's even if the five years after sloppy with their confines it's just
one of their future particular kind of
individual tenacity
in the second half that not only commendable but yet
C4 cracked on the secret stairs.
It's a belief that's either one of the snakes that's behind a Kiva barrier,
play a little bit aggressive and have a little bit of advantage.
This one of 30 in all likelihood will probably just be doing a lot of the breaching relatively uncontested
for the first part of the round. I mean, five years to have the facility to have so much of a structure as you can see.
Yeah, it's just a five-man hold on the side. And I think that's the proper read.
I mean, one of 30 is going to have to solve these problems,
down the utility in the process is always going to be difficult there's no
need over complicated. No I agree absolutely basement uncle about this
one of the sites that is the most crucial that you have as many bodies as
possible up and alive as soon as you lose one it's like a house of cards you can
very quickly topple in front of your very eyes and one of their you're gonna
know this right they've got them good control should be able to get this
The church wall open now as well, razor blue nicely faded out, C4 is the reaction, one
of two that have been brought this round of 5-5 years.
The church wall now open, it's then turned a lot more around church and moto but it
will need a blue stairs or an oil pit element to this bush.
Big pick.
Just, they keep finding them, my W as well again on basement finding and opening 1D1.
The highlight this time is the twitch with the flashbangs no quick way in, but again these five-tiered players are constantly swinging 1 of 30, even with a shotgun, and it's just giving them opportunities that wouldn't exist otherwise, and the damage exchanged between Forrest and Mike W is relatively even.
Force might still be advantaged, but there's so many more opportunities being given to one of 30.
4v3 now. 40 seconds remaining. Out of these, out of a lot of secondary utility.
Rival trying to pre-fire, but these fights keep being given, and one of 30 are not losing them.
Close around the corner with the bailiff, Rival could easily falter to this.
With three different attackers trapped around the corner, JJ's gotta come in and support,
But no utility remaining for him either.
A scourged, scattered free fire around the corner, but it still results in an advantage.
No way this goes to OT.
Down 4v5, control the other site, there is no way Five Fears have let it slip to this point.
I mean, there's a chance the game could be over if Five Fears hadn't clutched that 2v4.
Now Rival just trying to stave off overtime.
How the hell have one of 30 done this?
The thing is, at this point, you've just got to give it to them, haven't you?
Because against all the odds, they are four versus five.
JJ's fuming.
And I'm not surprised.
No tactical timeout as well, don't forget.
Five Fears used it very early on in the first half of this game because things weren't
going well there either.
The miracle run that Five Fears had through the playoffs.
It's starting to turn into a little bit of a nightmare here on Clubhouse.
Dude.
If five fears don't clutch a 2v4, one of thirty just won Clubhouse seven to five.
I mean if you're going into OT as five fears, that is an insane thing to think about.
I cannot imagine.
I mean, I personally, and I'm not saying they are as well as they should as well, if I were in that situation knowing my own problems I have, I'd be freaking out.
I'd be freaking out.
I don't even put on Twitter.
I'm gonna feel in this game is already all over Twitter.
Oh, I have a feeling this game is all over Twitter.
Don't you worry.
Five years now in the difficult situation. I mean obviously the defense gets to kind of set the tone with what they do
But five years has to run into this defense and I mean these double shields even when they had the advantage
I mean they had a 5v4
That wasn't always sufficient. I mean how the hell am I more in every round?
How the hell am I more confident 1 of 30 now that they're down a player? I agree. It's it's genuinely crazy
Sure
Oh, no, dearie.
It's like you're dog-jacing a bone.
You know, like, I get that there's a player there and stuff, but you just ignore them.
Like, let the shield pass, cross behind the shield, and get on with the round.
A couple of points of damage in onto rival in the opening few seconds.
It might not seem like a big deal, but five fears are on a knife's edge at the minute.
You imagine the mental headloss if they lose a five versus four.
I genuinely could not imagine and Mike W I mean pushing for more after he felt that
early taste of blood against the Hibana.
It's all about the impact against JJ but I think it's the wise decision for the moment
to fall back.
For the defense right now because you're a 4v5 if you try to make a consolidated push
towards one position you're gonna lose the attack and just outnumber you.
They have the 5v4.
But if you can manage these hit and run guerrilla tactics, you can get ahead of them in the information
game and make it feel about even.
And I think 1 of 30 understand that really well, even going back to that twitch play
with the flashbang in basement, I actually think 1 of 30 are playing this 45 extremely
well right now.
They couldn't be playing it any better.
That's the big takeaway.
And the side swap, again, is just huge.
It's poetic.
Five fairs, bombs to side they struggled the most with and this time we're seeing a real lack of pace.
Might debut, behind and ready at the midpoint of these main stairs, JJ trying to get that one down and Rival coming in with the first kill.
Ooh, Sushie threw the smoke while Silo gets one, JJ just maintains the cover now can full shield in the process.
Blitz coming in for the next one, but it's still such a close game.
Pac around 1 HP though is going to put so much of a disproportionate burden on Silo and now that he's the only one left.
Should be match point for five years moving upstairs indeed is pre-fired by snake a clean execute from five years get their second chance at match point
And that's how the rounds should be going
Somebody's to stand up and take the ball by the horns and really get a handle of five phase at the moment
There's gonna be a heck of a lot of uncertainty floating around that room
game. You imagine if this is a difficult situation online to be having a tough time of it. Let's
be honest. We can't beat around the bush here. Five years are having a tough time of this
game. One of 30. They can do nothing more than just live in the moment and make the
play. You got to make the play or the play is going to make you. And so far, there's
been a great job making the play. That player on your screen might W. He's been a really
big impactful player throughout the whole course of the series but I feel since
1 of 30 have got themselves onto the attack he's consistently finding great
space. 1 of 30 are going to be going back onto the attack now. What is going to be
a very crucial round. Oh no. No. No, no, no. No. None of that. None of that. There's
no need for that. Is Silo playing in heaven? Where is this guy? I mean, that's bright. Like,
where is he? He's in the white room from Invincible. Like, you turn off the lights
and all of a sudden the entire government agency's hidden in those walls.
Looks like it's something of men in black.
Literally.
That must be what it's like when you get flushed with the pen.
You know the memory pen?
Yeah, I do.
Also shout out, uh, all of, uh, Wolfsburg's Berserk volumes.
I've never read Berserk, but I want to.
I thought you said the red book.
Ah, yeah, it's like the red and black books, uh, on like the middle left shelf.
not a big a not a big anime person or not a big like manga person that one
does interest me
but if you're just standing up I mean I will be as well these boys been sat
down for a while now like what time did we start this best of well there's
not even we can't even say what time do we start this best of it what time did
we start this map Ollie Ollie because I'm gonna see it's about two hours ago
Ali this bastard three's been going on for 20 years
What do you mean?
Yeah, it's about two hours ago about hours ago about a if I were to be specific about an hour in 55 minutes ago Wow
I mean surely we should be good at this right?
Everyone should be getting locked. I don't feel like five fears are locked in at the moment. I'm seeing three empty seats
I'm seeing shoes off
This is work. I want bums on seats. Now want people accepting invites getting into this lobby right now
I want I want bums on seats. I want feet and shoes and hands-on keyboard. That's what I want to see right now. Yeah
Lock-in serious lock-in come
Serious, it's gotta be it's gotta be and and you know, I will I will accept it
I will accept the severe lack of lock-in that we see
if rival slides back around the corner and like if I say slides back around the
corner I mean slides from the right all the way to the left side I want to see
like a full I'd see them all like Jerry like Jerry like Jerry no that's a note
like risky business Tom Cruise slide across the screen I feel like that could
be a walk on they could do they could all slide literally one after another
I think they would have been in the mood to do that bit had they lost seven to five to five to one of three, you know, four V five if one of 30 hadn't
choked a four V two. Can you imagine like the social team like we've got a really good idea for a bit like we like the way that we saw, you know, you
sliding around on the floor like we'd want to, you know, we want to try and do something with that and it's all looking like dead behind the
is like, we've been going against a four versus five team
and they've taken us through all the time.
We just went out of it.
Well, literally what fans are saying right now.
Well, they're at least up, at least up one round.
1-30, we need to win two in a row,
one on each side in order to close out.
Cloud on switch, by the way,
I just want to emphasize this again.
This is five years pick.
Like 1-30's map pick is coming up and it's border.
All things considered, like, border can be kind of hell,
but if you can win a 4v5 on Clubhouse,
I feel like you might be able to on border.
I don't know if you disagree with me, Holly.
Like, I don't have a whole lot of, like,
very well-reasoned analysis supporting that,
but just kind of a gut feeling.
I feel like a 4v5 on border might be better.
What, this game has something in it for me, Lynx,
And like, I think that the end of the day,
that four versus five element,
whilst that's like one of the biggest,
or maybe the biggest storyline of the whole night,
when you boil it down,
because no one's gonna remember the pauses,
they're just gonna remember the fact
that it was played four versus five.
I think that's like, it could be the juice
that one of 30 need in some ways,
because they're playing for a little bit more now,
they're playing for their teammate
that can't get back in,
like they're frustrated,
they've got all this pressure,
They've got all these things going against them at the moment and all they can do is just
perform the best they can in the moment and also there's a little bit less expectation
on them because now there isn't the same level of expectation for them to do well and they
go from feeling pressure to maybe feeling a little bit less and they might be able
to play a little bit looser, they might be able to find a little bit more of a flow
without forcing it.
And then on the side of five fears, a game that already had quite a lot of pressure
They wanted to continue that performance and show everyone that it wasn't a fluke.
They've now got the pressure of playing against 4 vs 5.
And they're going to feel that as well because there's very much an expectation for them to win that.
Well...
Well, a lot of...
Oh!
I just scratch everything I said.
Scratch everything.
How do I do this?
I put my hands up.
Oh
Just scratch everything scratch everything. I said scratch everything hot off the press. Well actually hold on I
Was gonna say something no secret
I don't leave it a secret
I also I don't want to jinx it because last thing I want to do is say it and then we're in another tech pause
Okay, yeah, we'll keep it a secret and this is this is a time when we'll tell you this is a time when superstitions come back
Do you think I do I believe in jinxing? No am I taking a chance on this match? No, I'm not I am not risking it
tactical timeout, though, into an actual, into an actual real pause with stakes with things
to talk about, Ollie, and to go back to your point of a pressure, something I imagine that
five years will be addressing in the tactical timeout. The onus is on them. Just one round
to close out their pick and what a fight it has been.
Right. We've got a countdown on the screen, and it's a tactical timeout countdown. So
So it means it's real.
We know we're coming back after this 12, 11.
I won't do it all, don't worry.
So 1 of 30, can use a little bit of time now to have a discussion.
I believe that it's going to be Royce, that he's going to be firing a lot of those shots,
given that none of the players seem to be talking too much.
Hopefully that is the secret sauce they need.
Thanks.
What's happened?
Everyone.
Everyone, he's back, he's back!
Fino's back in the lobby.
I won't say you won't lag out because the action phase has not started
also, he could lag out at any point, but he is back.
And for the moment, we can all be happy about that.
I mean, and again, I need to say it again.
1 of 30 could have ended this match
had they not choked a 4v2 there to 175.
That in and of itself is crazy.
But five fears have been brought to this point.
point have fought this hard against 80% of a team just to be up one round in
overtime and now Bino is back. He's gonna be cold, he's gonna be stressed, but the
rest of his team is pumped up. You know Packers been keeping the vibes high. You
know one of 30 do not feel they have any pressure on them. And now hopefully
these next couple rounds or at least this one this will be a real match of
rainbow six I'm not gonna lie I saw the friendly fire notification in the top
right and was instantly like oh no he's just connected but no you know is in the
lob let's hope for everyone's sake they're able to stay in for the duration
of the round
130 with a big chance here at taking this to maximum O.T.
we've got a great lineup for it
Introduction of the 10s this time, let's try and cut off some of these lines aside from outside and give a bit more safety to playing out on the balcony.
Speaking of being cold, Rival throwing those Zoto canisters around means freezing it up.
That means that the plot wall is just going to take a little bit longer to get opened.
Is the potential to try and do something with that from below or even from side window?
I think it's just a bit of a use of exchange, but one of thirty are happy to take at the moment.
Snake taking a gander over at the Lodgy Hatch.
So while there is some utility inside a garage, it's not nearly as heavy as a presence that we've seen in the past.
Let's see one player moving around the rafters at the moment, but the actual broader part of it is clear.
So you can see a lot of the crush from you, so he'll dump in.
Only one set of nades, but a lot of these they can put down air jabs as well.
We'll go up in the corner, that I was about to say.
Should pretty effectively shot by Fens.
Distracting a lot of his cross airs.
The air jabs will buy time to get those bees up,
and the flashbangs into position as well as they push deeper.
The defender tucked inside of Boilfield has gone unnoticed by the attack,
yet found by Volsper and Mike W as well.
In fact, in that whole process, the Azami is only the second one to go down.
both the Thorn and the Azami in that position, both felled by the attack.
Silo, big chance of him recoverable as well.
Should be picked up.
Might be just holding onto that platform breach.
Knows that JJ's playing at the top of these cash stairs right now.
There it is, the revive coming in onto Silo.
It did somewhat slow things down, but there's still 40 seconds.
There's still plenty of time.
Two C4s are going to be the ace of the three of five fears right now.
We're going to need to try and use those to deny a plant's rival, locked on two-site window.
If you use it in Bino's hand, someone has to try and make a play with this.
It has to be a big drop-in through, won't you?
AXI pack are going for the back side.
Wins a huge fight!
Volsper up as well!
Almost the flawless as Rival only gets one when they're down 1B5.
And Bino with a double to end it!
still one more round to go but one of 30 are officially back. Just give it them all, honestly give
it them all. One of 30 back in business, back in the lead, or at least leveled up should I say.
Still it feels like they're leading with the mountain that they've climbed here tonight to
get to this very point. Two hours on clubhouse. Crazy, crazy scenes indeed.
Bino managed to stay in attendance for a whole round as well, so we can only hope that whatever
isolated ISP issue it was, was very simple to fix. Or even it was complex to fix. Who cares?
I just want him to be stable. I want him in the lob. I want him in the game.
I mean, this is crazy, I mean, winning the fight through the flash, I mean, 5v1, they
live up red stairs, and look at that, oh, I just realized, the Fino's double kill is
killing Packer.
We'll take it, that's just, it's collateral damage at this point, that's so funny.
I'm really nervous to watch this at the moment.
I mean, what do you even do at this point?
I'm not going to check to locate a bomb and to view the light.
It didn't win downstairs at all.
Oh.
They won it in overtime.
They didn't win in regulation.
They didn't win it in overtime.
They didn't win in regulation.
They didn't win it in regulation, even when, what, I think, yeah, one of the two times
they attacked, they had a 5E4?
Within the first 45 seconds?
Yeah, I mean, they were crazy on the open impeccion.
They were crazy on the open impeccion.
They were crazy on the opening pick on their own attacks, but they weren't doing anything with it and that's why it's been so interesting to watch 1 of 30 play with four players and the fighters feeling some room struggle to convert it because it's not like they're really good with working that advantage, yet they can get it and then they've got some brilliant ability to get in and get that kill, but it doesn't always transpire to the roundward.
That's why it's probably good that one of 30 have stayed in this fight for so long.
Looks like they've given quite a lot of map control away, which again isn't too unusual.
The fact is they've been pretty slow tonight on the attack, all things considered.
They are going to be looking to move through that top floor, they've got the skeleton
key so it can open up some really long angles.
I like the lineup, I maybe feel like it's missing the ying or something a bit more
explosive that we can try and get in and make something happen. We've seen them attempt
to plant a couple of times on this site already. It was a Menten back plant last time and that
works out quite well for them. We haven't chosen to bring it instead. It's been much more
of a typical full map clear, lift the floor open and start to try and work this way.
So there's plenty of time to get rid of that too.
Early fireball usage.
Just blocking off the Moto doorway as JJ looking for an angle into the side that is
generally speaking.
Quite open.
A lot of feed holes.
A lot of head holes throughout all of these walls.
Of course, so quick a bit of time to go.
The shield with this blitz, gotta find a way in, seems for it, but it actually ended up
going down through the hatch, maybe.
Could be a little bit tricky creeping through the smoke, Bino, finds a gap for a brief second
and ends up falling back into construction.
Oh man, JJ's still looking for a way through.
Moving up the main hallway, no defender looking, catches two with their back turned, lines
and both of rival good with it as well.
A third for JJ.
It's a reverse flawless and one of 30 splotchings
have shifted and while Pino finds one,
we're all gonna move straight to his position.
Flash bangs out, five beers, close it.
It's been a hell of a journey all to win
on their own map.
Winning on your own map choice
should not be that difficult.
You can see that five beers
are breathing a sigh of relief there.
for it's just taking a moment.
Even they can't believe how this game has transpired.
All of that hardship and eventually,
JJ's able to pull it out of the bag.
We're gonna hit a break and we'll be back with the desk.
I
Because I might have been the worst game upper league, like I've like experienced it.
Obviously, this was not the situation that anyone wanted to find themselves in today.
And it's an 8-7 win and five fears can move on, but nobody on either team, nobody watching
it, wanted to see a 4v5 for a couple of rounds.
This many tech pauses, it absolutely has a concrete impact on the way that this game
was played.
Thankfully, these players can now look in the rear view mirror and say, it's over
with, it's done with, and hopefully move on.
No matter what, it changes the dynamic at play.
I was going to say it's really not that simple to put a game like that behind,
especially on one end for the side of 1 of 30.
I mean, you win 4 and 2 on the half.
You had some of these rounds in a 4v5 that realistically could have
win in their favor.
It was just small little mistakes where probably if you had that fifth player,
you're always going to look back at that.
If we had our 5, what does that turn out to be?
We end that map.
We go to map 2 on a win.
And then to go so close, they get Bino back into the server.
And then to lose outright. I mean, I do want to say like kudos to them and their testament and their own mental fortitude to be able to
Fight to the nail throughout this but it definitely stings when you get that close and have to wait that long
And then it just inevitably comes to a boss and now you're going into your map
I mean, I I don't know how I'd feel being in their situation right now
It's a tough spot to be in. I'd be upset. I'd be mad that being said
I do think it's more of a win for one of 30 than it was for five years
He's the fact that they brought it to over time in a 4v5
It goes to show yes, they're gonna think about it
Oh if we had all five this game would have been over we would have won it
But now you have all five you brought it to overtime
You really strung it out as long as possible to make five for your sweat the mental game in my opinion is more on five
Your shoulders they're gonna be thinking how do we even let it go to overtime? It's a 4v5
so
Everything that needs to be done for one of 30 they could have easily won it now
They have their fifth back and hopefully that is stable going into map 2
And I think they're in the better position for this series as a whole right and five beers as you said did have to lock in
We overheard JJ telling the team right guys. We have to really focus and lock in here
I say stop trying to five-man bunker the basement just fucking fight playing normal
Play normal.
We're good.
Now don't listen, man.
Play normal.
I'm gonna tap you here.
Yeah.
Play normal, OK?
I do.
It sounds easy, but it is absolutely not.
I mean, you guys have been there, right?
I mean, a player down, it's so hard to play normal.
I mean, it's not necessarily playing normal.
It's just you want to get the round over as fast as possible.
You want to take full advantage of being in the man advantage,
because if you get one kill, then you're in a 5v3,
and that deficit keeps dropping, you're always going to play.
And it's similar, you know, a lot of players,
you see it in ranked matches.
Once a player disconnects, everyone just goes crazy.
They want to get it over with as fast as possible,
take advantage, but that's also where it was biting them
in the ass because they aren't playing strategic.
They aren't playing off one another.
They're just trying to go for this kill
to keep the man's advances going into their favor,
which ultimately, again, it got really close
because they pivoted off of the style of play
that they were naturally warned to.
So it is good on JJ to be able to reel it in
and be serious and try to have everyone lock in.
And thankfully they got this win.
But I mean, that really could have been a disaster.
And I do agree with what you were saying.
The mental definitely should be on the side of 1 of 30,
the showing that they have the gumption.
They have everything to get it done now that they have five.
But it also begs the question, if things
start to go wrong on the border,
do they then pivot back to what happened on Clubhouse
and all of the what ifs and how that can manifest
into something negative?
Yes, the right message from JJ,
because if you're sitting in site, again, a 4v5,
you're giving the other team so many opportunities
from to get a pick as they close around the site, but on the same vein, you can't go balls
to the wall, swinging everything and going for these aggressive kills to get even more
of an advantage because then you're not playing normally.
So finding that sweet spot is very difficult, but the wrong messenger in my opinion, because
yeah, the mental game aspect, you're getting stressed out in a 4v5, people are not locked
in in a 4v5, not taking it serious.
Yeah, you get into a rough couple of rounds going into map two and then everything amounts
on top of that pressure, on top of that stress.
So the 1-30 again, in my opinion,
I think they're in a very good spot going into map two.
And we can hope that this kind of transition
into map two is a reset button for Bino's internet,
for the mental of both of these teams,
and we can hopefully get smooth sailing
for the rest of the day.
Hopefully we're gonna get this match underway
in just a moment.
Stick around, we'll be right back.
They come out wind-billing like an Englishman looking for a scrap, the tall king of a scrap,
Tino!
If he goes up contestant the kick goes cold, that'll be devastating.
The grenade goes through, that's the swing!
Cyber and Bullet are able to get one apiece with the kit so far away and Canadian down
upstairs.
Wow, that was special.
It's a one versus three to hold,
and they're pushing it from behind.
He's found one.
He's got to get the vertical as well.
They get pulled off, sick.
We're down to the last three or four seconds.
Ryder's got another.
He's held on.
He's going to do it.
A B and D.
Take the three-one win.
Both players spotted,
but the Ranskin he made successfully.
Oh! Oh!
Another one for Solotov.
Information from the Bs.
He goes, did shot the ball.
That is seven ends. They submit themselves as one of the greatest of all time.
He's starting to get cooked alive all the way, but he's using the stem pistols like this from the dark.
Surely not. Really? Let's play the year in my book.
The place began, hits the old body, doesn't quite catch it.
Oh my god, Sam!
That's the dance!
He doesn't have the motivation!
He's going back, he's not quite sure.
He could only have a few seconds to kick it.
A few seconds, stick it, Nassil, stick it!
This is an angle that he might be able to contest.
No, unfortunately, he takes just a bit of damage there.
Walk, I guess, the second one.
Eclipse though, we'll get one.
Training it into a 2v2, 9v2, pushing on the side.
The betting will lose out of this!
Eclipse the last alive on the Ella.
Spots the hand and takes that.
Can I use the ace for Walker?
He will down BC, Canadian, positioning to pick up,
but that's going to result in a double-defeat from Oracle.
That's the core for Hamas around.
Necrox the final defender against vertical the absolute domination
They give you hard press to find us.
more conflicted about a team coming out of a map. They just won Ali five years eight
to seven on their own pick. But most of those rounds they won were in a four V five them
being in the five. And there's a very real chance that one of 30 might have wanted outright
had they not choked a four V two and going into map to I mean for five years it's still
got to be weighing on their mind. Absolutely. You know two rounds that were one four
the game. The number one
number one. The number one
number one versus five right
from the outset. It seems like
the social voters has got a
little bit further behind one of
30 as well. We're around 60%
going into map number one, but
you guys watching at home
have obviously seen what these
players are capable of even in
the most dire of circumstance.
that really stand out in my mind. But I know that that is a map of siege that I will remember
for a long time, links for all the right reasons and a lot of the wrong ones.
Five fears. Is it a confidence boost to win in the first map? It was definitely a weird one.
I think that's maybe putting it mildly. And coming into this, they've really got to
at least at that mental and acknowledge, right?
GG, 0-0, we go again.
Win map two, or even win map three.
Who knows?
Like, there's a decided thrown in there for a reason.
One of 30, they know it's the best of three.
They know that they have chances here tonight.
And they know how close they were able to come
on the opponents map choice.
Down four versus five.
I don't think they're gonna be feeling
too out of the race just yet.
No, I don't think they are at all.
I think I know somebody who wants to get right back into that race is you know obviously DC for most of last map made it
Just at the end the only one one of the two backgrounds
He was actually present for on the backside is at least gonna be much more of a presence here
Not probably a stress. Let's hope he actually is going forward
We have on boarder can be a bit more chaotic
You know, but more crazy than we might otherwise see on clubhouse, but we should advance
I don't think they'll be all too surprising. I mean we commented Ali that
I'm a bit surprised that one of them left up as many shields against five
years and we thought and over here we've got both blackbeard and blitz taken down
right out of the gate and the intention is a little clearer this time isn't it
it's to allow the Monty if the Monty wants to be brought but we are just
instead going to heavily target the shields. We can afford to do that on
boarder. The hard breach is it's kind of more given it's a lot less
impactful and you can really pick your lanes a little bit more. And the shields are a big
part of 5v1's game part. Not to say that they're a crucial part, I think that they can do well
without shields as well, but it is a tool that they really like to try and use. With
that being said, it is also made way for a lot of other fun toys to be brought out,
specifically the Grimm, Deimos, you've got a ying option if you want it. Plenty to
going along with. The flora drone that is sent in, already we've got rival at the top of these
east stairs. Forest on the roof with the diffuser. He's playing with that chip. This target is going
to be one of those electrical devices and looking to try and use that EMP from the roof. Save
all some of these huge others. Allow some clear lines of droning to be done that through that
top floor because his team starts to work through. Benz, big player from the previous map.
Now, this time on the Homes, if he knows that somebody's inside,
gets the info on the drone, knows it's the Goyo,
it's gonna be targeting the wall.
Now the first thing to go down though,
there's Snake on the opposite side with a quick prefire on the corner and levels things.
Easy little 1v1 for a fence right there.
I don't have a lot to worry about either.
Silo put the low HP,
free facilitated by Mike W who got that first pick just about 20 seconds ago,
And that's CCTV clear.
Some more players to find.
Bolster good for it.
JJ may be venturing a bit too deep in the CCTV
area, but the part was not thought.
And he ended up getting away with.
So now with a minute to go, Whitebeard
has had some options to move for us.
Big trade catching Bolster behind Fountain.
They'll facilitate the entry into the East Side,
but no clear advantage for anyone just yet.
Rival, still playing around these East Stairs.
Doesn't make much progress in clearing our office
fountain looks like there may be a light and a little bit of information as well
we need fence to get in there and start scanning the death mark
he's got everybody available and his target is looking like the cave but the
cave is in the stutters amu jamma so you're not gonna be able to place that death mark
to a player stood inside of a amu jamma
really one of three this is just about holding on you know what the weather
these players are gonna be coming from and there's options for nice 1v1s
Might W picks up two, makes for a three on the round rival, a little bit late to the par here.
I mean, very late to the party, able to find one.
Don't choose to go fight to the next though, around the corner.
Very real 1v3 right here, those shotguns, you know, pressing that advantage.
Wisely so, but at long range, he's good for it.
Back with a vengeance.
Gets the first round for 1 of 30, a clean 1v1 to start.
The game stays close here.
on a 30. I might be specifically brilliant opening round, silent, scrolling tiktok, real
good, like just got a major qualification game on our hands and we're sat scrolling phones
like come on look in
Hopefully we do hopefully we probably get them locked back in no need to get listen
We already had enough stuff earlier taken away the momentum
Knocking us out of it. There's no need to start trying to scroll through
Love this one be one by the way, just like and I what I say I love it
You know, it was just satisfying, just like all the shots, nice little spray.
This next one's crazy though, oh I actually didn't get to see it, but that Mike W2T, so it's kind of insane.
I have no idea how he kills fours, then swings out to get the guy on our way balcony, really impressive.
And while Guna attempted 1DX from our rival right there, yeah, I mean,
shocking around the corner is just gonna be a difficult thing to win, don't really blame him for that one situation,
there's never going to fail him. Next side up, the ventilation workshop for 1 of 30.
We'll have an extension on top floors. You typically have to defend most of the map
no matter the site on border. There will be quite a bit more utility to cut for, I
think, for five years.
Yeah, five fears are gonna be forced into this full map. Clear like you say, it's
border. It's expected. CCTV, armoury, office,
these stairs. All big areas. You kind of need to take control of at some
point as an attacker. Backer again on the
very solo playstyle downstairs on the
solace. And the solace of course performs
multiple tasks here. Not only can you
search out some electronics to be
simple use but you're also going to be able to see when that plant is going down.
It's just keeping a good eye on things
in and around that front door at the
moment with a chance at trying to
affect on to what's happening upstairs
as well, he's had an impact, so maybe try and assist a little bit, but main job for
the time being is going to be locking down at that front, get ready for the push.
Tanks are razor blue now, I can only think, because we hear one go off at the same time
and lose a decent chunk of his health.
So there is a player inside of CC that is struggling to be dealt with at the moment,
by fears.
It's not like they've got a straight, clear plan of how they want to deal with these
players and it's all giving them quite a bit of space right now.
Mike W given five years of the business at the moment, Snake, taking out early once again.
KJ also on low HP.
Steve is holding on quite strong.
Five years facing a lot of deathmills in the first half.
This is where the five years of the easier time on Clubhouse.
It was the conversions that were always an issue, but they could of course get the
5E4.
We've mentioned that quite a bit of time.
But even in a very well-coordinated way, setting up crossfires, car all things,
like pinches, really good stuff on Clubhouse.
So far on border one of 30 had the better of them both rounds now on waste that weren't particularly close to side from that
One view on the three friends and the player inside of customs
In the defense with the better positioning of our angles to better play through and through right after the world side for five years
And all the devins reacted accordingly trying to play retake and hold these vertical angles
I love that huge pick JJ still thinks he has an advantage to creep in this castle and the meat go for the retake
DeFino will lose his life in the process and J.P. gets the diffuser down successfully.
Vertical angle is not effective in netting that one, but a huge triple by Packer in a
massive comeback by five fears.
Forrest in a 1v4 needs to win all of this on that long angle and you know that defenders
are about to be swinging him left and right.
There's the first.
They will find it, put a long arm around the corner, I mean the round is quite literally
done.
There's nothing Forrest can do.
IW MVP at the moment for one of 30.
Brilliant from one of 30.
Just baiting it in.
Look, if you wanna drop and try and get the plant down,
that's fine.
We can just play retake.
They still had full control of office upstairs.
They still had full control of bathroom.
Easily able to transition down.
Drop bathroom hatch and make a play from there.
Yeah, sure.
The plant goes down.
There was two people inside of the site,
two people inside a workshop
and neither of them really able to get out or do anything.
There's maybe a call for forest to get on the window a little bit sooner so that they're
able to cut off and to stop those players from affecting from bathroom into workshop,
but when the walls stop like that there's so many different options.
By fears continue to struggle on the attack here.
This has been their favoured side by far throughout regular kickoff.
81.9% win rate.
And now you start to think, hmm, was it an easy group?
We're teams playing inside a group stage a little bit differently to the
playing now when it's actually playoffs on the line and it's actually a spot at
the Solay City Major. The five-fifths percentage have been lulled into a bit of a
false sense of security because we are not seeing the same success that they
had earlier transpire into this series and I know that it's been a
weird series but again that's part of being a professional, it's part of
Competing at this level is you've got to be able to separate
Yep, by the way separate
Especially at this point this deep it climbing I see this deep in this series
Really only 17 rounds in my series in the grand scheme of things but on the all the way on the map to
Got to start making it at this point
Especially now potentially getting through a song off one out of a side occurs sight rotation right after this
One of 30 will attempt their last go before they can have the option to retry the things.
Customs will be the final one, but it's definitely his first three.
Metapulse on the board, M10 brought by Packard.
Trying to get some nice verticality. Maybe you can test the CCTV or the Armory positions.
And finally he has the Monty. Should be into the front.
First time I think so far this match we've seen this map. Excuse me, we've seen the shield.
Spiping unbanned four or five years.
The clock is understanding that their normal way of attempted way of breaking through these like
These defensive setups Ali is just
Just not working on
No, they're pulling back an old faithful aren't they JJ on the Monty?
I could try and hide the
pulse inside of the prep phase as well
IW found him ready just in the bottom of the customs there, C4 going to go out from Bino
as I have the C4 line up this time.
IW sent his client as well so I could really the only one with the C4 now to try and work
off the back of that information.
Even if he's just able to determine which side the push is primarily coming from, give
his team a good piece of information.
silent. Took tint the moment to office. There is going to be presence inside of these stairs,
so this needs to be called just because Monty bearing down on you whilst you're on our
axis. That was the nicest thing, so we'll get himself out of there and out of there
quite quickly. Don't be called, but that isn't an intro to pulse on the scanner.
The packet is found as first target. The Monty, no less. The special prey to
defined, especially if he could land this before he has to find the wall.
Will it go off, but it only does negligible damage to JJ,
Silo with big kill, helping out the bulls in a tricky situation,
barreling him down.
Ooh, that's just great coordination by 1 of 30.
Excellent use of the Rima dash as well.
Not an interaction we see all too often anymore,
but JJ will get a painful reminder of its lethality.
5 to 3 and 1 of 30 looking in a good position.
when 3 in a row as basically all of the attack is isolated on the east side of the pack.
The team work there from 1 of 30 is just fantastic.
Driver will find Silo eventually.
This is a very late trade and it doesn't do anything to even out the advantage.
Packer and Silo working as a little one to punch their information and cover in fire.
It's worked fantastically.
Snake is able to move through.
Another pack will be a little bit more cognizant that someone could just swing
around the corner there he was trying to watch the diffuser he has been caught out
he was trying to watch on his own and didn't have to be certain to support from
his team that's open to go it's three versus three but there's only 17 seconds
only 17 seconds and a player like Wolfsburg in this position could be
perfect late getting the cams force only 10 seconds remaining not sure how
useful that'll be but it might give something not around the corner though
as one player gets clothes lined by Wolfsburg running up few beepers it's
a quick three piece to finish for the rest of one of 30. Three rounds in a row,
a flawless sight rotation and five years at risk of being shot out of border.
The priority just looks a little bit strange from five years, doesn't it?
I come back to something that JJ was saying in one of the recorded pieces,
you know, one of the pieces that where we get a bit of a listening from the
team and he was saying play normal.
I just don't feel like they're playing their normal stage at the moment.
It's like they're trying too hard. The clocks against you.
We don't really need to be hacking the cameras at that point.
We need to be out of the pushing for the kills, we'll get in the diffuser down, and you're in a 3v3.
You don't really know where everybody is, so do you really want to start, you know, spreading far and wide to try and get the kills?
You probably need to try and force the plant and make your way into sight.
I mean, this bit of teamwork.
Just beautiful.
A kill from Snake to try and make something happen there.
It just never dealt with disenchantment, it never dealt with anyone inside a small lot, the small supply downstairs.
Again, just a strange run. It feels as though 5F is all playing their normal brunt of seed right now.
Certainly feels that way. And we'll see how it goes after we have a new set of bands, 5 years taking on the castle, which...
Maybe that'll help.
has played it three times in a row, but I think to your point, Ali, I think the problems
that these contractors are encountering are a bit greater than one operator right now.
It's not just the Castle Barricades seem to be an issue.
It might complicate things, but it's even how they're coordinating in these important
moments, you know, with 15, 10 seconds remaining, how they're working around these clears.
I mean, I'm sure the Orcs need to be surprised, but still getting caught out like that
and getting caught out repeatedly three rounds in a row by one of 30.
I mean, opening picks, uncontested, no trades from five years.
Mike W also, seven-one at the moment.
Can't say enough about this defense right now.
Can't say enough good things about one of 30.
And you know, it's moments like this where if five years start
losing more rounds, you're starting
to think about how close Clubhouse was.
You're starting to think about how not-close-quarter
is basically a real shake.
Yeah, that is a must-win round for five years.
If not this, then next term.
It really is.
And I mean, it's early days, isn't it?
You know, it's in half of the round, half of the side.
should I say. Café starts to feel like a likely scenario.
Played out on the catwalk, Ulspur, been caught in the line scan as
well, just wanna move. Really lost too much HP to that, but they
are sending the kitchen sink at him right now. Fortunately, he
can drop. There is a player inside a passport. But Packers
also here for the assist. Again, a good example of the teamwork
that's being shown right now. JJ has to repel all the
faith down on the Spider-Man angle just to get one back
trade and pack a little later prone inside a passport.
Rival's good for the clear up though.
JJ on the double down.
Finally, we might start see things going five years away.
W, a huge commitment by Packer that gets punished by five years.
JJ also good with the string turning around.
Mike W, I mean, at that point, you
feel like you have to start working back a pick.
Mike W feels that pressure, unfortunately not
able to meet the moment.
So Silo, 1v4. Spotted on the drone.
I need to attack nose, both sides are clear.
Ooh, good swing. Good anticipation of that position.
Getting rotated all the way back into Armory now and get bogged before anybody can get all that information.
Spots another, surely not.
Surely not.
One player all the way over on the east side, the other moving through break.
He's got a hell of a long angle for this one.
A minute to go.
the
game.
I'm going to start giving
engagements. Silo finds
another.
Yes, he does, but he wins it.
Unfortunately, not good enough
for the one before, but certainly
good enough to give us a show in
the latter half of that round.
There was a little chance, wasn't
there? It's high time we saw
five fears put one up, though.
Eventually able to throw one over opening kill by the way so far for one of 30. It's been a really good start
something that's ruled by a lot of over on clubhouse, but
Definitely gonna have a handle over here on board of the opening picking every single round so far
But we feel to convert that last round
They killed my
When you look at it, when you look at it again there is quite a nice little, nice little shot
being placed through obviously we get to see it on the reverse.
Down to ventilation and workshop for round five. Our five players able to chain a foot view together
now and start to make this a little bit more of a contest. This attack inside so far today has
been a little bit of a problem. What if they, I don't think they're going to be feeling too
too much pressure right now. Again, gonna be rocking plenty of information. Pack him.
We're playing the Mosey this time.
And Volsper over on the solace.
I believe Solace played by half a previous through on the Solace side, but there's been
a switch around a little bit.
And look at the roll that Packin' facilitates on this one of 30 team.
Because he really was playing in, you know, quite an isolated way, but the team is
ready to sort of drop everything to assist and support him at the moment's notice.
And we've seen that demonstrated already with plays like him and Silo downstairs in the bathroom
Just seems to be a really
Useful tool the 1 of 30 have got in their kit belt at the moment because the rest of the team can kind of hold their
Own as well and Packers usually guaranteed some sort of impact whether that's time wasting getting killed so can up a ton of utility
They'll usually hit one of those metrics in the round
See the hits one here is unfortunately his C4 goes wide out on the courtyard balcony.
There's two more for one of thirty in their underback pockets.
So if we all good, they'd run out by Bolsper.
Ooh, a bit too far yet unfortunately.
Talked around the corner.
Bit hard to tell.
They still not specular scanner so no harm, no foul.
Swapping that.
Because the only damage doesn't lose any health in turn.
So, not a whole lot to worry about the defense at the moment.
Two players spotted by the E1 Dito.
So it seems like five years is not really in a position to capitalize on any of that information
They know very clearly as we can all see three different defenders are around this top floor and the Monty is just outside
Ready to push in ready to put some pressure down these defenders, but
Nobody's supporting it nobody actually has angles into this building
In fact the only player who has an angle is Mike W looking through the smoke at JJ five years
Actually really don't know anything at the moment
Got a little bit of my control, haven't they?
The board is a small map so time is a little bit more less important.
GJ can start to move through now, but it's going to play out tucked inside archives, snake.
There's a reinforced wall ahead of him so I can't really shoot that open to get a idea
of what's going on in the Armory.
And don't think anyone's really pressured Armory wall either.
There's always going to be a concern that you're going to be a little bit vulnerable
from that side, but the way that it's being played, less so.
flying in now Packer. Just to try and move through JJ on super low HP he was trying to get the kit down
and he's still going to be tucked inside of the site here his teammate is trying to support him
vertically but it's just not good enough being over the C-force I'll grab the kill and Fens
left upstairs high and dry finds one with the pistol of all things and is giving chance to reload
with that diffuser cold in the site all the two remaining defenders have to do is keep a
close and eagle eye on it especially with two shotguns super shorty in a
primary it's gonna be difficult one for friends to work through a double crossfire
though info on the left side of it still peaks right who have been
unfortunate by friends right there look in the opposite way maybe heard a
sound cure or something but ends up walking directly into that 1v1
unaware 4v1 right now for one of 30 and seems like five years ended up
spring a trap as they moved into that site JJ moves in to put that a
and then immediately has this guy is always on his phone. JJ immediately...
I'm sorry, he's always on his phone. It's just so funny to me.
JJ does react very quickly, gets off the diffuser.
But then at that point, well, unfortunately, as you can see, we've got a guy with the C4 up top.
We've got the vertical line with the counter-bottom, and the rest of the defense immediately floods in.
He starts taking fights with the players who are scattered but still trying to get in the position to defend the Monty.
Monty. Very good secondary plan or even potentially primary win condition by by
one of 30 there to play the retake to get those kills into completely ensnare
five years as they move into the site and JJ I think being the ultimate victim
in that situation three round lead or five years at the moment and one of
30s pick is going about as well as you've been otherwise hope. Again a really
weird focus to get in the plant down there did not clear top floor
sufficiently and they don't really clear the sides sufficiently either
because we still had a site player tucked into a workshop.
So, kind of just like a bit of a halfway house
between doing everything and maybe just trying to force it.
It's actually so far tonight on board
that I don't know if the playoffs have been strange
from five years, that much is clear.
We will move to the final round of regulation
for one of the on their defenses though,
aside which they have seen great success on.
I'm upstairs to tell us I'm bathroom
Similar amount of information being played this time
Consider where we've seen it pulse previously. It's gonna be a Valkyrie. I could actually be bringing the Cade as well
So those hatches are just gonna be a little bit more painful to get open
It's before a factor pick and if you look what Horace was on he wasn't a dog for me so
You'd argue that that's kind of worthwhile
Forcing to bring in a factor if you swap them the factor for a dog for you're losing quite a bit there
I was laying low with potential on the firefares line up and now a little bit less so still with the lion
But no with the frustration that don't be provides as well
Gotta be careful that works though, so we were already seen
30 seconds it's quite impressive
A lot of damage to that intel game brought by long 30.
Really good stuff by friends early on.
But as I said, JJ, who's been trying to make this monkey work for me?
It's gotten him in the side.
It's certainly helped out.
But with the man of the hour right here, the Oryx,
thinks he'd become problematic.
They've spotted it though.
The rival will be aware of it.
Scenic Directly, in fact, I don't think Silas has spotted that drone on the desk.
And an excellent pinch by five fears.
If this hat's gonna end 4-2, that is what we need to see.
information reacted on quickly and decisively.
Silo down as well. We've already seen the impact the oryx can have against the Monty,
especially in the way that Silo is willing to play it quite aggressively,
just ramadashing the Monty down.
JJ can maybe breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief there.
He's going to be looking to try and move a little bit close toward the site,
those Tellos windows more specifically.
Top floor has pretty much been called as clear now.
The firefields can start to work with the space that they've been given.
The IQ, huge pick up, especially in the presence of a Valkyrie.
They're gonna stack up again though. It's not a worry about for five shares in the way that they've been stacking up on these bomb sites when they're trying to get the plant down.
They commit too many people into that site. I mean, that's exactly where the defense is gonna look.
Especially when it's coming from courtyard, I mean, this is not exactly a surprising angle for the attack to approach from.
JJ will move in though.
It appears everything's been isolated the moment C4 goes out over top, should land.
No, just do any damage to JJ!
Maybe take some, but, by the way, not enough to stop this defuse plant from going down.
1-30 in the disadvantage, though a lot of damage taken by members of Five Ears.
Rival down in the process, but still a lead maintained.
But here's the time and the manpower.
With retake of courtyard, seems to work for the moment. A tenuous grasp perhaps.
But the Monty once again surrounded sitting on that diffuser, keeping them back.
You know, fodder for that 417, though five beers, only one or now two players with a gun alive.
It's all on pack with a revolver as well.
Still a half one by one of 30, but five beers narrow it just a little bit.
The ground to end the half on there for five fears.
Again, forcing that plant down, bullying the way through that space with the Monty.
Let's see what the desk has to say about the first six rounds.
Thanks, XZ. These first six rounds have been, I guess, according to you guys, expected, given the momentum that 1 of 30 had coming into this.
You said that last map, despite the adversity, set them up for success, and Lacks, coming out of the gate, they started swinging.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even from the Gekko round one, I really liked the positioning that the players were having, specifically out of Mike W.
He gets an important triple kill or double kill, rather, here on West Main that puts them in the man advantage.
Now it does get a little dicey here, but even for Beano to be able to clutch this round
You even heard in the comms. They know we'd love to see your face
We love to have you back that just just reiterates how strong their mental is and then again for him to be able to get
That clutch perfect no one's getting down everyone's getting excited, but then even going into the third round
I mean I really like the orcs play you don't typically see orcs too often anymore
But let alone it being used very well here against the montagne
But also some of the key note to take away is that we've highlighted for five years when they use these shields
They'd like to be able to play off of those shields.
They always know someone's going to be behind it.
So they were ready for it.
They had a response to it.
And just even in the band, I mean, Fox, you talked about this.
Are you going to get rid of both shield operators?
I like the fact that they got rid of both the shield operators.
You got rid of the most oppressive operators of the three,
getting rid of the Blackbeard,
getting rid of the Blitz because that takes a lot of the control.
It forces players out of position with the flashes or the grenades.
And they were just able to pocket themselves,
play their positions, and then just play these crossfires.
And I will say that last round specifically
five-spheres. That was a great adaptation, great understanding of how to get that Monty in there,
and then a beautiful post-flam. And it still got close. I mean, one of 30 still had responses on how
to be able to retake. I mean, but at that point, five-fears won it. But yeah, I agree. This is
the first time a team so far in the NAL has banned two shields against five-fears. There was a
big fear around maybe allowing them to have glass, gank, other operators, but seems like
those variables haven't come into question. They've been forcing the Monty all the
the way through so much so that they brought the oryx they always understood
they can get a pick behind the shield one of 30 is in the best situation they
could be I mean getting four rounds on your defense swapping over to attack
they don't need the shields they don't need to rely on it they just need to
keep playing it slow and focusing on getting those opening kills because
that's what it seems like five years is giving it to them I can't stress it
enough that it really does feel like map one set five fears up for failure
because of all the mental battle of them, allowing it to get to overtime, getting so close.
Five years is just a dangerous spot at the moment.
And considering they typically have been a very good attacking team,
1 of 30 has now successfully shut down their attacks for the most part on both map one and map two.
Border, Leeds attacker sided, so that also could play a role here.
Back to you guys.
I think very much you three always have to hear their insight and I mean Ali what do
you say at this point I mean sure 4-2 not that crazy the score line 1-30 have felt very
much like the favorite coming out to half decidedly victors now the side spot I think
the momentum will continue.
There's a very good chance that it will you know this it's a matter of 1-30 have
chosen for a reason. And I think that, well, I mean, why
might you say it's about the five years of lethargy for a reason?
I guess the best of three, you want me to have a limited amount of bands.
But for me, one of 30, they're just living in the moment right now.
And I think the mental strain of map one is going to be far less felt on
them now that they've got, you know, back and it's just business as
usual, that it will be on five years, even though five years has won the
map. I think it's a very difficult thing to articulate, but it
does feel like five years to drag in some of that energy into this
next map, which we're in right now, and that's demonstrated by the attacks, right?
Yes, they had a couple of good attacking rounds, but we expect more from this team, we expect
more than just a couple of good attacking rounds on a full side off-border, and the
pressure now on five fears again, it just feels like they've been under that pressure
all night long so far. We'll have to see how they perform under it for the most
part. This now we're seeing a very alternate shield. You've actually got the Oster.
Now, if there's a site and a map that you're gonna see in Ulster, it can be brought here.
There's always the good old plant behind an Ulster shield if you can get in through the Archive's door.
And hey, maybe that's the intention.
He don't have the kit, so he's the one to keep a close eye on mine now, but...
Or what, getting sent through into an Archive's.
A lot of things sent through into Archive's, but somehow, Mike W dies immediately.
I don't even know how that happened.
of course his demo gets an angle over, but oh it's a fake out!
Bino instead repels it a sandwich to put the diffuser down.
That is a genius rotation by one of thirty.
Even misdirected me in the process in clearly five years as well.
Advantage quickly shifts hands.
Now the attack, decidedly in the lead, rivaled with no angles to speak of.
Not only a side, but an upside down repel the boot.
Immediately hit by two Claymores and it's a gun that finishes him off.
This is about as well fell out and execute as you could have and want a 30 taking this lead and running with it.
You're not going to get away with that twice in the same game.
You might not even get away with it twice in the same season.
But a big utility dump into archive store and then a big old fake out hopping into sandwich window,
taking advantage of the sound cues, taking advantage of all of the noise that's going on at that time.
And there was a player in half wall as well when that went down by the way so that's not
happening like too far away.
There must have been some pretty serious disruption there for that not to be heard pre-fighting.
I mean there's a big cloud of smoke.
We've spoken about this at length, links.
If there's a cloud of smoke it's always good to just put a few bullets into it because
you never know what you might find.
One of thirty screaming out of the gate there.
Extending this lead so far.
Yeah.
Okay, so we've got JJ and Rival. So they weren't quite at a hard wall.
They were more tucked and maybe feeling the pressure and not being allowed to cross because of the outer shield.
It makes a little bit more sense now as to why there wasn't a bit more of a reaction from it
and how they kind of got themselves in a position where they weren't really able to do too much.
We have Packer below as well inside of ventilation there, just trying to work from there on Daymaster.
A very well thought out and well executed plan from 1 of 30.
Listen, if they've got another couple of those up there, Sleeve, the difference that is all around
border, I'm here for you. I love a little pocket play. I'm a big fan of it. Just, you know,
the first round of a running circles around the opponent. Nothing's better to keep the line
to the ground. Keep the vibes going. Make everybody happy. Viewers, us, then. Won't
complain whatsoever. Tellers, defense coming out from five beers. Really do the whole.
No, that'd be equivalent to the Sandwich Window fakeout,
which they could do for their site,
and it's pretty evident that 1-030 won't be doing any rush whatsoever.
We've got more of a full clear, so we have a subvertebral destruction in the present with the ram,
also that's Silo, bringing the Solotone Scanner in the hands of Snake.
If you go for a lurk over on the ventilation side, at some point around,
in fact, you can see he's getting a pre-placed round set up in this exact position,
so I imagine that's where we'll find him.
The early presence I factor in Customs is really good to see an important bit of map control
Taken this early? Just checking off the boxes and not wasting any time?
You got the doubt in the mind now as well, for five fears.
Like, are you gonna go quick again?
Is like, is one smoke and one flashbang, like, the cue to call?
Snake? At least gonna find the opening pick this time.
Takes my W down and with it the ramp.
No booby drones been touched as a kinder.
That is, I'm pretty happy you lost.
Ooh.
That's all played there through the hatch, silo.
Just catching some real unfortunate time in there.
Packer in the site?
Surely. Surely finds one. There it is.
Gets the kill on to JJ.
Bino with the kit though.
With that top floor not in the control of the attackers,
even if you've got sight, it's gonna be very difficult to do anything with it.
Especially with the presence of a solace on the top floor.
No one should start putting that defuser down immediately.
Rival also has a Gershmaw to deny the plant, but he'll stick that one down, so plant denial
relegated to merely the Stolas and the C4.
Barbed wire and packers away, so going for a little walkabout up Armory's stairs is
not completely feasible, and we're also facing similar obstacles over on Breakdoor.
They do have two flashbangs, and a drone.
You guys are going to trigger.
Take a lot of damage.
You will make it through.
Spotted on the default, though.
Packer also hitting a Gershmog, walking through.
The defenders have a lot of secondary utility.
Any primary utility meant to give them information
to stop these attack kind of plays.
It's paying dividends in the late round
as nobody on the defense is moving
basically an inch it seems.
You know it's still wailing and hanging on the opposite side of the map and finally put out of his misery by fence
Snake takes us out of the round still a lead maintained by one authority, but five years trying their best to dig themselves out
The only thing they can do at the moment. I forget they've won map once so it isn't the end of the world
But isn't ideal either to be trailing on map number two especially with the weird energy and nature that's surrounding this whole game
one of 30 purely living in that moment and still with a lead on boarder they
didn't try anything sort of pockety or cheesy in that last round much more sort
of half the cause try and take a little bit of upstairs control I guess when
you lose your soft destruction as you first entries it's always gonna be a
tough job you always gonna have to pivot on to a different plan because
There's nothing really that can replace, or at least there wasn't in that line-up, you could replace that kit at round-and-lock.
Might have been back onto one of his favourites, back onto the sledge this time.
Single-handedly keeping sledge in fashion, it seems, is upstairs.
It's been a firm favourite so far, but with a six-pick, maybe a change of pace.
Weirdly enough, one of the first arrests we've played in the months this time.
It's something that we see in the brain, but it's far less of a relied upon resource as it is on the other side of things
It'll be nice addition to this line of foam side of the belt
We should give one of your easy good ability to apply pressure to the extremities of the site
Especially the vertical extension on the top floor though
I'm going to have to speak to the direct counter, direct counter play to the castle.
That's it.
I should kind of shock the head of that new jammer.
He was like 8,000 miles away from the door, unlike the youngest.
At least for the cameras for here.
Given how much trouble we've already had, they hit higher than normal.
Especially moving on the top floor.
On the way around that, especially Snake on that solo speed.
So like, that is an assassin to just go around.
The Monty in the game, I said, should we go to the path part?
That's just...
They scan some of these outer bits,
look deeper into the site itself.
See, the five fears, I think,
have honestly just taken a page out of not only what the desk has said,
but also kind of examined the clubhouse.
Nobody getting in the face on courtyard break through anywhere for a first-minute time.
They are trying to play this lower in play,
I think, to use the words of JJ, play more lower.
That's a bomber. That is a shame. That was the last flora is drawn as well and there are
no nades on the side. So someone can be hitting the punchy punch. Looks like my W has drawn
the short straw there. You know, start to move through the logic bomb. We'll give him
a little bit of shirk so that nobody's at least inside of fountain. I'm sure that
can hear the player in archives. Long angle now being held as well. Time's going to start
to be effective here if one of 30 aren't careful. I know they've got a minute, but I haven't
really seen impact yet. And the kid that they're bringing, oh, three players, four, just like
that. The whole five. We saw exactly none of the kills that Five Fears got. Obviously
this out in the last one.
They just let him walk in and just lined him up and knocked him down.
Well, and to your point, I think it's clear that there's
a evolving five-year methodology we've seen on this defense.
We're unable to see it the first round because of how quick things
went in the misdirection employed by 1 of 30.
But it's markedly different than I
think what we saw from five years on their defensive side
of clubhouse.
Now, they were going for these crazy loose roams,
but it was a lot of overpeaking,
a lot of willingness to take 1 of 30 in engagements
strictly speaking they didn't need to and that's not been the case whatsoever on these last couple
rounds of border bathroom and tellers and ventilation and workshop have been very passive very passive
and you even think back to that bathroom tellers round where snake got one of the I think the
opening pick on mic w it was down through a hatch it was clearly a situation in which snake wasn't
necessarily taking the fight to the attack more so he had an angle that the attack
walked in front of and he was able to take advantage of that position still an excellent
kill, but not a situation in which maybe Snake is taking an unnecessary risk, but something
in which one of 30s set up, excuse me, five years set up is creating opportunities for
them to exploit later on and one of 30 are just biting every single hook that goes in
the pond.
They're niddle at the moment, aren't they?
Sometimes that's the best strategy though, really back yourself up.
and play a little bit more of a passive game. The five fears definitely worked in the previous round.
One of 30 kind of lulled into a false sense of security with the amount of map control that
they could take and the amount of space that looked like it was available and just free for the
picking. And yet, aside from the rush round, I don't really see them too much from them so far.
Now that we're going to see the same attempted here and now, links. I mean,
I mean it would be the ultimate double bluff right to just try and go for it again, but
there's no shot that Firefares allow that to go down.
We're almost certainly going to see something a little bit more standard, a bit more of a
veto as they exchange, bit more map control being gained.
On a 30 you've been quite light in the way that they've been taking map control.
Firefares have been allowed to rotate back, allowed to cut off and haven't really
being those clinical angles being held through the side of massive lines of
sight along the side of the stage they've been opened up. Instead it's been much more
just retreat back and there's nothing really stopping them making that retreat.
I'd like to see five beers a bit more active on that cutoff.
Loading your mic.
We don't want to see especially if they are able to push players like sightings back closer to the side.
There's huge numbers of these actors, even something that I know they would quite like.
The one being the band taken out will also, I think, help not necessarily sell those cutoff angles,
but if they have to lurk later on and try to get into a position without information,
maybe to cut off an attack or cut off a defender or somebody else.
There's one less tool for the defense to use to gain that information without covering.
Yeah, the upknot, the kershmots, and six pieces of barbed wire.
So how much are we taking with the grand scheme of things?
Packer, another vertical angle.
That's what 30 have fallen to and the Selma popped as well
These top-down angles from five years have done quite good work throughout these defenses so far basically every defense
That wasn't that rush back in round seven and one of 30 still struggling to adapt to it struggling quite a bit
Forest
a little bit of an eye on the top of those east stairs right now. Packer. Already fallen
so the hard breach gone with it. I'm not going to make this endeavor any easier and really
does give Five Fears a firm chance of coming back here. Oh, Volsbyr. Not receiving the
same favor that he gave to my W of destroying the F-Nap above his door and the Grismot
caught him out, gave the sound cue and allowed another kill to come in. Office.
And the players within it are running ramping right now, snake with one on to my W, eventually
finishing him off.
Could it be a flawless?
Snake's on for three, could he make it four?
Just looks the wrong way, he has turned and burned by Vino.
Still with four more to find, 55 seconds to do it.
It's a tall order, and I'll wager there is at least a grisma or an F-not with
his name on it somewhere if he goes walking long enough.
One. Maybe good for the second. It's time to chain them together and it's getting a little bit dangerous.
It's time to consolidate for five years and not give any more free picks away.
A low HP even giving a free pick should result in a kill for five years, but to your point, we don't risk that.
Not in this position. Five years have really started laying these traps thick on board or even with the loss of the thorn that F-Knot will reveal Bino's position.
Like, Wolsper's right, it is a good fall and one be free, you don't want to risk it.
Ooh, but a nice little lurk. Oh no!
Did not get rivaled, we'll finally land the shot.
Cost of important seconds though.
Only one player actually on this top floor. JJ will shut that down.
Five years now, get their third in a row and completely make up
for their only loss this half, all the way back on round seven.
Smiles on the faces now, it's not something that we've seen yet
and Forrest is yet to crack one.
I'm sure if they win the game, they will beat Smiles all round, still feeling that pressure.
And although they are slowly narrowing this gap and slowly climbing this hill,
it feels like it is built on a very fragile foundation.
It's a big kill on societal as well.
Scylla is pretty static, pretty far in the angle, thinking that he had a bit of a winning position.
I think he's out of the building, he's out of the building, it sure makes sense.
It's an open-air part of work.
What would be a shame here?
I'm on a 30, obviously put up an excellent final club, I could talk that to death but
those defense has looked excellent, that first attack out the gate looked great but
five years I've just had the better of them, these past three rounds objectively are the
better. They can good use these vertical angles, Snake also in particular just putting in the
work but in another situation in which, I mean, five years have indominated these opening engagements
throughout the whole series and it's only now really on the defense that they're consistently
getting the best and the most value out of these opening picks. That's wrong though,
So that was Fence, I run it to my appraise a snake just now.
You know, we'll break glass in case of Monty though.
The second time that he's brought Monty this half though,
was on ventilation workshop previously, they will try to do so again.
Now they concern he was the first to go down as the Monty that's around.
And it went over almost two minutes into the round.
So that was some improvements to be made for one of 30's play and their plan for the specific sides.
Actually, it's not going to let you know it is customs a bit of a new site from five years to try to keep things up
Nice keep things shifting against one of 30
Keep it fresh
Loose
Began a loose JJ a little bit faster than outside of passport. Oh my goodness
How's he landed that I
Mean I don't know he's found the Ang he's found the impossible I wasn't he?
Falls for Falls with it, Flores and those Retaro drones.
Never lost, especially when it's the castle
that is able to get that pick.
Gage here making sure his own castle barricades
are gonna stay intact.
I fancy Forrest for one ear as well, honestly.
Might be just outside
or it's tucked in right now into office.
And then he's to take an engagement or disengage
because he's just gonna get flooded
if he chooses to stick around,
but there it is.
By the way, essentially four and all in the forest.
Just like a thief in the night, drops the hatch and he's out of there.
No point to stay, you can see five years game plan to try and call back when possible.
Rival is is felled to some progress by one of 30, but it's another really slow one.
We're one of 30 come out of, I mean not in the early round, we're two minutes and
10 seconds in, but still come out of their initial clear, you know, down a man with
limited control without a whole lot going for them.
And where is a fight on Clubhouse?
Five years in this back, on the back half of the border,
are making it clear that they have come to play
and they have a good, clear game plan
how they can close this and what they could bring
to Salt Lake City, force with the next JJ
ready to swing into the double door.
Ooh, not able to find it, but takes enough HP off Packer
to make it a layup for Fens.
Five years now, just one round away
from Salt Lake City.
We're starting to see the teamwork.
It's starting to happen here for five fears.
I'm seeing the smiles.
I'm seeing people enjoying themselves now.
JJ played pretty much the whole round inside a passport,
gets a kill, is traded out at the end.
We've got players on the top floor.
Forresters played a blinder.
He snagged two kills, then was able to drop off.
They're starting to get in that zone.
This was the danger that we were worried about for five days coming into tonight.
We were worried that because of the break,
because they've been just sat waiting for games to happen,
waiting for their turn to take part,
that they were going to come in a little bit cold.
And it feels like it's taken until this later half of border
for them to really find it.
I've seen that kill again, by the way, and I still have no idea how he gets it.
We need that.
Just feels like we're starting to reach critical mass for five years.
No, I say that. It's only one round.
The reason it feels that way is because one of Ferretty's only winners off, admittedly, a very good call and a very good strategy.
And I want to give it a try for that round seven win, because I think I was genuinely very smart and genuinely very impressed.
But since then, when they've not been able to pull out a possible play like that, it has been infinitely more difficult.
I mean, most of these rounds ending with, you know, at least two, maybe three people remaining, if not more.
A late switch up by 1 of 30, going away from Bino on the Monty for a couple rounds, and as you go back to ventilation,
you'll instead put Packer on that blitz.
They've always been on in many teams past, often the shield player,
to the side that they have attacked five years on before.
See how it works out though, as in the early game, we'll still take some time to clear our position,
because at least one thing we've known so far, Ollie, is that we'll end up on a dirty wall.
It'll be a bit before we get to the action.
Yeah, they've been fairly slow, haven't they?
I don't think that's necessarily been a bad thing for them all the time.
But the only round that we've seen them win is around where they moved quite quickly. This is a great drone
Yeah, he's locked into the anger. That's crazy. I think you must be the site the site must be covered in the
Yes, we could just see the outline there
We have sure if we
to the
East up to tight you could tell the movement went to the keyboard and food might have you the only player left alive now
the deal on a flawless round.
You can see just exactly what that means to five years.
What a night of it they have had here today.
And I just know that Forest is elated from that victory.
How stressed he was after game one.
How stressed JJ was after map one.
Five years able to close this one out in regulation
on their opponent's pick with five rounds in a row.
Excellent stuff from the boys, and we have the desk right after this.
I
from almost being relegated last year, to making the major in their very first opportunity
here in 2026, five fears.
They are the real thing.
They came out dealing with the adversity of that first map,
dealing with what we thought was potentially
a losing situation in map two and lax.
They came out and they laid down the law on their head
at the Salt Lake.
Yeah, definitely wasn't looking pretty
in that first half of border.
But then once we transitioned, they
were able to play on their defense.
I think they finally realized their true potential.
We're at the team that they actually were.
The team that got them up until this point.
And that's where we really saw them be more aggressive.
They were doing a very good job at isolating players,
forcing all of 1 of 30's hands,
not giving them a lot of leeway in the rounds.
And that's the one, I mean, that's not the one of 30.
That's the five years that we all have been loved
and getting behind.
And it was good to actually see that resurgence
from the map one slowly edging into this map two.
And then they closed out on that defensive path.
Yeah, to do it on defense two goes a long way
because they were one of the best attacking teams.
We talked about it in the half that we were worried
that because they didn't have as hot of a start
on their attacks, were they gonna struggle on defense?
But no, they always had one foot in front of the other.
They understood exactly where they needed
to win against one of 30.
And again, I believe the biggest triumph
was the mental game aspect.
Obviously, playing that long, strenuous map one,
going into map two, already being down
and pushing it through.
I think it says a lot that JJ, last stage,
that if we just put a little bit more time,
we could be one of the best teams in North America,
and here they are.
Let's speak of the devil.
JJ is standing by, waiting for us,
ready to join us here on stage two.
Ha ha!
Congratulations, you are Salt Lake City bound.
I know you have to have a lot to say about this.
What are your initial reactions?
Tell me how you're feeling.
I mean, I want to get into how like piss poor a series
that was from us, but I can't ignore the fact
that at the end of the day a win is a win
and you deal with what you're throwing in life.
You find ways to deal with it.
And to think back with like, I mean, four of us,
three of us were rookie years last year, man.
Less than a year ago,
myself rival and Nikki qualified for pro league,
Mason made his pro league debut.
And within a year, we have qualified for a major LAN event.
And in three hours, we're going to be playing for an NAL
championship.
And I couldn't be more proud of the team for the tenacity
and the fight that they showed today.
I can't lie, truthfully, I think we were shit in bricks.
We haven't played in a match at this much pressure.
And during the group stage, we didn't feel any pressure.
We were playing our normal game.
And I definitely think that showed in the first half
of the series.
But I think that switch kind of
flipped going on that defense split on boarder.
That looked way more like us.
Yeah, that's the whole goal is to show that five years team
next next game versus whoever wins.
Did you did you do anything to celebrate after the fact?
I mean, seemed like you guys were excited.
I heard that you guys were very excited.
We were very excited.
We got some motivation on the line.
I'm sure everyone knows.
Yeah, we took the tarp.
Everyone took the tarps off.
Shout out, Brock.
But we're I'm sure as everyone knows right now,
we're at the NV facility boot camping
and playing the tournament out of here.
And so much shout out to our org for sending us here
and also like shout out five years
and also shout out to Hashtro and the guys at MV Man.
They were our home last year.
We're always gonna be like in our hearts
that they care for us in there.
They're still helping us even when we don't play
for them, man.
They're truly one of the best orgs to ever be in Esports.
And a little added motivation is Hashtro Mike told us
that if we take on this chip,
he's giving us a $700 bottle of champagne.
What was it called?
Don Perignon.
We got a Don Perignon, and we win it.
You guys for sure deserve to celebrate
after that long and strenuous map one.
That being said, you said something about it clicking.
Once it came to defense on border,
what exactly was clicking?
What did you understand on how to be one of 30
on your defense?
We had a game plan versus them.
The game plan was just like, when we played them
in a group stage, we lost a bunch of defenses
because like myself and a couple of others,
We just died to them doing nothing outside the building.
They don't really have any like fight to their push.
It's just like, they just kind of hope
they win the round off like you like exposing yourself.
So the main goal on defense versus those guys
was just to like fight inside the building
and make them like power like make them work for it.
You know what I mean?
Make them earn the rounds and that game plan,
like everyone started playing into that.
We started getting comfortable in the match
and we executed that perfectly at the end.
Well, JJ, congratulations man.
Now I'm gonna have to be getting one of your jerseys.
So I can be wearing your jerseys.
Again, congratulations, but I also want to talk about just even for your own personal experience your own growth
I mean, what does this moment really mean for you when you look back at where you started all the triumph you went through even in
The last stage with Envy and to where you are at now one game away to decide that whether you're gonna be the kickoff champion
Essentially. Yeah
I'm it's surreal man
Um, I don't like, I'll get emotional here, but I've been grinding for a while, man.
This has been like, this is my dream, man, is to get on every day and do
something I love and compete at the highest level with some people that are
some of the best people I've ever met in my life.
And the whole goal has always been to make it to a major tournament and stuff.
And if you would have told like for me, four years ago that I would be bootcamping
at one of the best facilities in the world and going to a major now and
everything, it's just a real, I, I always like say, like, I never played
to be like the best player in the world.
I never had the best mechanics. I might not be the best IGL in the world, but like I always knew that like
Hard work pays off man, and you could earn stuff in life like this didn't always come natural to me
I worked my ass off I grinded to get here and these guys all these guys that believed in me throughout all the ups and downs
I went negative 40 my first year in pro league. They stuck with me
Um, and here I am making plays now on the main stage for this stuff
So it's a bit my message to anyone out there man is like everyone could shit talk you everyone can say you
Can't make it everyone can say all these things
But then a day you got to believe in yourself and you got to make it happen
And you just got to keep fighting. Yeah, and you are one game away from being the best agile in NA
So that's what I'm gonna hold on to I also wanted to ask a little bit about snake
I mean we haven't really heard his name too much since the TFM day and now he's going to an event how much of
You know how much has he grown how excited is he?
Did he I want to hear some words of wisdom from him now that he
I hope you heard the question.
I doubt it.
You're going to have to repeat the whole thing.
Yeah, what's up?
What's up?
Sake, I guess you didn't hear the question, but essentially, you know, we haven't heard
too much about you since the TSM days.
You're always a very slept on player coming in, especially when you joined Envy.
And now you guys are one game away from being the best team in NA.
What does that mean to you from the grind since then to here?
Does it feel deserved?
Do you feel happy?
Talk to us.
It feels very deserved. I've definitely matured as like a person and a player.
Like once I got dropped from TSM, or like they left, like my ego was at an
all-time high. It took like three years for me to like finally grow up and
realize I was just not putting the work in. And like I was expecting shit to just
come to me naturally just because like I made it there once. I was expecting to
just be able to get there again with no effort. And it took me it took me years
to realize that once I realized that like this past year I've been
putting in the work like every day, like almost no days off, like skipping holidays, skipping
birthdays, like I play the game all day, every day, like this, this is my life, so it feels
very deserved.
Thank, thank, thank you so much and appreciate you hopping on the mic there and prompt you
very last minute.
Congratulations.
We'll see you in the championship game here for kickoff in a couple hours and
we will also see you in Salt Lake.
Thanks so much.
Thank you guys.
Well, what a finish five years, the very first team that we are sending to the
Major they will have a chance to compete for the number one spot in kickoff
But what these teams are really focused on and we all know it is getting to that top four
That's what it's all about and that is what they have done
They'll be joined in that potential matchup by either dark zero or wild card and that sends one of 30 down to play Shopify
Rebellion it's not over for them yet. They still have a chance Fox
I mean they absolutely could be another one of the teams making the major but their road
just got a whole lot harder the way I saw our look yesterday the way they locked
in the map to the map three it's a scary situation hopefully for one of 30 no
4v5s that's already a plus if they get in that matchup no 4v5s figure out the
internet issues you figured them out yeah one of the next up it can be dealt
with well moving on to our next matchup a big one it's dark zero and it
is wild card two organizations that actually have quite a bit of history
against one another. DarkZero was very clear about mentioning this on X as quick as they could.
The moment they learned about this matchup, they were putting out, you know what, we own this roster.
We have swept this team. Don't need a paternity test to know where their father's choice words
there from the DZ social team they're like. No, I mean, not by any means. And it is,
you know, that has been the case. But also these are two different rosters now. So that very
likely could change, but from what we saw from Dark Zero, I mean, this really has been
the best version of this team since the iteration, since the swap, since the addition of Kino
and NJR. I mean, this team is definitely a force to be reckoned with. You cannot take
lightly. Well, Dark Zero has been the best team here, bar none. In every single category
across the board, this team has dominated everyone else through group stage, but this
will also be our first opportunity to see them here in a best of three setting. I
I mean, we want to talk about consistency when it comes to DarkZero.
We know that the previous SSG roster players, they have an issue with consistency,
but DarkZero is a hole right now.
Yeah, they not only are the daddies of Wildcard, but the daddies of Van Halve currently,
because they are so consistent in so many categories.
I mean, best defensive win rate team, best team KD, best opening KD, best round conversion.
There's no area of them that has been lacking, so we have seen.
The one element that needs to be proven to us is consistency.
But the reason why they're so good so far is because they just have so much flexibility on the team and they could not have gotten
Better players to be able to fit those roles and now we're finally seeing some of these players that were on previous
Rosters, you know team like I may be that had Kino now. They're not going to the event
Maybe that has something to do with it
But these players they're having their moments to shine because everybody fits the role so perfectly
There's not one person that needs that spotlight and it's amazing to watch them play
wildcard had their moment in the spotlight earlier. We had had to see them take on in that opening round
Show us that they could in fact play better than they did in the group stage and you saw some very concrete examples of some pretty pretty big
Improvement. Yeah, absolutely. I mean this was the wild card and he knows it's safe to say that wild card is back
Is this the land wild card that we're used to hyping up and talking about? I don't know
I hope so especially given into this match with everything that's on the line
But I mean round nine in particular in that chalet series. I mean you could see from M80
This was an N80 round, but Bay managed to steal it away,
getting this pick off the bathroom window.
And this was the moment right here where you,
if you had the top down, when you were rewatching this,
you could see everyone was trying to push towards Bay.
Bay gets the pick, the teammates come over,
assist him, alleviate that pressure off solar window.
They weren't expecting that C4 due to the smoke being there.
He's able to rotate back up,
and then it just falls into this 2v1 where, again,
I say Bay constantly plays positions very well,
and right here you might believe if you're going against a clash, they're gonna play it safe.
No, Bay is going to get aggressive and end it on a quad kill,
but all the players across the board stepped it up,
and that's where we needed to see this wildcard come to fruition,
especially once we got into these best threes,
because if this is the team that we know and love can play like this at a consistent basis,
just as you're talking about the side on Dark Zero, this is going to be one hell of a game.
And the bounce back from this entire team has been very apparent,
But I know you wanted to focus on baby shark as well someone who knew there had to be some changes and so far
Seems to be making those changes. Yeah, and I highlighted Bay and baby shark going into that match
saying we needed to see something from these two players being their entry players being their backbones of this roster and we
Weren't seeing it
But in that series we did see it and I did speak to baby shark briefly after their match just kind of asked me
You know what's been going on you guys are looking significantly better than these best threes and he messaged me
And he let me know he's been going through his own adversity as a player and doesn't matter what player you are
Doesn't matter if you're starting at the top or the bottom at some point in your career
You are going to hit a brick wall and it matters most of how you handle that
Not only in-game and outside of game and baby shark made it very clear that he was going through a lot and it adds
On as well when your team isn't having success
So it puts even more pressure on you to perform but act after that bounce back in that performance yesterday
Baby shark is back bay is back wild card is back. Well, these two teams faced off in groups wild card did struggle at that time
They'll be looking to bounce back from that. They played bank in the group stage. What do you think we're headed to now?
I mean dark zero we haven't seen a weak map from them yet when it comes to the side of wild card
We've always talked about how their map pool has always been very limited, you know
Chalet we see in bank we see in labs and we've seen cloud house
And it looks like dark zero has no fear taking three of wild cards best for maps
And they're gonna start off on shall lay which you know
We saw wild card play it the other day and they look pretty good on it
It was one of those things where they needed to be able to have the entries to find success on it
That's a big bay map big baby shark map
There was a big huge clutch with Adrian on defense very back and forth
It's a situation where there were a lot of small details that could cause them to lose the map lose a couple rounds
of Dark Zero. That being said, they have that experience, they have that momentum on it.
Can they be able to adapt? That's what we know from Wildcard is they're a very adaptive
heavy team when they go to events. We're always seeing them change things up. I'm hoping that
their reach to getting back into the normal Wildcard that we know also amplifies their
ability to adapt because you're going to need it against Dark Zero.
Well, the Wildcard that we know, they may not have had good luck against the Dark
Zero organization. They're actually five and two against the same core of a roster.
So an interesting dynamic, we'll see how it plays out here.
We dive into the very first map, Chalet, between Dark Zero and Wild Card Lynx, XR Troika.
Over to you.
Well, we look a little different, but we are, I guess we're kind of Lynx in XR Troika.
I get to be, I'll take Lynx.
I'm happy to be Ollie.
Should I do a British accent for this whole cast?
Oh, am I?
No, that's Australian.
I was gonna say I've never heard you do a British accent and I don't know if now's the time for you to whip it out
But what are these teams will join five years?
At the Salt Lake City Major North America is a little bit slow Jesse
We're just now starting to get the teams qualified tomorrow
Final two will qualify five beers. You toppled one of 30 just moments ago will be in action later today
They're gonna be playing the winner of this battle and you the people think of dark zero has the leg up over a wild card
I can't say that the people are necessarily wrong, Jesse.
The underlying stats certainly do benefit DarkZero,
but upsets happen all the time.
And Wildcard in their matchup yesterday
showed steady improvement.
So I don't think this will be a kick-walk
for either of these teams.
Yeah, that's exactly right, Parker.
There's a real difference in how much we know about these two teams.
It's because it's been so long since we've really seen DarkZero play.
It's been a couple of weeks at this point
since the group stage, and they're coming onto a map.
map their selection here, wildcard selection I should say, which was not played by DZL
season, but the SSG4 that this team kind of built around was very good at Chalet last
season, finishing things on a three win streak on Chalet.
So we know the history is there for DarkZero, wildcard played this map yesterday, it was
against N80, it was a victory, but that took all 15 rounds.
There's so much footage on this wildcard team for them to come back in and select
against Dark Zero. Speaks a lot of confidence to me.
Absolutely. I mean, I think you're a very good reason to be confident here.
I was trying to read who was on the board behind NJR there.
I don't know if you saw it. I did not.
That's okay. Some of these players must have joined the lobby out of order because the
player cams, Wildcard in particular, are not linked up and Baby Shark is actually
completely frozen. Let me tell you this right now,
while the cart needs him to be mobile trustee, they're gonna need him to be
fluid, they're gonna need him moving around, if Baby Shark is just standing
still, that's not gonna go well for their team here. Yeah, and I really loved
what he said to Gabe, we saw it on the desk there, about his confidence and how
that worked, wasn't really with him towards the stars this season. I think
we could all see that right through the group stage and even at the very
start of that last game versus M80, Baby Shark was really struggling. He
wasn't the usual baby shark that we're used to seeing dominate all through the North American League last year and of course the international events in Munich and in
Paris. We finally got to see that high level of gameplay that we're used to seeing out of this guy. So I'm really excited to see what shark can do in this match.
I'm hoping he can keep up his gameplay from the end of the M80 match and I kind of think he will. You know, once you get that confidence back, I feel like that's something that does stick with you and hopefully we can see that
continue to grow and Baby Shark could be even better here today in this critical game up against Dark Zero.
We start on Kitchen 4, Shallay, Parker, and it looks like Dizzy want to go up through the hatch with Nuerz on the Amaru,
but he's biding his time for now, doesn't have the diffuse kit, that'll be Kino on the Monty,
so might be more of a late play to come out from Nuerz and might just be kind of a distraction while the rest of the team is going for a full map player here.
I mean baby shark has been consistently the lowest rated player on this wild card team.
This really is, but his numbers did take a big step forward after the matchup yesterday.
You'll see what he's able to do. Here is Spikers, the first one out duel by NJR.
DC striking first. Newers, by the way, has found himself inside the bomb site. Hello?
Adrian takes him down, so back to even footing, but Diffuse Kit is being planted right now.
Is anybody watching Kino in this position?
I don't think so diffuser goes down quite effectively false taking a beating in the process of
4v4 at this point in time and
Keyno has control of that diffuser
He can now move over allow the rest of his team to join up and a Monty fully extended is really tough to deal with
Add to it ever diminishing amount of time not great NJR grabs another its cans into fall
Swung on by Adrian both kills for Adrian so far down his wild card now will attempt the counter diffuse
But J9O says, not today, Buster.
A strong start and a very quick one.
Four Dark Zeros, they pick up round number one.
Yeah, Parker, I love that push from Dark Zero because it is so incredibly dynamic.
Less than five seconds before Newers is jumping up that dining hatch, taking the fight with
the players inside the site.
Kino is inside of library, pressuring across the map.
And because Kino is so early to get into the building to pressure over towards library,
They showed so much pressure over there, it kind of lulled Wildcard into a fall-sense
of security.
They're thinking, okay, it's a full map clear, they're pressuring Library, this is what we
have to worry about.
And then, boom!
Newers is up the hatch.
Boom!
NJR is in trophy window.
Boom!
Kino has rotated all the way outside of Library, through the map, jumping in West Main
Window to get that plant down.
It was crazy how quick Dark Zero switched up.
And I do think that was the plan from the very beginning.
Show some pressure off the site, make Wildcard think that's what you're going
and then completely flip it on a dime.
It was a really well coordinated play from open BZ.
And it feels like they're picking up right
where the group saves left off.
I mean, they had some really creative and fun attacks
back during the four best ones they played to start kickoff.
And those are continuing here in the playoffs.
The player who had a huge impact on that round
on the side of Dark Zero, NJR, his numbers
very, very similar in like underlying numbers.
and Baby Shark. Now obviously what's going to skew this is that this wildcard team has played an entire best of three
whereas Dizzy has not, heading into this matchup. Speaking of, these two players
battling on a collision course with each other, and Baby Shark wins it, so I feel a little bit vindicated here.
39 rounds played by Jarx Zero through kickoff. That's in the four best of ones they've played.
Wildcard literally doubles 78 rounds in total, and their EPS, NJR's EPS, 83, Baby Shark's EPS, 84.
These players so evenly matched, but they are on different roles. They play different operators.
It makes sense that NJR is on the bottom of a team that is playing as well as they are.
Baby Shark usually is not the bottom on this team. He needs to find that improvement.
As he played out, he did so against M80. He's already had a pretty decent start here getting
down NJR, so more to come from him would be excellent. Wildcard didn't lose Spiker,
not too long after that first bit of action. So one minute off the clock, both teams are
4v4. That's a tough game. Spiker back-to-back early kills coming through here and it doesn't get better for Wildcard.
Newer was outfooled today and puts the team into a man advantage and once again
this U2L is all coming in clutch Parker collapsing into these tall floor players with bees with capitol and Monty jumping in the library as well.
Attracts the attention of Baby Shark who needs to help but he just loses the fight.
Kino with the pistol is better and gets that 4v2 lead now forcing Canyon and Adrian back to site.
DZ is in full control here. My goodness, there's almost nothing slowing them down.
A single kill from Adrian is really all they can find at this point in time.
He does some serious damage to J9O, but you've got three incredible weapons on the side of DZ
still alive and they've got a full top 4 control. Newers will drop. Final kill comes in for Dark
Zero. That's a 2-0 start for the team in purple, though it has been a good attempt
from Wildcard despite the score line. Yeah, I mean it's tough to defend when Dark
looks this good on the attack parker. Newer's a 4k in that round, by the way.
He is actually the fourth highest rated player in the NA L coming into today's
matches. And that doesn't sound too crazy, but when you say he's the fourth
highest player in the NA L, he is the third highest player just on dark zero.
So it kind of speaks to how good this team, how dominant this team has been
throughout the group stage so far. They come into this playoff series red
hot and they've shown it through two rounds. Wildcard feeling the heat,
They're gonna call that tack time out very early on just down to oh on the leaderboard and I think it makes sense
I mean this dark zero team is looking very coordinated very good
They've got a lot of you till on these clears whether it's gonna be the snake or the information
Being brought out by newers or whether that's maybe some more utility like the grim like the capitao
Like the doka be who we saw from NJR back in round number one
It feels like there's a really solid game plan behind these pushes from DZ and the onus is on wildcard now to read into
those pushes and come up to some kind of counters on the fly.
Yeah, very early time on obviously does not bode well, but hey, it's a best of three.
There is a lot more rainbow six siege to be played on this map.
There is more siege to be played moving on as well.
Night Haven Labs is a guaranteed clubhouse.
Of course, the decider, these are maps that don't necessarily have the most
in common with one another.
I do say that Night Haven Labs and clubhouse tend to have some parallels here.
But this is a run of three maps that find a lot of play in North America.
Both of these teams should be relatively aware of how to go about the wild card.
During the better result of the last of the wild, the chalet has not shown up for Dark Zero, so...
Wild card, playing it against M80 just a day ago, means DZ has some information on it.
And it was a tough one for wild card, right?
They did ultimately beat M80, but it was an 8-7 victory.
That of course was integral in pushing M80 down into that lower bracket and then they
were defeated yesterday in an incredible contest up against Shopify Rebellion.
I do think the wildcard M80 matchup that we saw yesterday was one of the best of the
three that we've seen quite some time and I mean this one shaping up could potentially
rival it but it would require a wildcard to be a little bit more active here as
DZ does hold that 2-0 lead.
Critical rounds, not only because you just called your top time-out Parker, but also
for Wildcard, you don't want to be going down 3-0, you're at, really your 3-0 score line
starts getting very, very icky in terms of the round count here on Chalet.
That's a full site rotation, obviously they're playing Kitchen again, so it's not three
separate sites, but it is kind of a confidence-shaking loss if you lose this one up against
Dark Zero, you won't be able to repeat any sites you win after this round.
So it's important to be able to get your feet underneath you.
Dark Zero, last time they were here, they faked a push over through the library side.
This time it looks like they are committing to it for real.
No more Amaru shenanigans happening here.
So the U2 work is starting to happen in through office, in through library.
And you can see it's not really an extension towards that side of the map, but instead
a full focus on walking down office.
These players talk more, most notably Adrien will have to be really sharp, not like
Dark Zero take this space.
I mean, Adrian has been really sharp, but he's gone, Jesse, I fear we cursed him.
I mean, he was going to be the green hood in the fight, and that's why he really dies.
Uh-oh!
Yeah, that doesn't bode well for them, Parker.
They still have Kansen and Veyt's off-floor, but now without your real main office player,
it's going to get really awkward and the angles are going to start to close in
on these other top floor roamers.
And they now post it up in this position.
Handsome drops as well. This entry from Dark Zero Jesse has just been suffocating.
They thought he had a golden opportunity on the Fulks, but great play from Kino.
Kino still being the main focus on that shield. Maybe they were really able to deal with it.
Baby Shark sweeping through. He will take Kino down.
Pivoting Fulks gets the trade right back. It's all up to Spiker, the young captain in a 1v3.
He's down below the bomb site. He has very limited control.
This is a horrible spot for him to be in, and I think he's aware of it.
bomb site within reach though so he doesn't have top-floor control he doesn't really have
much but he is within arm's distance. I don't know if that diffuse kid is going to go and
obviously with Kino dying earlier, Foltz will be the one to walk in and somebody else had
to pick that one up. Foltz is so used to being the bomb buddy I guess you could call him.
I like Spikers positioning here. This is a lot more winnable than it looks. He gets one,
Oh he gets two! Three kills in total for Spiker. Now it's him and Fulton, a 1v1 showdown. Time running out.
Spiker still in this advantageous position and he gets them all! My goodness!
Lead by example and lead is something he does often. Good grace. Spiker takes the round and
because of it Wildcard is on the board. We often talk about him as the fragging IGL and he
He steps up big time round 3, fragging there Parker.
What a clutch from Spiker.
I thought there was no universe.
They were going to close that one out.
It looked to be 3-0 for Dark Zero, guaranteed.
I love the word that you used up on that top clear.
Suffocating it really was.
Those roamers had no chance because of how good Dark Zero were looking on that push.
But when it came down to converting, when it came down to just working together to
find that last player, they could not set up a trade to be able to take down
Spiker.
was constantly moving. He always seemed to know where those last couple of players were
and it really just, I mean, he makes it look so easy. It's not. Don't get me wrong. These
are tough shots to hit, but because he was so hard to pin down because they didn't know
his exact position, there were little mistakes made by Dark Zero, sprinting in a trophy,
thinking it's clear when it's not. That last one doing as well, thinking maybe I
want to go for the kill. Maybe I want to go and try to force a plant. That's
not really sure how he wants to execute on that.
This spiker really does play that absolutely perfect, he has to, and it's around to him
finally on the board with the wildcard.
I said it, I'll say it again, and I'm sure it'll come out a few times as we go deeper
into it.
This is a long series, so you've got at minimum two maps, settle in, focus, get your head
on straight.
You've got your two best braggers on the side of wildcard, and Bay and Kansan currently
held off of the score sheet. Now, admittedly, it's a little crowded at the top for these
wildcard numbers, and the best statistical player on the team has actually been Adrian
this time around, which isn't usually what you see on his role, but he's got the best
KD, he's got the best entry stats, he's got the most entry stats on this team as well,
and they will jump out, break that goose egg, down goes NJR, heavy presence from Dart
Zero on Library Bay, could get all this done without much support, so him and Kams
getting on the board, very important even if they are competing presently with Adrian at the top.
And don't count on Spiker, he's had a pretty good and pretty impactful set of rounds too. So wild card
going for the jump out, taking down NJR. Still, there's hard breach in the side turn, so no hope
is lost, but surely a devastating blow in the first minute of action. Yeah, it does suck to lose your
thermite on this bottom floor, but on the other hand in particular, there's a lot of walls you'd
like to walk through, but I can't worry about that now because Baby Shark is lurking around
that nid floor, gets a pick, the trade good for Kino, knows another one's pinned down at
the bottom of blue stairs, has the ping on it, can he escape, surely not, right?
Calls teammate over, we've now got faults here, holding the angle as well, but there's
backup for wildcard 2, baby shark and bay, sitting down here it is a Texas standoff
marker, and it looks like they're gonna make it out, baby shark barely alive after
that engagement, the fact that he gets that pick on the roam and gets out is
absolutely ridiculous. Insane work for them to be able to survive that onslaught.
He's star this kickoff. J9o is gone so both of the hard breaches are no longer available.
Still got secondary hard breach in the pocket so Kino has a bit of a saving grace at this point in time.
But I like these numbers and I like this positioning for Wildcard.
It's mothered the offense that Dark Zero has employed.
Knocking them off first now Kino will look to follow up to try to kick start something.
a kill or two could completely turn this round on its head.
Gatrin is lined up ready.
The real shotgun just inches away from his face.
He's got a shotgun of his own, but the TCSG doesn't seem to hit the same way.
As this Ying shotgun does, Kira doesn't want that engagement,
and now we'll use that last bit on the main breach,
which remains sealed and electrified.
This is gonna be tricky.
I'll try to get it off with the Thatcher of Hulks above.
Tential good coordination here might be able to open it up. It sounds like it'll go
30 seconds remain DZ have managed to dig their way out of this position just based on utility
But the kills are not coming Adrian squadron Kino. He's got one that drops Adrian doubling up on kills B another one
A terrific round from wildcard to draw even
Yeah, it really does come down to those hard britchers parker
I mean when njr goes down to the thermite, we're thinking okay, that's not great
because the thermite is what you really want to be able to breach that main snow breach right to get yourself into a plant position
But you're thinking okay. There's still cans on Kino. They're still Habana and Jean
I know they can still make this work
But then baby shark also gets aggressive being able to take down the other primary hard breacher
Maybe no two worst players
They could have lost in that moment on the side of dark zero it ended up being really critical picks that gave wild card that
advantage and then beyond that as well I mean just the fact that they're able to
dominate on the numbers on that top floor the fact that those roamers get
out is so important we didn't touch on it but I wanted to mention that snake band
that wildcard used after round three newers is one of the best snake players
in the world it's certainly one of the best in North America he is so good on
that operator the fact that they took it away from him I do think had an
impact on that roam clear made it a lot more difficult for DarkZero to
find those players out to try to force them out of the position and it kind of resulted
in these early deaths like this one from NJR, the next one on the J9O right here. These
are kills that maybe they can go another way if you've got that information from the Snake
or if you've got a little bit better of a roam clear going on for Dark Zeros. So they
call their attack timeout, they try to address some of the response that we've seen from
Wildcard on the last two rounds and four rounds deep. We are past every single attack
timeout. That's kind of crazy.
We technically have another time-out coming in two rounds at the halftime point, Jesse, so literally the coaches will not be able to speak in about six minutes time.
They will no longer be able to talk to their teams.
A breakneck pays to call these time-outs and obviously something that you have to worry about, right?
GZ won those first two rounds. They looked really good.
They weren't as lost-sided as the two of them could potentially have been, but Darkseer was still, I would argue, in full control of both of those rounds.
They probably should have won that third round too, but they gave a bunch of isolated engagements to Spiker with very limited intel and as an SAS operator does
You pull out the SMG-11 you pull out the shotgun you kill a couple people bingo bingo bongo you move on with your life
That's exactly what Spiker did. How many times do we see them you clutch? How many times do we see a smoke clutch?
That's just what they do because the operators in the way that they're played
So obviously a debilitating round and really the start of a comeback here for Wildcard Wildcard use their time out now
DC have used their timeout and we are arriving at this present position which
frankly is uncharted territory having both teams called their timeout this
early is kind of bizarre and frankly if things go really bad for one of these
teams there is nothing to save you at this point. No that's exactly right Parker
the Nitro will miss up there on the top floor but that's okay still at 5v5 the
uncharted territory also remain on the bombsite top floor for the first time
ever and dark zero are interested in taking his control down below the
There's nobody immediately down here and dining although there are
There's one rumor baby shark over towards games and you can see this punch hole
Newest gets made to try to counter baby shark position. What a shot
Flips over the falls is able to get the man count favoring wild card
I think there is no question what his confidence they partner baby shark is on
Yeah, he's been absolutely firing on all cylinders cans and held off of the score sheet so far the only player in the
lot of yet, which is very odd for Kansan and his pedigree.
I expect him to start racking up kills.
Kansan doesn't really have off days, Jesse.
So it's only a matter of time until the sleeping giant
wakes up.
Logicbombs will go off.
NJR is on the board.
Kansan will have to wait another round
because he's the first casualty for Wildcard,
the first target found by DarkZero with half
of this round to go.
Kino will now attempt to get the diffuser down.
All quiet.
NJR picks off Adrian, newer Slaughter's Bay.
Diffuse kick goes down.
This is what's goticle by DarkZero.
Baby Shark, the only player on the board this round
will have to do it all.
All of his teammates dying by their lonesome.
And Baby Shark's got quite the daunting task here.
He's got to head up towards the Solarium Stairs,
get towards the bomb site.
The smoke is obscuring him for the time being,
but they've got their sets of eyes
trained in this position, and a fully extended montain
will greet him.
We're going to give him nothing.
They know how hard it is to why bother swinging, right?
Some damage is done to Baby Shark in this position,
and see now it goes down below, but it ain't gonna happen.
Nope.
Sorry, this round is gonna go in favor of Dark Zero
languishing on the stairs.
Eventually somebody will get it.
It's NJR.
Another huge round from Nick,
and DZ will stop Wildcard's streak at two
as DZ regains the lead.
Yeah, another really strong push coming out
from Dark Zero, Parker.
I mean, they've got that solar control.
It's a really powerful push with the Monty.
If you can get that bottom floor control,
walk up the solar stairs,
you can easily force a plant just inside the breeze,
try to get that master of a fuser down.
It's really tough to stop that as a defender,
because if there's players on the big window, players in the bathroom window,
you really just don't have good positions.
The one player who maybe could have stopped it, that was Kansan.
He gets fried by NJR, pushing up behind his Monty up through Solar
and ends up being a really nice plant to come through from Kino.
Ideally, as the defenders, you want to do something to disrupt that,
but the fights on the back side of the bombsite weren't going their way.
Davy Shark was good down below the site,
but unfortunately, it's just not impactful enough.
The team on DZ kind of just ignored him as they pushed him towards the site.
We're happy to get a plant down.
They said, sure, there's going to be an L above us,
but as long as we don't let her get below the plant,
it's not going to be a problem.
Nicely done by Dark Zero now, up 3-2.
That's Wildcard's map.
So Wildcard keeping it close in this first half is best case scenario for them.
I don't think Wildcard approached this first half on their own map,
expecting to dominate.
Again, the usual scoreline is 4-2.
you see it across just about every single game.
You chose your side, even if it's not your map,
you should probably be taking at minimum three rounds.
That's basically where you wanna be unless you're
in blowout territory.
We're not in blowout territory by any stretch
of the imagination, so if Wildcard consalvates
this first half of the 3-3 scoreline,
they should be, in theory, Jesse,
very well situated for the second half.
Again, Wildcard's been a bit of an enigma so far
in this kickoff.
They look downright terrible in some of their matches
that he needed to very quickly adjust.
But here they are, and they are a single best of three
away from qualifying.
So I think a lot of that doubt should be quieted by now.
This is a new look.
They managed on map number one against M80.
Well-guarded, definitely improved.
I agree 100%.
This was a very different team than we saw
during the group stage, or even in the very start
of playoffs, they have grown a lot
in a very short period of time.
But the toughest challenge still remains in front of them.
Dark zero and a best of three.
Don't 5v4 is in this one. You're gonna have to take down every single player on this DZ roster
and it's gonna be tough just given how good they were in the groups.
Undefeated with all its group stage for Dark Zero.
Now on this last attack, pushing in through the case,
all the way to Guthar, Capitab, Wolf, forcing players back to smoke-stall them for a moment,
but the information is still good and Kino, how good it's even on this month,
the another pistol kill for him.
Look at this, we've got to make some noise.
So he's good as gone, punishing, smothering, suffocating, whatever words you want to use.
DZ of all five players still upright, Cansun can't buy a kill and will go without one this
entire first half.
It's all up to the newest import for Wild Card of Adrien.
And guess what?
He's got a target rich environment.
Five players to find.
Surely he'll get it.
At least one, right?
Wrong.
Keto with the final kill.
A flawless end to the first half.
DZ up four or two.
Could have been even worse for Wildcard, Parker. 5-1 on the table if they can close out the 3v1, but in the end, 4-2 is where we're at.
Let's bring in the desk quick to see what they thought about that first half.
Thanks, Jesse. We definitely have some thoughts over here because I agree. I think we all do. Wildcard do look improved.
They look like a new team, but Dark Zero lacks. They do still have the control of this game right now.
Yeah, they certainly do. I mean, they've looked better on paper just in terms of their strategic standpoint.
But again, you have to look at every single round individually and we have a couple clips that kind of display how well that they've looked
Yeah, I think it started out on round two where dark zero
I mean the way that they're piecing apart wild card. They're finding their fights finding these openings
I mean new just playing on this balcony area getting kills from the distance nice play from Kino
But you see one common denominator as wild card is all playing spread out
They're all losing one after the other
There's no trade potential and that's the biggest issue and honestly up until we saw that huge biker clutch
I wouldn't have said wild card had a leg in this game
But I think that's swayed momentum immensely because they needed to see like hey if we just play together
We can beat these guys, but we needed that clutch to catalyst it
And it's funny that you're talking about that clutch because when we look at that round in particular round three
I mean dark zero again was doing everything very well. They were clearing the top floor. They were pushing wild card back
They were being very oppressive with those shields.
I mean, again, we talked about the Monty play for the Kino just being able to be a thorn with the shield.
I mean, you just immediately see the follow-up and the response.
But this was also a great heads-up from Spiker, and this is what even allowed them to be able to get that fight back,
to push that into round four, where we saw them take early control of the map.
They understood, okay, we do need to play a little aggressive, fall back onto our lays.
They get that round. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.
Round five, it was a beautiful execute from them, and then even pushing it fast.
pushing it forward round six it was just another clean execute you can clearly
tell Dark Zero on attack extremely comfortable with their setup. Although I
agree with the sentiment that Wildcard is playing better they're looking a lot
more adaptive they're clearly everyone is playing a peak performance
specifically Spiker. Dark Zero just looks like a different animal their
strategy just seems so perfect the position that they're taking the
gunfights that they're executing their calls I wish we could have replayed
round five because it was such a beautiful strat call from them. And
Just to add on what Jesse was talking about and Newers being like one of the best solid snake plays
I mean I couldn't agree more when you think of Newers if you put a drone in front of him
He makes magic happen
But now you're giving him an operator that gives him his own little bit of information and again
Newers is disgusting on that entry and again
He has that utilization of solid snake and he's clearly making it work time and time again
Yeah, I think it's clear the sentiment over here is wild card look better, but dark zero
I mean, how can you stop them at this point Parker?
Um, great question, Jonah. Um, and the answer is...
Parker, I think you might have cut out there.
If you're not here, I went in- I went in depth.
Could you do it again, please?
Yeah, I think that's the best way to beat Dirk Zero if your wild card is.
I don't- if you don't mind the initial on my end, we'll get production to take a look at that.
Um...
No, I said everything. You need my help.
I thought I was coming in clear.
Parkers going up.
I was very careful with my words, Jesse.
Well, hopefully Wildcard could learn from those words.
Hopefully they can come up with something just as good if not better to battle back
against this 4-2 deficit Parker because Darkseer continued to be the most impressive team
in North America.
And in my mind, by a country mile this stage, it really does feel like their roster
moves were exactly what they needed for an organization that had been struggling in recent
years just with the roster moves they had made, not making it deep into events like they're
used to.
It's good to see this DZ team finally posting up a roster and looking frankly kind of unbeatable
in the North American League.
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, DZ fans have gone through half a decade at this point of heart palpitations
every single time their team plays.
I will say this though.
NJR was on that DZ roster when they won a major, so at least you got to see your team
win a major.
Not a lot of fans can say that, especially with American fans.
That said, this new look, I don't know if I want to say they're the best looking DZ,
but at this current point in time, it is really remarkable how good this team looks on such
short notice.
Now, this could just be, you know, a bit of a honeymoon period here, just so they
could fall apart, but things are really going to affect them, and they just get
away with stuff like that.
Like how do you do that?
A on the board, two kills from DZ, answered back.
Indishly by this wild card squad.
Oh, it's NJR on the run over by Chimney.
There was one a big window that could have gunned him down.
Kansan finally breaking that zero kill streak
he was on the first half.
No, no, no, second half, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wow, they put a break onto the rush parker
but Spikers still in a 1v1 down below.
He uses the smoke to get away
but he's not fully going just yet.
The Lion Wolf's vault in place
But it doesn't stop them getting the head, beautifully done.
Now another one answered back from Bayley.
You eventually trade faults.
It is just NGR left in a 1v2,
and there's over, almost half the round still to go.
An incredible pace, and I mean,
you gotta feel for Dark Zero here,
but Wildcard answered the bell, and they brought it, right?
They were able to take these gunfights on their own,
and something that they weren't able to grasp,
I think it was round two or round three,
was just winning fights.
Again, strategy be damned.
If you lose your gunfight, that's it.
It's gone.
Wildcard, using those DMRs, using their drone work,
they were able to pinpoint these offsite players
from guard zero and punish them.
Now it's all up to NJR.
The nitro cell, out it goes.
Hold a little bit too early, man.
Just take down Vayne no way, right?
Oh!
He just misses out on Kansan.
Shotgun out now and forcing the engagement with Kansan.
He will fall away.
You know that 417 hits like a truck.
They trade!
Are you joking me?
Jesse, there have been so many trades.
I am genuinely dumbfounded how often this happens.
He and Kansan literally kill each other
at the exact same moment.
Well, in one for one trade,
goes to the defenders, Parker.
So the mayor makes it happen.
NJR and the 1v2 will win the roundout for DZ.
What an incredible play coming out from NJR
I really thought Wildcard were in the driver's seat there Parker despite that rush over on the office side not going perfectly to plan
They're out of their attrition for excellence. They go down to the bottom floor. They hunt down falls
They get themselves in that man count, but NJR and the 1v2 you just can't teach that
You brought up his his his stats earlier in this game, and you're absolutely right
You know most rated player left in the upper bracket coming into this game
But to quote a great artist, men lie, women lie, and numbers lie too, and I think NJR having poor stats is a perfect example of lying numbers, because the impact that this guy has late in the clutch when he's forced to frag, but also earlier droning things out, using his utility, calling for the team, getting traded when he dies.
These are all things that NJR does for Dark Zero that don't always get picked up on the stat sheet might result in him having kind of a low EPS
But I feel like he's played really really well this stage overall that threat clutch
Maybe his best moment since the season began but not one to forget it gets DZ a big lead here on the first map
Humongous humongous and Dark Zero still has their own map up next
You know DZ has had the success on Night Even Labs baked in from the very start
admittedly with a different roster and a different group of players but it's a map that is near and dear to the hearts of this
Steven Purple on the left side of your screen now obviously they've got to get through Chalet first but that round in particular was an
incredible display from every team is one where you kind of think I don't want anybody to win
I don't want anybody to lose well they literally traded that
What's closest to that happening?
So, can you give the round to both teams?
No, you can't, but you can see stuff like that.
There has been a really big uptick in trades lately.
I'm sure you've probably noticed.
A bit of frustration, I'm sure, on the side of Wildcard
because the defenders getting the round.
It means that they kept the bombs safe.
This one starts off unexpectedly.
Jane, I know, obviously very mad about that one.
I would be two cans and hucking an eight in over
towards Jimmy, gets the all clear.
And now, they can begin to take the top floor.
If a wildcard is, it's a little bit easier to claw their way on library side.
A Nade kill, what year is it?
Good, Utah from the team, they force J9O back into that Nade, so credit to wildcard for working
that pick.
It's creative, it's fun, it gets the job done.
Now they've got a man advantage heading into the last half of this round.
Everybody from DZ remaining towards the top floor, as I say that, Neewer's actually
just dropped a dining hatch, and you do see that in the final, the blue stairs
as well.
There are players getting kind of aggressive here on this defense.
Hoping to get one of these players picked off with this sends,
you could be setting up for a really strong execute on the side of Wildcard.
Easy can't let that happen.
Look at that Lion Charge.
Wildcard will see Adrian lose a lot of HP, Cairns and the Lion himself.
Take some serious damage too, that's bolts in this position.
The guns from TZ are just so nasty, Jesse.
Spiker and Bay the last two standing.
Minder, there are no time-outs at this point in time, so you might want to play this and
talk about it, especially now that Spikers the last one standing.
They've assessed his position on the roof, so Foltz has him in his line of sights.
Spikers is going to go fishing at this point in time, and well, he goes home empty-handed.
I'm sure he'll tell his wife and kids how big the one that got away was.
DZ, unstoppable at this point in time six and two.
It took two hours for the first map between one of 30 and five
fears to conclude.
We were supposed to start this best of three at five o'clock.
We were a little bit behind schedule.
DZ said, all right, we got you.
Don't worry.
One round away from Charlotte going to DZ's little column
here, Jesse.
And it just looks so confident.
Faults no doubt the MVP of massive 4K in round eight
to get dark zero up to map points.
And Faults has just been an incredible player.
He is on the verge of breaking history, by the way,
in this game a victory in this best of three would make faults the first North American player ever to qualify to 10
different majors
You'd be the fourth player globally after cyber breday and Alamo all achieve that feat either last year
Qualifying to Munich or in the past couple of weeks qualifying into Salt Lake City as well
It's been ridiculous the consistency falls to show over his career
the old man still got it with the 4k and around 8s and I mean for Dark Zero when you've got so
many players with so much talent on your roster it must just feel so good knowing that any single
player can pop off. Yeah absolutely it's been a really nice bounce back for Foltz and to your
point you know he's so accustomed to seeing him on the bottom of space station and the
bottom of a lot of these teams because of the role he played now. To his credit he is the
second lowest rated player on the team at the start of today's match and he's again
and largely decided by the role that you play,
if your top three played defenders are echo bandit mute,
you're probably not gonna be fracking
as well as some of your teammates,
but he's missed that memo
because he just got to kill while I was talking.
Now he killed us four folds on me,
and now Dark Zero only has four more bodies to bury
to move on to their own map of 1-0.
You can tell he wants to make it to that major, Parker.
It's so important.
Five kills straight over the last two rounds for faults took a lot of damage, but you took the sends off the board
That was gonna be a critical piece of this wildcard executes
And now they're gonna have to do it without him
Nobody even in the building at this point trying to play the vert trying to get some of these kills out from
Outside on the windows, but you've got to do something to force these players out of position dark zero knowing they have the man advantage
You won't get aggressive. They won't be looking to swing these angles
You've got to do something to force that play and without the sends it's gonna be really awkward to do that
That's going to be a mighty challenge and Baby Shark had a terrific beginning of this map, but has come back down to Earth and the rest of the team has just not been able to pick up that slack.
Every single player on Wildcard underwater with their numbers.
You've only won two rounds. Remember when I was teaching and I said, ah, the numbers haven't really been that bad.
It has been catastrophic for Wildcard since then.
And again, if the safe assumption is that they are now on the preferred side of their own map, they are not doing any better here, Jesse.
here Jesse that is the bigger concern. There's just so much for Wildcard that is not going right. At
least Spiker on the window is able to see the derriere of Kino and shut him down because J.A.R.A.
is not far removed so a potential sling can do some serious damage here but by time he gets
clobbered by Bay. Sturning himself over by Solarian Neurus has gone now as well so a great
start by Dark Zero but it's all fallen to pieces. Wildcard managing to recover quite
gracefully. They've got two more players on the side of Dark Zero to find one of them
and flashed out faults in that position
over by the top of library stairs.
He's now gone at the hands of Adrian
and it's J9O with top four control staring down,
hoping to see some shadows or some bodies,
maybe some movement inside the bomb site.
If you keep getting planted,
J9O opens things up, he stops it,
but he gets outdulled by a beveal wildcard players.
It's their map.
They show some promise now here in that round
and they stay alive for the time being.
Wildcard will pick up their third round,
easy still sets on that point.
Well, they stopped the streak.
Wildcard do remain alive, Parker.
Despite that opening death, they really never left their post.
They stay out on those windows, whether it's bathroom,
whether it's solar.
They were holding their positions,
and they were biding their time
until they finally got their opportunity
with a pick on to Kino.
Just as you'd use one of those toxic babes,
it was a crazy angle from Spiker
that kind of opens that door.
And that was kind of what you had to do from Wildcard
in that position.
They weren't really able to force players out of the positions, so they just kept holding, kept waiting, and eventually that opportunity came for them as soon as one fell, the rest quickly followed with they jumping in solo with that space being taken by Wild Garden.
They did a great job of pressuring it onto those top four players.
Still three more rounds that they must survive, just in order to force overtime on their own map page is not a solid situation, but they had a big clutch that gave them momentum back in that first half.
They've got another big moment.
If they could get the vibes back up,
they could start playing more as a team
and get that confidence up,
as we've seen so often talked about by Baby Shark
and the rest of these players.
Could make the difference to start
shrinking the other direction.
Vibes are integral for a lot of these teams,
especially with how short this kickoff is.
If you have a bad day and you let that mental get to you
and you let it affect your game
and potentially your teammates game,
that's it, your chances go to put.
There was quite that lengthy tech delay that we saw in the 5 Fears 1 of 30 matchup,
and you saw the 5 Fears guys were constantly hyping each other up,
trying to keep each other motivated, trying to keep each other with those body types.
And Packer was doing the same on the side of 1 of 30.
It's very easy for you to sit there and stew when things aren't going right.
Yeah, Beano's internet crashed. It sucks. It's basically an act of God at this point in time.
I'd be pretty pissed off too if I had to play a 4v5 with a major on the line.
line, but you cannot let it get to you. You cannot if your wild card look at the score line on your own map and admit to free.
You cannot start waving that white flag. You need to take every single round as if it's the first round of the match up.
And more like what we just saw in wild card might be able to close this gap.
Snake coming up for the first time from wild card. And I wonder if they deliberately waited until after that last
ban to bring this operator out, ensuring that it would be available for them in overtime if they do require it.
Certainly they'll be hoping that overtime is up on the docket.
Baby Shark jumps on it now and will start to gather information in towards this mid-floor.
Very aggressive line-up, he does a quite a couple of rovers.
Running around on this top floor, the flash is coming in, and Foltz will once again strike first.
Why, it's always Foltz, isn't it, Jesse?
Down goes Kino with the hands of Kansan. Kansan was 0-6, he's got six kills and one death since.
Spike are on the board as well, Foltz dies to Bay.
Everybody on wildcard getting involved in this action for baby shark unable to do so as he dies earlier.
J9O getting down, BAY! Nade goes off, it was some martyrdom dropped in front of his very eyes and now Neuers and a post plant will need to clutch out.
Spike her and Adrian the last two for wildcard Neuers is just gonna hop right on it.
Falling off, there's nobody a mile away. I wonder if he actually kinda stuck that Jesse. There seem to have been enough time.
Maybe he found a small opening. He decides to go for the engagement.
Adrian greets him and it's two in a row for Wildcard. They are starting to mount their comeback.
That's try from Neuer's in the 1v3. I think Spiker was out the window if maybe a little far away.
I think he probably would have got there in time to stop the disable, but I mean you never know.
It might have been the best, might have been the highest percentage play to come through from Neuer.
Sometimes you can slip things by, but in any case, really a simple push from Wildcard that works
the best for them and I think that's kind of a matter we're in. They got tons of information
from the snake, they pop the lion charge, they pop the doggy charge, they push together and it's really
that simple and they took in straight through to say window, player is up above, it's the oldest
push in the book when it comes to bar games on xiao lei but because the coordination was so perfect
from wildcard because the information was strong alongside of it they were able to pull that
one off and run over those site anchors most notably njr and later on falts as well
they always set themselves up into a good spot that's two in a row are we starting to
to worry if we're easy or not yet. I mean I wouldn't be worrying just yet but don't
worry you still have your time out right now. Oh. Oh. Oh. That's the that's the rough one
isn't it? Yeah. No time out for either of these teams. Wildcard used that after the second
round concluded. Darkseer used after the fourth round concluded. And it's just it's been
watching these teams play they did get the dual time out at half time which we've
talked about before it is a relatively new addition of all players that you
could get to it's the guy who has been having confidence problems that's brutal
baby shark baby shark baby shark just keeps on dying early again and his
numbers are rough there was so much praise that were heat that was keep
his way at SI, playing in his home country in his home region.
Italy for a North American team is maybe a bit of an interloper here, but
it's a big part of why Wildcarts is able to achieve the results that they have over the last couple
events. A lot of calendar year, in fact, has largely been because Baby Shark's
prominence on this team, and he has been unfortunately quite invisible
outside of a round or two here on Chalet.
I'm very curious to see what this zero is going to do for a bay. We're seeing good information
come through now. Again, Snake is available, so he has to have chosen this
up for a reason. Didn't bring this last time they played Chalet up against M80.
It was primarily on either the ace or the demos when it's acting on towards this
kitchen site, so it's definitely a new look, something that maybe won't be
expected from Dark Zero. With the Twitch drones, the information is good too,
even if it doesn't last so long just outside of office here. Now Kansil
will see there's not really any util on this office door, but the players
still remain. They've got to find a way to force Jane I know out of office if they want to try to
go for a plant diving site. Oh baby shark it definitely feels like this plant has or this
pushes to fall a little bit harder. Baby shark has been the opening death five of the last six
rounds by the way. Jesus. That's tight. He's been playing high value utility ops every time.
It's a good thing that they've got some insurance on their team. Spiker in particular is having
a very good day. He's now gone positive on the team. Adrien is tied at 7-7, so
numbers starting to get a little bit better for Wildcard, but they don't have a
lot of road left. Now they've lost what little they had in terms of even footing.
Backdark's here will go to the advantage with a minute left. Neuer still has
control above as well, so it's been a very linear execute for Wildcard.
Nitrocell will go out. It's tossed a little bit too early, does not go off.
Adrien's still an upside down repel. Spiker gets it off. Adrien cuts down
I know immediately twisting down goes Kino as well this upside-down repel from Adrian might have just laid the round for him and his team
Folks will die at the hands of cans and newer is the only one still standing
He's got an idea of Adrian on the window and now as the daunting task of heading towards the bomb site
He's completely lost control
Wildcard will hope to box me now
Newer just needs to find his targets
He finds cans in first two more to go marching towards this diffuse kit running out of time within reach and he'll attempt yet again
He didn't stick it last time.
He doesn't do it this time either.
Adrienne, a terrific round.
And Wildcard is within one of tying things up
and sending us 2-0-T.
Yeah, that's tough.
I mean, we had full top floor control on the side of Dark Zero,
but they just couldn't use it to stop that plant parker.
They were a little bit too distracted
by the players on those windows.
Fault on the clash, I think maybe a little slow
to try to fall back towards the site,
and really good identification from Wildcard,
noticing that, hey, if we can just go into the site,
kill NJR, kill the one player actually on the bomb site.
We might just be able to force a plant right under their nose.
They didn't have numbers.
They lost Bay and Baby Shark.
They're two primary entries early in that round,
but it didn't seem to matter.
They were still sticking to the plan.
They still got that plant done,
and it has been very nice to see Wildcard answering back.
Even without attack timeouts,
the momentum has firmly shifted in their favor.
Oh, absolutely.
There are now three rounds in a row.
It's been a very streaky game on Chalet.
I feel like you said this exact same thing
when we saw Chalet against Canadian, it was what?
It was M81-1, and then it was like two wildcard
and three M80, then like two wildcard.
I can't remember the exact numbers by round,
but first two rounds with DZ,
next two rounds with wildcard, four in a row for DZ,
and if they pull off the comeback,
wildcard will have four in a row to send us to overtime.
So, evenly matching dark zero,
but never leaving them.
That is a bit of a problem.
They did start on the weaker side, it is their map.
They got more comfortable the longer it went on.
I will give them some credit here, Jesse.
Wildcard were not able to recover
on their own map of Fortress against M80
and it put them in a giant hole they had to climb out of.
They are already rising to the occasion
against DZ, significantly better than they did yesterday.
So already immediate improvement,
even if Wildcard still might ultimately lose this map.
Yeah, well, there's no doubt this team's got grit
even when they look like they're out.
They proved the other day
They can still battle back and be a fearsome force as they go through this match.
Flaps coming through Solar as well as Denaze.
They're jumping in, Parker.
They're setting it straight to the bombsite, but NJR's got an answer.
Once again, NJR, he's so good.
He finds a second baby shark on the board.
So, hey, look at that.
Baby shark has not died early.
He's got Kansan bleeding out.
That will put DarkZero in a 4v2.
If Kansan is not retrievable, make that a 4v1.
Uh-oh, Jesse.
We spent all this time talking them up, but it looks like we might be reaching the end of conclusion of this map
Spiker who has saved the round for his team many times before will now need to do it again or I'll start zero
Well, no one wildcards map
Oh
It's a lot of damage. I don't I don't feel good about this cans and finally dies
Spiker hits the Gijmap mine, so Jane I know will now know he's in the library portion.
Spiker has a main door.
Surveying all the openings.
They're not giving him anything. Really good patience here by DarkZero, Jesse.
Spiker's a brilliant player, but this is gonna be tough. He's got time to play with, he's got to diffuser.
He knows a lot of their positions, but they know what he's at, too.
Nitrocell will go off, so more damage is done to Spiker.
They just continue to chip away and as he makes his presence known
Bullet from NJR whizzing over his head NJR hoping for a dozen if Newers gets this kill
DZ will finish with four players in double digits. That is really quite incredible
And it will come to pass. Newers with the very final kill and DZ
survives a potential comeback from Wildcard. DZ takes in 7-5
nullifying the advantage Wildcard had and setting themselves up quite well. 1-0
as DZ now looks to finish it out on their own map.
Walkard looks good, Parker, but Dark Zero looks better.
Fantastic performance to steal their opponent's pick
and continue to go undefeated on maps here in the NAL.
We've got another map to go. We'll be back after this.
I'm breaking next and I'm riding out.
Oh, I can't go and stuff in my money, yeah.
Cause I can't get down from this running up.
I'ma keep it going so it ain't nothing left.
I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going so I don't have no more
the
wildcard have that comeback gene in them. We know that because they did that against
They did that against M80 and they nearly did it here against DarkZero, but DZ are able
to hold them off and they take the win on map one.
We saw four players hit double digit kills there for DZ at the very end, NJR was leading
the way.
I mean we saw this team clicking like they have been all groups, they've nothing changed
at all.
No, they were clean, precise, they were strategically sound.
I mean throughout all those attacking half, I mean they look so good and again
We have to highlight NJR because we honestly haven't been able to talk about him too much throughout the group stage even into now kickoff
But NJR he isn't brought on this team to be a fragger. He isn't the one that's going to open up around
He's the one that's allowing the rest of the players to open up the round
Mm-hmm. He's helping facilitate newer is getting into the building getting these picks
It's just you know the cherry on top if he is at the top of the board which surprisingly enough
He's 11 and 8 and it just goes to show it's not always about stats
It's not always about is this player getting tons of kills or not granted MJR is but it's what he's doing in each and every single round
And even some of the rounds where he did have highlights he had that big 3k he had that big 1v2 where they traded
I mean if he's not there in those situations and not being able to play the game that
DZ brought him on for it probably doesn't look the exact same. It's because of the role that he's in
I mean, he's not the one that's head hunting. That's who that's Jane. I know he's usually droning
He's setting up position and then if the strat allows it to get to him. He's not losing those rounds
He's not losing those clutch situations
You don't want a player like NJR going nilly-lilly going crazy trying to get picks because
He's the failsafe so so far
He has been perfect at being that failsafe and something that
Unfortunately for lacks because he was highlighting, you know his conversation with baby shark and how good he's been doing
Baby Shark has a failsafe or a starter for Wildcard that has not really been showing up the way that we expected after their first matchup.
He's been having a rough performance of trying to find those entries.
He hasn't really been finding any gaps.
And it's just, it's very difficult on a map like Chalet.
You need Baby Shark.
You need Baby Shark and Bay to be able to get those opening kills.
They are the main factors at being sneaky, being able to find openings,
be able to take position just like Newers is.
And unfortunately, Baby Shark's not getting there.
Sharks not getting there and that's the unfortunate bit. I mean he carried a lot of utility at those are you projectors and
Especially I'm attacking half when you're the entry player
You're the one that needs to open up the round you are five out of those opening deaths on the attacking half
It's not setting you up very well on that side
No, you're gonna have to remedy that especially because I mean this is a major qualifying game
They will have a second chance if they don't make it
But this is that opportunity to punch their ticket to SLC
Well something we've done now for the last two days and we're gonna continue to do today
Today we've got to give away some tickets for the Salt Lake City Major.
Your opportunity to see these teams play on US soil, so here's what you have to do.
All you need to do is type major in chat.
No exclamation point, no giveaway, no nothing.
All you have to do is write major and you'll automatically be entered to win two tickets
to the Salt Lake City Major in just a few weeks.
We're gonna announce our winners at the end of the show and you will get reached
out to buy a twitch mod to get your ticket and make that happen.
Well, you gotta get on Twitch chat right now and then we did get picked if we did put
a major they would just ignore us and go to the next person.
Oh, sure.
Oh, I mean, you better.
I want to invite some family.
Oh yeah, you got family in Salt Lake City.
We will get into the second map here of our next major promotion game in just a
bit.
Dark Zero, wildcard continue after this.
One team has already made it to the Salt Lake City Major from North America.
Will we see a second join them here on Chalet or here after Chalet now heading to Night
Haven Labs?
This is Dark Zero's map and they're up 1-0 Jesse.
What can Wild Card do to stay in this series and keep their hopes of Salt Lake City alive?
It's gonna be tough Parker as DZ reminded us all before this game began DZ holding 11 and 0 record up against wild card
Any time the two organizations have met this would be their 12th straight win over wild card
Of course that is many different rosters across both teams
But still you gotta think it's bad luck for wild card to have to have matched up into this behemoth here in the North America League
But that's how the cookie crumbles losers this game will not be out of it
They'll play tomorrow for one last chance to make sure the Salt Lake City major, but you'd like to get it done here
Of course, you would really want to be able to stop things now
As we get the fans through you can see a certain person's getting kind of targeted, you know noting that both of his primary operators
Let's and glass taken off the board
Yeah, it's really rough stuff the
Loser of this series matches up against
Space station gaming that match will be going live tomorrow. We've also got one of 30 in Shopify rebellion where
One of 30 honestly gave it a really good shot. I do wonder how that series goes if there wasn't constant tech issues that you know was
Was battling me through I honestly think map one might have worked on one of 30s folder
Yeah, I agree. I don't want to say might I want to say would
Almost one of four be five for crying out loud. So yeah, I mean you could have seen how far they went
And it was honestly was a very impressive showing a 2-0 scoreline
Once again doesn't really show you how close it was right map 187 for five years in a 7-5 victory
You like I got pushed to the brink that second matter to the bear was a 5v5
So I mean that's that's normal stuff
But honestly some of these newer teams are definitely on an upward swing
We've got two teams that you know quite well now on your screen and as was stated dark zero took wild cards
map 75. Wildcard didn't prove the longer that map went on, so if Chesa could start off hot here
on Nighthaven Labs, they will be on the better side. They need to be watching for Newers and they
will. Baby Shark, the Frenchman catches the look in the first 25 seconds of action. It's an
opening pick for the defenders of Wildcard. Don't think we could have started this map any
weirder, Parker. It's a walk in from Newers. We're also playing the worst bomb site on the
map at least in terms of most people's opinion this is by far the least played
bombsite kitchen cafeteria coming out now for wildcard they start us with an
opening pick they clearly feel confident with it utility clears been good
from dark zero you saw some of those twitch drones doing work down and
towards the site Jane I know not done with that even still there is really not
a lot top floors Bay is playing above the bombsite that brings them all the
way over towards kind of lobby otherwise everybody else is remaining
spread out across that top floor, or that middle floor I should say.
It's got a little bit of an orange outline, but there's not a whole lot for Darkseer at the find as they clear through up above.
They're taking a lot of map control for this push, recognizing that they're down a player early with newers going down.
They don't want to shortcut this anymore. They're trying to take things slow and steady as they clear through the map.
Why bother going fast than they need to?
Well, maybe because you're down a player, maybe you need to go a little bit quicker.
J9O hoping for something. Baby Shark takes some damage. I'm not sure who the exact culprit was, but
outside of the building, DZ was still able to do some damage to Wildcard. Baby Shark involved in a
lot of this early action. I pointed out on Chalet, he died five times on entry in what, six rounds?
Seven rounds? Yeah. He was able to turn around and did a lot better through the tail end of Chalet.
And now he has the leadoff peg.
He's got his hands full with the shield walking on in.
He dies at the hands of Folk, who picks up a second bay
with only one before dying.
Kanzin on the board as well.
It took Kanzin quite some time to find his first kill on map one.
He's broken it very early.
Wildcard with a 3v2 with 45 seconds still left in the round.
Folk makes it messy, and now Kino and NJR
have a good opportunity.
Kino was so good at getting kills in the Monty back
on Chalet, but he gets headshot by Spikers.
Now it's NJR, 35 seconds, and a 1v3.
Oh, NJR, NJR, NJR the mayor.
He went around for his team on a odd trade, but a win is a win.
These guys were cut out from here.
I don't like his odds very much.
Craziest part is you mentioned how bad this bomb site is, and yet Wildcard is getting
the job done.
NJR still just plodding along now, 10 seconds left, sees the Azami of Spiky, expects
there to be two there.
right by the way you just can't hit any of them and then Adrian backstabs him to send the round away
a good start for wildcard they take up round number one
yeah i think just an aggressive defense coming out from wildcard you know the site's not so
important if you're taking gunfights and battling all across the map you can kind of get a little
bit more active obviously a bit of a gift there to start things off but i thought baby shark
started really really nice in this game not just with his opening pick of course on to yours
But then just the time he wasted inside of storage he doesn't get any extra kills out of it
But he wastes so much time off the clock. He allows baby sure bae
I'd say to step up and get another kill mid around onto Jane
I know so that kind of deep in the man count and again while faults made it close that's very messy
It wasn't quite good enough njr and kino in the 2v3 not able to play together
Try to work themselves in advantage that wild card to strike early here on BZ's map pick
Now, again, the sides that you look at will tell you a bit of the story, wild card on their
opponent's map.
They're probably going to start on the side that they prefer on, unless they're one of
those teams that makes it more difficult for the first six rounds.
And don't kid yourself, there are teams that have done that before.
We've talked to them, we said, hey, this map has a snowball's chance in hell of
the attackers winning.
You opted to go on an attack here.
What was your thinking?
And they said, well, we felt pretty confident in ourselves, and you know, we're going
to make some noise.
them off guard. They're saying that this was a Brazilian team and this was many
wounds ago, but these will still do that from time to time. I don't think at this
point though you want to take any chances. So if I would decide that's better, go
with the side that's safest. Wildcard thinks that's to defend, and so far
through one round, it looks okay, but still five more to go. Discovery phase, in the
midst of all of this, they will discover a black mirror on that typical IT wall,
and Wildcard are entrenched for the time being while DZ might be able to open it up,
They'll open up the back panel first and get away in the connector.
A lot of problem here. This is back to kind of normality, Parker, as you say.
We're on to the strongest bombsite, as most people would call it here on the top floor of Nighthaven Labs.
I like this setup inside of IT. It's aggressive from Babe.
He's got this mirror window to play with, and it makes it kind of awkward to breach this wall.
Kino should be able to do it, just going upside down, repelling and popping the Thermite Charge just from above.
above but it's still kind of risky especially with bay holding onto two impact grenades for that
reason they want to get someone in down below trying to force them players out of position they
deal a lot of damage to baby shark but yet i know is not able to do enough damage to get that kill
and here we see the wall it's just a mess they get it mostly opened but closed back up by bay
this is going to be a problem for dark zero
But he's still alive, Neurs hiked up as that solid snake player he talked about earlier.
He was able to get into the building, which is an accomplishment for solid snake.
And Neurs was able to get into the building to his credit back in round number one as the
nook.
He just got picked off by Baby Shark.
Very quickly.
Still time to drone now for Dark Zero.
An immense amount of droning so far through this round.
Only worth noting because, well, some teams drone quickly and that's about it when
They play out of each other and didn't tell from gadgets, but
Barks they were fully committed to this and they brought other drones as well
They're tarot drones by Flores don't last a whole long time
But at least they give you information before they meet their exciting and explosive conclusion a
Lot of people have taken some damage here Jesse, but with one minute to go. Nobody dead yet
Off the sangle from Kino. He had an opportunity
But that's enough to get the pick there Jenna knows still below a lot of the mirror windows have been popped now
The utils been cleared out. They know that spikers exist down to the bottom floor, but they can't worry about that
They've got to focus on towards the site less than 40 seconds to go here in the second round
Do they need to start working and execute or at least a pick?
You don't find an opportunity to get yet another one open down
Let's maybe shark the box in the office down below shooting through the floor making this uncomfortable wild card as possible
Both teams coming to blows easy marching their way into the bomb site
Volts almost trying to defuse Kip, but NJR dies means they don't have the control that they want so Dark Zero will attempt again
It managed to reduce Wildcard to just SPIKER!
He takes down one, but Nuerz gets him before he can get out alive
DZ equalizes after a scrappy round
Brilliant push coming out from Dark Zero and I want to highlight an operator that we don't really talk about a lot as
Casters Parker because it is so simple, but that's just the thermite being brought out by Kino
He opens the IT wall to such an extent that Bay is not really able to exist there inside of IT any longer
He ends up having to fall off relatively early in that round
Then he gets himself a nice angle over on the over on the outer connector window then the wall the next connector wall
Then he opens things up and is able to just breach in the far left side
And it's just really good thermite plate coming out from Kino that gets all of those
Walls nice and opened up at the same time another classic operator down below the buck of J9O
just places a lot of those operators, he pops the mirror windows, he gets one of those picks before
getting traded out by Spiker down on the bottom floor, it's sometimes it's a bit the basics from
Dark Zero, but they're used so well, they're used so perfectly and again the coordination is top
notch coming out of this DZ team, so I love that push being brought together for the top floor,
once DZ know what they're up against, they really have a good time clearing things out.
all told this easy roster has been really without much of a weakness all
across the board their numbers are great their operator pool is quite healthy
they've allowed Kino to shine in his position by giving him enough backup
where we don't have opportunity to make fun of Kino on the shields despite the
fact that there have maybe been some times that we could have it really is
a very very complete roster. So much so that our good friend Jack Fresh Allen has uh
got an 11 so the DZ is going to win the major. Well Jack I don't know if you know that but
they haven't qualified yet. There is an entire possibility that wildcard can still win this
best of three because if you go back to yesterday's match, MAD absolutely dominated wildcard
through map one and looked really good on map two. What were they, a 5-2 on map two?
Yeah, and wild card one mysterious
Friend baby shark will blow folds up and geesey will not have the great start
They want it still over two minutes to go in the round
But that's your primary heart breacher gone all year after those pocket breaches a key. No has only one
Really can group chat the ends now. Hey Parker. I'd be careful with that
You don't want the audience know but all the minion means you've been sending recently, but it's okay
I also tweeted Jesse. I don't know
You gotta know a fight with Yardee about how good GZ is for the record.
Baby Shark will continue to hold this position down.
Oh my goodness, NJR gets the nitrous.
I mean that look, so stuck in nature.
He manages to get out of there.
It's a bad spot for GZ right now as it will continue to get worse.
Jane, I know.
Last man standing half the round left, five alive for Wild Card.
Imagine if he wins it though.
F2 ahead.
Yeah, I'd be kind of low key like fire for real.
But guess why this is not going to happen.
Pretty close to impossible at this point for Jack, unfortunately.
They know where he's at.
All eyes are trained on these outer windows.
Oh boy.
I like going up above here.
Probably the right call.
He's got to recover the fuse kit.
Okay, a little bit more space, but the thorn trap reveals his position as he walks
down these Aqua Stairs. All eyes should again be trained in his direction, very disciplined
from Walspark. And there's no one in Bay. Yeah, nobody moving a muscle there. Bay gets
a very final kill. A lot of that was honestly the main entry point, right? Getting the kill
early, not pinning down Baby Shark in this position. I highlighted how much drone work
was being done from Dark Zero around or two ago and they just continued to go in
spades. That most recent round they didn't drone an awful lot. It was a much more linear
take. It was much quicker and no surprise at the one time that they don't spend 90 seconds
outside of the building droning, they give up two picks to operators and players. They
didn't seem to have a good idea of where they were. So wildcard at this point in time,
fundamentally very, very strong and they're prompting DZ to take another early timeout.
Both teams called their timeouts on map one before round number five had been played.
I don't know if Wildcard is going to call theirs quite so early, but it is a bit worrying
that DZ has now slapped the timeout button yet again.
Well, I mean you can kind of dive into those two rounds of Dark Zero Lost, right?
You go back to Kitchen Cafeteria, it's a very early death from Newers where they
don't really have a good chance to battle back.
It's kind of a freebie for Baby Shark and then, well, I think that comeback was
actually quite good from Dark Zero, it's not quite enough to break through that
one man disadvantage.
And then on the previous round again, it's Baby Shark with a very early pick that kind
of gives the round almost a free early engagement over towards wild card because there's not
a whole lot you can do about the nitro cell just on the IT breach.
I mean, Baby Shark plays it well.
There's no way to fight back against that.
And then the fact that Baby Shark got another frag on the vert that time around taking
down the Monty as he's trusted clear through the site.
It's kind of been a lot of these early deaths that are not unavoidable, but not really
positions where you can fight back.
You know, you're taking a couple of risks there on the side of DarkZero and Davy Sharks
been doing a really good job of countering that out.
I have to imagine that's part of the conversation to come through from Call-Out head coach of
BZ.
His tax ammo done on Chalet resulted in four straight rounds from DarkZero, so we'll
see what we can do here on Nighthaven Labs.
Timeouts immediately paying off for both of these teams.
Good coaches on both sides of the field.
It is a little odd if not seeing Call-Out behind the team.
Do you know if he's living with them?
I have to, I have to imagine he is, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who wouldn't be with the team
but I haven't seen much content with him last time.
Yeah, I'm really not sure. You would expect to see him back there.
Maybe he's just on a PC somewhere in the other room or something.
I mean, PC's an organization doesn't...
...untypically hurt for money.
They don't skip on stuff like that.
Didn't they just do the energy as well?
I mean, they can afford it, I'm certain, and it looks like a pretty big house that they are playing in,
but Call of the Legonus are two incredible minds.
Legonus has been able to experience this wild card ship with the IGL prowess that Spiker shows,
and I am glad to see the chatter on social media, on Twitter, I've been seeing it in some YouTube content,
I've also been seeing it on Reddit, that Spiker is finally getting the recognition for IGL-ing this team that he deserves.
IGL is very effective, and also fragging in the process.
Kino drops to Bay, and Bay is now going to fight his way out and get full speed.
They didn't drone this, Bay's running for a hot drop, and Bay is quite the surprise underneath.
That's a messy one, Parker, and unfortunately opening deaths just continue for DZ.
It's another one where it's like you can't fight back against that.
At least no Bay's position now.
This is Baby Shark playing with the impacts, but Kanzan elsewhere on the map strikes with a nitro cell,
and Newers has to pull off.
He doesn't like the angle.
This has just gone from bad to worse attack timeout.
does nothing to solve their problems.
It's a nice shot from NJR, but only good for one.
Kansan, the final two, and Wildcard clean things up
after the attack time out.
They're most dominant round yet.
If you're continuing to improve,
again, they're on the better side of this map
in their opinion, so maybe the fortunes change,
but building up quite the nest egg here
before things flip is a great situation.
And this Wildcard team really does have
a ton of weapons at their disposal. They've got great fraggers, Kansan and Bay at a bit
of a slow start to map number one. It seems like everybody has fixed that. Baby Shark
is doing his job effectively. He's not lightening it up. He's not taking over these rounds,
but he's a great addition to a roster that's showing tons of depth. There was a period
of time on Chalet. I think it was round seven or round eight, where every single member
on Wildcard was negative. We'll have to wait for the scores to come back up,
From a quick glance, it looked like Wildcard at every single player positive.
And yes, there it is. Every player is totally positive.
Baby Shark is dead even at 3-3. I don't count assists with this stuff.
Baby Shark is 3-3. Everybody else is positive. Nobody is negative on this team.
A complete reversal of fortunes.
And it just goes to show you how spread out this is.
Wildcard is a team with a ton of depth.
Even when they have Dash on the old roster,
he would usually be the odd man out from a killing perspective.
But there were lots of games where he would be pretty good and able to and was able to match the aggression from wild cards
So who knows to everybody for pulling their weight
They've been able to slow this dark zero advance down way better than they were when TZ was attacking on Shelly
Yeah, 100% and even baby shark as the one player
Maybe has been the best player certainly that I think the most consistent
Very important in round one and three to get those opening picks to set his team up into strong positions to be able
to win the game after the impact that he had, it's going to be kind of awkward now for Dark
Zero to battle this one back. They go back to Kitching Camp in Syria, so not just the
Bonsai that they wanted to bring out, round one to try to catch DV off guard, but one
that they're coughing enough to run right back, and Parker, anytime you see a FENKA,
it is not a surprise that it's coming. Here's the rush. And the rush will come in. Spikers
trying his best. Fultz finally dies. Adrien gets both of them. Adrien looking for
a third bites off maybe a bit more than he can chew walks back more damage now
being done from DZ these teams trading borders left and right cans and finished
off by Kino's put the shield away long enough to pull out the pistol everybody
on DZ combined the three who remain I don't even think they're out of full
100 HP so that's a daunting task for them to be in but hold on if they just
keep firing like that Jesse doesn't matter what their HP is they takes down
Kino, NJR getting defused, kid down, nobody is there to stop him.
It's all up to J9o to watch as Kino bleeds out.
He'll be recovered, so one opportunity for Wildcard was present, is now completely gone.
They'll have to work against the time and the three remaining players of Dark Zero.
Baby Sharklin positioning with the clash, maybe to buy some time for Bay,
but Bay now staples off of his position.
A-bombs are completely swarmed by Dark Zero, and they're going to bring the heat to these defenders.
defenders. Kino rushing on in, baby shark pushed back. He sees J9O, Kino's not able to
cover him. Now it's all up to NJR and Kino as J9O is finished off but time is running
out. They and baby shark can kill them all but they need to get to the diffuse kit and
they're not going to get the job done. A valiant effort but DZ will let the clock
give them the win and add insult to injury get the final two players a wild card when
it was already past the point of no return. DZ put up their second round.
Great answer. Just going for the rush right into A bombsite and that's a brutal one for Wildcard
because they were expecting it. They were ready for it.
Spiker was literally hard holding the cafeteria window, the kitchen window.
When that rush comes in, he had two Goyo canisters on the window as well,
but it just didn't matter. The overwhelming firepower from DZ with all of these players jumping in.
Look at this! Look at Clowncars!
Slinging through the window with the Monty in first.
Two players immediately in after him.
They just use that chaos to take the space with it.
I think Kino's so important in that round,
not only to beat that entry on the Monty duo
and take that space and overwhelm Spiker to stars,
but in the mid-round, in the 3v3,
peeking around for his teammates,
beating information to both NJR and J9O.
And they have a lot of that good intel,
and even after he gets down,
It's picked back up, intact full on the lay ground, really good rush and back zero, and Kino was spearhead of it.
Very, very well played.
And again, these teams so far seemingly evenly matched.
I know that DZ sprang out to quite the lead back on map number one, but it did end up being a 7-5,
so Dark Zero won it by the slimmest margins possible in regulation.
Cannot get closer to the 7-5 without going into overtime.
So Wild Cart were able to muster quite the comeback. They've got a lead here on DZ's map
And they have an opportunity to go up 4-2, which is again pretty standard stuff. I
Anticipate that no matter what happens in this next round. We do not have a runaway winner in the second half
I am expecting it to still be just as scrappy as it has been across
One and a half at this point. I don't know if you agree or not, but this seems to be what it's shaping up for
I think it really depends on how Wadkar make on their attacks. We haven't seen them play
Nighthaving Labs all season long. We haven't seen BZ here either, but just the fact that
it's their map pick gives me some confidence their defenses will be strong. I really have
no clue what Wadkar will look like on the offense if they show up just like they did
on Shelly, then you're absolutely right. But time will tell on that one, Parker. For
now they have to focus on their defense. One more opportunity to try to win the
They would go back down towards that mid floor trying to defend here on storage
Last time it was a very similar upline up a couple of changes though
Of course the pulse being brought in the smoke in the mute as well new coming in wild card very curious
See how a wild house biker can use this all scanner try to find these players and maybe guides and C4s for himself in the team
There goes the nitro style that you talked about
and folks was counted for the count.
Kino trades it right back on the baby shark
and DZ will now have the upper hand as Bay dies too.
So DarkZero showing their teeth,
sinking their fangs into this wildcard defense
and only three kills away from tying up this first half.
Now to imagine that's quite the boom for DZ
if they can keep wildcard from mounting a lead.
Hold on a second, both Adrian and Spike are in on it.
Kino gets shot too, the Valkyrie very active.
Kansan's seventh kill, and it's all at NJR yet again familiar territory for the long-standing member of DarkZero
He doesn't see the shotgun on the ground in a 4-2 first half the most common score line that we'll see
goes to pass
Wildcard takes the first half
Confident coming out from them. They should be feeling very comfortable after taking DarkZero's own map pick now first half up
4-2, but let's hear what our desk has to say six rounds deep
Well, six rounds deep and Wildcard are showing us that maybe they don't need to make a crazy
comeback this time.
Fox, that they can jump out to an early lead.
The question is, can they keep that early lead?
I mean, you'd like to hope so.
That's going to be on their defensive half.
You're going to expect, especially Wildcard, this is arguably one of their best maps.
If not their best map, that's a lot of reason why it's one of the main man against them,
because they are very dynamic.
They add a lot of layers.
It seemed early on that Dark Serial was dealing it with correctly.
They're always making sure of the C4 below,
or anybody below that can stop the plant.
I like DZ's approach at going for execute heavy attacks.
And on a map like this, you only really need one,
two attacks are great.
I think once the sideswap, the bigger question
is just gonna be how is Wildcard improved from map one?
I mean, it seemed like they were really getting dominated
on their own defenses,
so they didn't have much sample size
when it came to their attacks.
But when you focus on their attacks,
if they can just limit the amount of opening kills
They're giving the lack of connection and trading.
I think that's the biggest fact about Wildcard
and to focus for their attacks on Labs.
Yeah, and I also just want to highlight,
you know, from Dark Zero's side.
I mean, round two in particular, I love the execute here.
They put the vertical pressure.
They get the player off of metal,
and then they go for the site execute.
But it's not just highlighting how well
that they attacked this round.
It's also highlighting and showing you guys just
their comms.
And when we've talked about comms for other teams,
They're just so precise with their calling.
They aren't overreacting, even if things are getting chaotic.
Everything is clean.
It's one or two people calling out something.
It's urgent.
It's clearly a necessity for them to make sure
that comms are clean.
And unfortunately for them, it was only a two, four, half.
But they are going to be on a very strong half here
on the side of defense.
And it's going to be important for me
to see if they match that aggression
that Wildcard was trying to show even early on in that
chalet to not let them get comfortable in the league.
Take away some of these engagements,
put them into their favor and fall back into those layers and we actually got an
inside look we you know what that sounds like that precision on the side of
dark zero
let me throw the smoke
on the pillar
I killed the middle guy
I flashed the pillar we go
3, 2, 1, bang
he's flying up water
still below
1 HP and quit
Alright, well that's the first half in the books, thanks to the desk again for breaking
that one down.
Wildcard, up by two, but it's just fair to say that's pretty much bare minimum here
on this map given Wildcard's chosen side.
I don't know about that. I think if they'd gone 3-3 they still would have been okay.
I don't want to read too deep into the attackers defense split.
I do think if Wildcard can be coming into this and has some strong attacks like we said then they're absolutely in the driver's seat for this game.
My biggest problem is we just don't know right if Wildcard are not a comfortable team attacking on Nighthater labs
Then it'll be awkward for them. Fox is correct. I mean this map has been banned against them a lot.
And it was a good map for them last season just at the 6-0 station.
They were 2-0 on this map, beating both Daystar and Elevates, but that again with a roster change
You don't know how that's gonna affect things. It's been a couple of months. The meta's changed
You can't really always say that just the team was good at this map a few months ago
It is going to transition into success once again
So that's what we're here to find out. Can Wildcard keep that pressure up?
Can they continue to have success here on the attack and keep loading to round one?
to be interested to see what that looks like. Very surprised to see Bay on Yana,
here in round seven. Unless you're named Shaco, there's basically nobody in the
world still playing this off-raider right now.
That's certainly something, isn't it? Very eager to see what they do here.
I
Just like how you I mean maybe I'm maybe I'm a so man, but I just don't I don't see how
Be on a fence
Maybe maybe just wants the guns bikers are already on the ash. You got to do something get the g36c
But you want the g36c
I don't know. I don't know. There's a better question here
He was shooting the head of the yonaklone and he ended up killing adrian that was crazy
come over here.
Oh brother that's not for yonas probably debut in the season I'll have to fact check
that.
I'm trying to remember the last time we saw yono with any regularity it's been years
at this point. I'm hopeful that some buffs do come to this operator because she can have a very
good place in the meta and I mean intel ops are very strong right now the fact that Yana is just
outclassed goes to show you that she's a little bit of love and the devs are very much in a let's
buff things stay to mind so are you Yana lovers? I'm here with you let's buff Yana let's make
her a little bit more uh more flexible maybe Sophia buffs while you're at it as well.
What are left in this round? Neither team with an advantage at this point in time. Wildcard still hanging on to their lead.
They take down one immediately traded out. Bay is good enough for an NJR kill. Not good enough for a full skill.
And back to even numbers we go.
Yeah, I like the control they have right now from Wildcard. 45 seconds, IT's under their control. Rafters as well.
But that's about where the control stops, Barker. They need to get somebody either inside of Connector or inside of Aqua.
doesn't seem like Austin's gonna be doable for them so maybe connectors to play that's where Kansan's at and he's the one holding the fuse kid
So if he dies this would be a critical error for wildcard
Looking for more he'll get it completely blind down goes Kansan
Baby shark now just nestled in between these bomb sites hoping for somebody to overextend
No body will and defuse kid is very firmly in the clutches of DZ who take the round and string the lead to just one
Alec fault looking hot with it today beautiful play just over towards e-box shuts down that pushes it comes on in again
Hunting to be the first North American player ever to attend 10 straight majors not in a row
I guess straight's not there, but 10 majors total
Canadian could join him tomorrow as he plays his last qualifying game down in
the lower bracket so lots on the line but a great round to come through from
faults and a fun fact for you as well Parker coming into today's playday in
the North American League we had seen every attacker except for zero Osta and
Iyana with this best of three plus the last best of three we've now seen
all three operators getting played which means every attacker has been seen at
in the North American kickoff.
Cause for celebration, we love seeing a diversity
of the operators being used.
And I mean, I do think that for most operators in the game,
whether on attack or defense, there is a place for them.
For an operator like Yana, the case is on the bench,
not being played.
But still, there is a place that exists.
Obviously, we didn't really see the other do too much
in that previous round.
So again, very hard for us to understand
what the idea was.
We have a feeling that she was brought for information
information because why else would you bring her maybe the G36 was the real
reason now you've got an R4C being brought maybe they do just want to
spread ashes guns around here but I don't know beyond obviously the experiment
did not work out I'd love to hear what the thought process was behind it but
either way we can't get too bogged down in this they knew round in a new day in
front of our very eyes wild card holding on to that one round lead but it can
disappear in a hurry especially if DZ can put up a round just like
the one we just saw. It's exactly the right part. Her 4-2-1-2 feels good for Wildcard,
but it's amazing how fast it can evaporate as it threatens to do so now. Dark Zero on
the defense will choose the mid-floor site. Storage and control. There was some chatter
on Twitter recently about how kind of bad the bottom floor bomb site has been statistically
for a team here on Night Eight Labs, and both of these teams may be reading into
that a little bit, not wanting to go down towards the bottom floor despite how it's
It's been so popular historically.
Spiker takes a bit of a duel just inside of Garage,
but has to back off.
Doesn't like the angles with that DMR deciding its best.
Just try to play back around with his teammates.
Top floor clear underway.
Now there's two defenders, three defenders even up here.
Kino, Janna, and Fultz trying to lock things down
from the bottom.
Only damage so far done to Wildcard.
Kanzin will die after Spiker took a bit of a beating.
These attacks have fallen apart a little bit,
but they found an exploit.
Walking right in, taking care of foals.
Missed his golden opportunity to get J9O,
blown up from below by a nitro cell.
NJR will save his teammate.
Dark Zero walks away from that engagement
with a one-person lead.
So hunting though, Parker.
Keto ends up fighting the dust as Adrian never left
the top floor.
They thought maybe it would clear it off.
They were going towards the site,
but one player sticks around
and that's good enough to equalize the numbers.
Now with 65 seconds left on the clock,
These last three players on BZ have been kind of scattered.
NJR going for a flank up the lobby stairs,
hoping to retake up above.
If there's no drone watching for this,
that could be brutal.
But we did see one just tossed out there
and the angle's ready too.
Misses both crosses, but NJR has been found out
and he'll have to go straight back to the bomb site.
The stalemate that we have right now
damaged right across all of these teams.
Newer's guns down baby shark.
That means they have to stop the plant.
Spiker cannot find the coverage that he wanted.
that might require ADM to get into a new position and he does, but J9O still has control.
Now it's Spiker on an island, he's being hunted inside a storage, J9O from above will seal
the deal and tie things up.
Both teams sitting at four rounds.
Nicely done by DarkZero, what I admire so much about that defense in the 3v3 Parker
is how you didn't have anybody sitting still.
Neuer is kind of the site player inside of control, but he's even stepping up challenging
the window to take down Baby Shark.
just sat in their spot trying to hold on to things getting scared of where wildcard might push them
NJRs flanking up lobby stairs, J9Os flanking up the aqua stairs no matter where you go there's
somebody on dark zero trying to retake space trying to aggress back towards that top floor
thought adrian was excellent both in helping to clear it up above and then using that vert
pressure but there's only so much one man can do very nice stuff coming over from dz yeah well
it was J9Os final flank that kind of got them into that 2v1 pressure and it will prompt
the tax timeout to come through from Wildcard. Again, tax have been good so far in this series but
DZ with the momentum here. Timeout being called by Wildcars, they talk through these problems.
A little bit of a later timeout than what we saw in map number one. You've got one timeout given
by default and that's at the halfway point that's after six rounds. For some teams that's not
the halfway point. Sometimes a little more, sometimes it's a little less. So we'll go,
notice is going to try to look through this. Now, I will say wild card seems to
being entering largely by themselves. This is something that is only from our
vantage point, but it does not seem like there's a cohesive idea behind wild
card and because of that they can't play as a cohesive unit. If everybody is
entering all on their own with very limited backup and I don't see the
same amount of extensive drone work we saw from Daisy, that's obviously bad.
Plenty of teams can succeed when playing like a bunch of individuals. It
It really just comes down to the overall strategy of it, but for two rounds it has not worked for wild card.
We've only seen two wild card attacks.
So if they're trying to entry alone without a lot of support, and they're not using a ton of intel ops,
they're not using a ton of those nuisance enabler ops, then you're going to end up getting beaten by the defenders
who absolutely are running intel ops and are running some of their own nuisance ops.
So wild card will have to change things up, and they have.
Blackbeard, they've got plenty of
fragging power and they are absent.
They've dedicated hard destructor.
They will run solely with Kansan, having those secondary
hard breaches.
Pestoope doesn't die with them.
Not in your bag!
Hey, Adrian's got some too.
Hard breaching!
Sometimes the striker will catch off guard partner,
but they do have a little extra cans here,
so they are fine.
Nobody dies early anyways.
Adrian is in some danger there, but he's okay.
Basement will reveal itself.
I talked about how matter this team wanted to go here, but dark zero apparently do want to choose this bomb site third in their rotation
I don't think you're wrong when you say wild card don't look the most coordinated on some of these queers
They don't look bad on the coordination, but they just don't look white together. It's DZ did and I know that's a tie
That's a hot. That's a high bar, but that's what they're playing against at the moment lots of damage down to Jena
I know recognizing there's a heavy pressure
pressure over towards lobby at the moments, but can't do much to stall it out.
It early blows yet again, this time it's Jane I know who suffers to rid Adrien taking a
little bit of damage too, so action will break out on this map at just about any point in
time.
I'm still very curious to know what the first thing about that DMR by the way, seeing
the para in the hands of Kanzin when the DMR is available in a minute, it just kind
of makes my eyebrows get raised a little bit.
It's a thought for another day as Adrian marches in swatters Kino
Jane I know taking a lot of damage earlier on is also about a bullet away from the afterlife
So this is a much better position than wildcards been in over the last five minutes
Good early pick but there's still threats around the map don't forget about newer is up here on the top floor
He is relatively alone now that Kino has fallen
He's gonna make a bit of a play here with the impact grenade inside of warehouse. There are a lot of wildcard players Bay
I mean there's players that are maybe worried about this here comes the run-out now
But not finding angles he was looking for and just dies to the main breach
wild card now after
Great start will continue to improve looking to regain the lead
They allowed DG to hang on to those rounds for quite some time
But it looks like wild card will be able to try them NJR now all alone
In a 1v4
Wildcard have control. They've got the defuse kit and they'll find NJR to wildcard will stem the bleeding
Two rounds for DZ, but wildcard safe. We'll take the lead back. Thanks five four for the team on your screen
Yeah, we talk about sometimes wildcard being a little bit individual on the clears dark zero quite individual there on the
Rome game not able to trade each other out just because of the positions
They were playing that is kind of how you'd see teams playing on the bottom floor
It's tough. It often does come down to a lot of those 1v1s.
Kino in the storage position was such a critical player to that defense because storage obviously
denies the main breach on the bottom floor, denies the most default plant spot on the bottom floor,
has access to the Animus Hatch as well. It's such a powerful position, so the second Kino goes down in storage.
You see everybody on DZ trying to fight to retake it.
Fault ends up in there about halfway through the rounds, but it's just not quite enough.
The movements coming out from DZ on the reaction are a little bit too readable for Wildcard,
So, nice little comeback there.
They regained the lead here in this match-up.
Up five to four, they can continue with their sight rotation.
These teams really love in Kitchen Cafeteria.
We will go for it once again for Dark Zero,
now playing all four bomb sites on their first four defenses.
Yee-haw! Tonight in even labs.
A reminder that Clubhouse is up next.
Should it be required, the winner of this contest
will be the second team in North America
get to clinch a spot at Salt Lake City Major.
For those that didn't watch our earlier match,
five fears toppled a one of 30 in a very bizarre game
that had some unexpected twists and developments.
Go back and watch at least map number one,
if you're curious about what I mean.
There's some tech issues on the side of one of 30
that we don't see at this level.
TZ is hoping to go up 2-0 and escape this match up
and then go up against five fears
In our very next and final match of the day, you and I will be casting, but Wildcard right
now is really testing them, and it's in fact Wildcard, and the drivers since here on Dark
Zero's map.
Wouldn't be that abnormal to see two teams win their opponent's map picks if they don't
have them all that often.
But when you get to this level and you find teams this evenly balanced, it's
bound to happen.
That would mean the clubhouse as our tiebreaker.
The hopes and dreams for Wildcard at the moment.
The major still hangs in the balance, dark zero three rounds away, but still not in a comfortable position.
I like this setup here on the Cafeteria site that's got faults on the class just up above.
This is similar to what Baby Shark was trying to do when the wildcard defended this site,
but positioning of the class was quite a bit different back then.
Faults just being able to play at the top of these lobby stairs makes it really awkward to walk in and take this control.
If no controller is meeting, then it becomes very difficult to try to apply that vert pressure.
reason why this site is considered to be the weakest on the map because if you
allow the attackers to get in above the bomb site inside a meeting they can have
so much extra control for now that position has been denied bay outside
the windows done a bit of work but really wildcard unable to take that space
it's the yana experiment and continue on words by the way glad that they're
using some of the more common information ops now dopamine demos are
mighty mighty strong solid snake is available but it's not being used by
this wildcard team too great a fact in fact not being used at all news and
Jane I know we'll start off this round in the positive direction for Dergster
Adrian though showing signs of life the wildcard out we'll go that all of you
protect her trying to tear strips through folds as it exposes us the back of
him the shield will not be able to protect him don't ROU field we're
keeping this defender safe and Keto actually wins because Adrian missed
times the gadget that is bad luck for wildcard an opportunity for WC to get
back in this one the Darkseer denies it and now doubles up on them in a 4v2.
Yeah low time is well Parker this is gonna be really tricky for wildcard
Kanzan all alone as this one teammate is above the bomb site still just
fishing for picks. 25 seconds you can't fish for long you've got to go down
and help Kanzan.
I think you have it's got nine kills Bay with eight these two have leveled
up at this point in time, both of them chasing Adrian.
He's got the crown right now on this team.
You might have to wait to pad those stats
till the next round because down goes Bay
and there goes Kansan as well.
Tarx here is not letting Wildcard get away with this one.
Certainly not easily.
Wildcard could still win, but we got ourselves a tie game
and we will go all the way in regulation
no matter who wins.
Genuinely an absurd reposition by Kino in the 4v2.
He's not jumping out to get a kill.
He's not jumping out to toss a nitro.
He actually just decides this is my best position playing outside of the map with the shotgun close on the window
Correctly identifies that walkard needs to push through this hallway if they want to get control of lounge if they want to push towards the bomb site
So says why don't I just be annoying don't care if you've got free pings on me
I'm just gonna play here and ends up being a big distraction doesn't get any kills from that spot
But enables those frags to come through from his teammates kind of a fun play there in the 4v2
earlier on as well we saw those Metro cells really doing work we didn't catch
if it was NJR on the pulse that was guiding J9O's Nitro for the opening
pick but regardless seabores were really strong from dark zero and not rounds
they can test very tightly up towards meeting and with that it will tie us
once again five five it just feels like these two teams could not be any more
even matched
then this means the clubhouse if it emerges will be an incredibly tight
series to seal the deal five fears is in the wings waiting on the victor of this
match and all the other international teams that qualified for the major are
surely watching North America now with great interest to see which
representatives will make it through there are still plenty of teams in the
fight the only ones that have been knocked down so far other than Outlast
and 100 thieves who failed to make it to the playoffs are cloud nine and an
Every day else is still very much in the hunt now
The lower bracket start to get a little busy Jesse because we've got one of 30 and Shopify rebellion playing tomorrow
And then we'll have space station playing the loser of this matchup
Space station looked pretty damn good against cloud 9 so maybe they've made some improvements here but cloud 9 as a team overall
Maybe he has still some growth to do, so might not be entirely Space Station's growth that we saw on display.
That said, Space Station and Dream in particular might even be streaming this as he is known to co-stream,
watching intently to see if he'll have to square off against Dark Zero or Wild Card.
Those matches will go tomorrow and it'll be our very final day.
Now you know how he'll kick off.
Plenty to play for it's been a very fast playoffs here over the last couple of days Parker
But that's really what brings the action to you what keeps things rolling
Kino inside the building this time finds spiker for the opening pick pick with the SMG 11
I'm not sure exactly where spiker was out when he goes down is he outside the window when he dies there
Maybe outside the breach. He's up above
Through the floorboards a nice shot with yes, and G11 to give the early man count over towards dark zeroing
It puts some panic into Wildcard now, you have to clear this top floor, down a man.
Rough spot for Wildcard, Darkseer could absolutely grab the bull by the horns from here and
take a huge lead, setting themselves up very effectively on series point.
They've got four more targets to find. I will say to Wildcard's credit to Jesse,
they do surrender a lot of early picks and still manage to salvage the round.
Might be challenging now with Spiker and Adrien are gone.
Adrien joining the IGL in the afterlife.
Not a lot of damage has been done into DZ just yet, they find a single kill but traded right back.
The more DZ trades the better they get because they hold a two for one advantage.
Tanzan and Baby Shark will have to make this work or else it'll be dark zeros mapped to lose.
They've managed to figure out where Folk says the Clash just continues to walk away feeding kills to the remainder of DZ.
Newers and NJR with one apiece and DZR one round away from making the major.
Another critical round to come through from Kino Parker. He's the site player
He's the hard anchor, but he doesn't care a couple of big swings to get them to the two-man advantage
And then even when Kino dies in that round
He's baiting somebody to walk in from bottom garage, which gets newers a kill to get them into that 4v2 advantage
Even when Kino is dying. He's providing value for his team. He's helping everybody get that man count even higher
So it's crazy to watch that play and it just comes down to the little things sometimes, you know going for swings
Finding the right timing, hitting your shot, this one with the shotgun,
it's a beautiful time because Adrien is swapping weapons.
I believe he's putting away that Grim Hive launcher,
so it ends up being a massive time to play.
Recognizing what the Grim is likely doing after tossing in those Vs,
so the game sense is just incredible from Dark Zero in that last round.
They won 7-5 on map 1.
They could do it again here on map 2,
and make Dark Zero be that oh-so-powerful force
headed to the major for North America.
DZ has played like a team to sass, Jesse, so it's, uh, not, wouldn't be too much of a
surprise if they end up being the team of qualifiers.
The only thing that really would surprise me after those kickoff results through the
group stage is the fact that DZ wasn't the first team to make it for North America.
Obviously that really just comes down to where the brackets are.
Five for years and one of 30 was the first match, so naturally one of them will be
the first team to qualify.
But DZ doing it without dropping a map would be quite incredible to see.
Let's also not just credit this five fears team right DZ finished the group stages of plus 17 and round differential five fears finished a
Plus 14
Fair to say that the group ultimately was easier for dark zeros than it was for five fears
Just at least with the way I was played maybe not on paper and in potential
So five fears have looked quite dominant
Obviously, there will be a bit of an asterisk here on their matchup against one of 30 because of the tech issues
but still a winzo in and they will take a 2-0.
DZ, hoping to join them, might need to wait a little bit longer, Jesse,
because Keto gets picked off very early here in the final round of regulation.
Yeah, it looks very similar to the last time DarkZero went down to the bottom floor,
and I gotta say, Park, I'm a bit baffled by this site selection from DZ.
PopCore is available, but not being brought out.
They won it in round 7, haven't played it since.
They've been changing bomb sites up quite a bit,
but this is the one site where Wildcard's are confident
where Wildcard were able to isolate gunfights and come away with the edge.
They've done so again, taking down both SAS operators Kino and G9O,
hitting the deck early in this round.
Now Newer's has been spotted out, just trying to make aggressive plays solo,
but just like last time in this position when he was in the vigil,
he's not really able to catch anyone off guard.
They're playing quite passive on the side of Wildcard,
they're not letting him get away with anything.
Now it's Newer is getting softened up here.
Lots of stall potential from these last three DZ players,
but they have to find work, and they will now need to work a little bit harder.
Adrian died, but the Neurs will follow.
Foltz and NJR, all DZ has left, unless we go to overtime.
Is this DZ's map?
So Wildcard has been able to push them very effectively.
Foltz on a flank, takes down one, cannot outdo a baby shark.
Now it's all up to NJR, the mayor, the longest standing member of this DZ team.
He's gonna head upstairs.
That'll put him right up against Kansan, unless he gets drowned out.
That flank turn will do wonders, it scoots on by and now out comes the LMG.
The jig is up, they know exactly where he is, this is valuable information.
I think NGR realizes that at this point in time, he's probably doomed if he stays in that position.
So he gets out of there.
No reposition now.
In between the A and B bomb sites gets thrown out yet again waiting for the head.
An LMG does a deceptive amount of damage.
He just needs to make sure he can actually land the shots and survive the onslaught, which he won't!
Baby shark takes a bite out of him and we're going to overtime between these teams
Yeah, again Parker
I'm just really questioning the site choice in round number 12 for dark zero maybe with that mirror band thinking that they have no wall denial
They don't want to try that soft floor once again
I'm not sure what the process is there
But this is a game where every single round 12 straight the team that's gotten the opening pick has converted it into a round
And then you go back to the one bomb site where you're really forced to spread your teammates out around the map where it's so
Hard to trade if you do get that opening death where wildcard looks very proficient on their attacks back in round number nine
And again, you see this individual one-to-one gunfights. This is not what Dark Zero was known for
This is not what Dark Zero's defense usually looked like but it's kind of necessitated by the strats they're playing
It was different from the last time they went through this long floor
They changed a lot of operators. The Echo was new, the Chonka was new. Don't get me wrong
There were some new looks, but fundamentally it was still a roam and you still got roam clear to really cleanly buy wild card
They will go top floor. They will not make that thing stay twice
But you got to imagine have they just picked this bomb site around 12 if they win it right now
They could have been looking at a 7-5
Here's a number for you Jesse
12 opening kills
I'm directly led to that team getting the opening kill, winning the round.
100% conversion rate on the opening duels.
Now granted there have been a bunch of trades, two in fact, and they benefited.
Easy both times.
Wildcard did trade it back again.
Wildcard able to be a little bit stickier in the way that they play these trades,
but the team of individuals thing really does come back here.
So if you get the first kill, you go on to win the round.
That is how every single round up at this point is played out.
And again, it really does come down to style, whether you're entering alone, whether you're
entering solo.
DZ was playing a little bit more together on their attacks.
They get to defend yet again, this is a familiar spot, they just finished defending.
So we'll see if those attacks can be quite as formidable as DZ is hoping for.
This has been a very defender-sided match.
So I do think the attackers struggle quite a bit here in OT, only four rounds at this point.
One by the attackers, if you can strike first as an attacker, you are in such good shape on all maps, but it is a specially poignant here.
We are a minute into action first round of OT, IT wall opened up, great pace by Wildcard, but no action beyond that.
Check their committing a lot towards this garage there.
You can already see spikers setting up with the capitol bolts, the Grimby's being tossed here as well.
That will immediately force J9O to back off less than halfway through this round.
And you've already had to give up garage.
That's pretty early map control to come through from wildcard.
If you combine that with the fact they have this IT breach,
then that's when it starts to look better and better for this wildcard team.
They don't have full control.
Of course, Aqua and connector are still the two kind of question marks,
but we're looking at Adrian and base positioning.
I mean, half player is pressuring in connector side.
Adrian's taking some of these fights now.
He's been so good for Wildcard today.
Double digits just on this map, but it's banged strikes first.
And I was gonna say, I think this might be
a little bit too standard for Dark Zero.
They're not high on map control as they would want.
It was taken quickly by Wildcard,
and now they find themselves kind of trapped
in this bomb site.
Neuers was basically playing to live.
He dies in this position.
Finally, we're starting to see some signs of life
from this Dark Zero defense.
They approach the breaches, opened up our Wildcard,
Exchange some words with the attackers.
Don't find anything just yet.
Still only about a minute to go.
It's still plenty of time to figure out where these defenders are.
Intel Ops on the side of Wildcard and they are using that information.
Oh, so effectively.
They struck first, they struck second.
Fultz will strike back, but Spiker trades it,
and Wildcard are in great position.
35 seconds to go.
Spiker is the all clear to get the fuser down.
J9O smoked out of his position.
He finds Kansan, pre-fires on another,
Now loose through! He manages to get everybody, but Spiker and Spiker will need to clutch out with Diffuse Kid going down again.
Spiker got off of it! Jane I know trying to stop him in the process. Spiker will finally abort, but get to kill!
Ice in his veins! Spiker pushes his team to map point.
What a round from the captain of Wildcard. From start to finish it looks good Parker.
They use their utility perfectly on rafters. They got space over towards connectors
They did everything they needed to in that push it gets a little messy at the ends there
They took a couple of ill advised swings
They lose their player just on this on the main site breach trying to get in from connector
But in the end it doesn't matter spiker pulls off that plant to get the final kill
This was maybe the one mistake that gets made in Adrian dying defaults up close
They're not aware of his position, but even that gets immediately traded out
It's nearly a great clutch from J9O.
He finds these last couple of players, able to isolate them one at a time,
as the plant's going down pillar side, but it doesn't matter when Spikers shootin' like that.
Beautifully done coming out from the most versatile attacking player in the league.
Really beautifully done from him, and he will get his team up on the map point.
That's just the fifth successful attacking round, by the way.
It has been such a defender-sided map, and of course Wildcard charges in attacking and
they prevail.
Easy.
They've got their hands full.
About to lose their map unless they can change their fortunes here.
wildcard improving the longer these best of threes go on they were completely
lifeless against M80 yesterday dropping their own map one to seven think you
said the best fortress team in the world about 30 times and they got smoke no
I get right and then they got absolutely crushed and then what happened
they pulled off their reverse sweep and now they are here fighting for a spot
the major where MAD will be competing for if fixed post, I think it's changing the result,
maybe 7th, 8th, I can't remember exactly what position it will be because frankly,
it doesn't really matter, they're not gonna make it. Wildcard are in a position now to pull
off a reverse sweep yet again, so long as they win this map. Then it sets them up for a tidy
best of one on clubhouse. Both of these teams have looked mighty, mighty good, but DZ objectively
Wildcard improving at a fast rate and now starting to challenge whether DZ and remain as dominant as they are
This is a no-quit team
There's no doubt about that wildcard down to the bottom four info is so good for DZ though
And there comes newers once again such an amazing snake player and he's able to spot that player out
I believe it's a drone from his teammate that gets him that intel
Fine Spiker, the mastermind of the last round, the hero that got Woggar to this position.
Lots of control and you can see a very different defense from Woggar than what we saw at Dark Zero.
It's very anchor-focused. They didn't want to get too aggressive up on that top floor,
lose individual gunfights, go down in numbers. It's happened anyways, but they've got to
just deal with that reality now. Lots of walls being opened up by Dark Zero.
They have entrances both into assembly and animus
And another vert pick from an intel office false this time who catches Bay that was up towards a flank around cafeteria
This happens in OT all the time doesn't it Jesse the team that has
Get basically no chance whatsoever the side rather than has no chance whatsoever suddenly shows up huge and then spades
and that's four attacking rounds, one during the first 12 rounds.
Now it looks almost certainly like it will be two for two for attackers.
And this one might be done flawlessly.
Nope, maybe Shark says not today.
Down goes Fultz.
The juice kit in the hands of NJR.
He's at the halfway point.
Three players from DZ will cover.
Maybe Shark track in this position in XR suit.
And he's shut down by J9O.
We're going all the way.
All 15 rounds between these teams if DZ prevails,
They become the second team from North America to qualify for the major wild card prevails. We get another map
What a crazy game this has been I have no ability to predict how this last one's gonna go Parker
I mean those last couple of attacks look so good from the respective teams dark zero just
Annihilating the aggressive play coming out from wild card once again through those vert hatches
one was into the basement one was down to the ground floor even the
Even the mausie halfway through that round right getting droned out and then eventually followed up on with the kill
I mean it really does look clinical coming through from dark zero
Now they have a big question. Where do you go to defend on around 15 again?
The info was really clean. It was the clutch drone from Kino that started things off with the information
But combined the drones plus the snake plus the lion plus the females it is info abundant for the Z
The answer to my question, it will be storage and control.
This is where Kino was so incredible inside the site last time they played it,
hopping off the mute over to the Malusie, bit of a new setup.
Coming over from Dark Zero, hoping to catch Wildcard off guard for their final round on Nighthaven.
Oh my, the Legion on the board, like these changes from DZ.
a T5 is such an easy gun to wield and lesion is a lot of things he's a trap
operator he's also an information operator don't discredit the ability of
those goominds to find out where your attackers are coming from Ella also
functions similarly and even foreign too if you're a razor bloom go off you
probably know where they're coming from
it's a very active defense so far by DZ Jesse Neurus is in a danger zone his cross is being held for the time being
He's waiting maybe for a sound of a reload to try and swing.
I don't know if he'll catch Kansan off guard,
especially with Kansan on that upside down repel.
This might be a fool's errand for Neurus,
but at least he survives rather than risking his life in a 50-50 fight.
I'm here on some of these entries, Parker.
Who's gonna be the one to strike first from wild guard?
Usually we'd look to Bay, here on the IQ, just on the top of Aqua.
You've got Baby Shark as well here on the snake,
hoping to gather information outside of Electrical.
There are some players roaming top floor.
It's Boltz, Kino, and J9O.
I know, but Spike are the first one to take some damage, not from the roamers, but from the site player.
And I mean, I was moving towards Aqua and making the space for his team.
They're looking for the follow-up.
Just lodging those defenders.
Down goes Kino.
Wildcard now four kills away from a third map.
It seemed unlikely for so long, this DZT was very dominant, but Wildcard are punishing them.
Dark zero.
Just appearing in front of our very eyes.
Neurs and folks lost.
You left.
Neurs will hit on one.
or control for Wildcard.
That's great for them,
but they have to get to the bomb site
and this is where things might get a little tight,
especially if they don't have information.
Just based on the drones that are available,
Wildcard will likely fly blind.
Ult says no real support.
They might have him on the cross here.
That's the bra of Adrian holding this position.
He gets down.
Can he secure in time?
Yes, he can.
Worried about fish stares?
The shield of Spiker still running around.
He's all so low.
It's allowed numerous to reposition Jesse
over a minute to go.
This is winnable for Dark Zero, but it'll be toffin' and just got tougher.
Both gunned down by bay, map three, unless Newers can clutch out.
Hiding inside a warehouse, the shield above him.
He hears them.
He wants them.
He go Newers.
He never shies away from a fight.
But this wildcard team has leveled up.
And they've got three terrific players all hunting for that final kill.
Spiker with the fuse kit in hand, he'll have two escorts walking towards the bomb
site, one of them now over top of Newers.
I don't think they know where he is, Jesse.
They finally drawn him out and Neuers will need to scamper off of his position.
He hears the drop from the shield, but he has his mind turned somewhere else.
He's expecting the push, he'll read it correctly.
He can't do much about Spiker, so now he has to go back to where he was before.
Look in warehouse, see what's up.
Nice shot by Neuers, almost gets the shield.
It's going to come down to him versus Bay and Bay gets the job done.
Wild Card wins a Wild One and we will go to map three.
Such an impressive attack. They start fast, they clue that pop four,
they get the man advantage and then pump the brakes. They don't panic, they don't rush into sight,
they use their drones Parker. Always hunting for that information, making sure they had advantageous fights
from start to finish. An impressive match from Wild Card stealing their opponent's pick.
We owe one more to decide this series. We'll toss in the desk and a break before we get there.
I'm never standing out, I'ma keep it going till the end of the night
I'm breaking eggs and wildin' out, or I'll get all full of stuff with my money out
Cause I came to get down, so let's run it up, I'ma keep it going till the end of the night
It's going till the end of the night
the
I mean, come on, we're all thinking it.
Let's go!
We're going to map 3.
It's exactly what you want in a major qualifying scenario.
Wildcard, they came out at the half, they were winning, they kept the momentum up, and
DZ nearly made the comeback happen, but just let it slip through their fingers in the
end.
Yeah, we said once we switched halves, I mean it was on DZ's shoulders at that
point.
of their layers and they did a very good job in the beginning and they got two successful
defense rounds just playing off their utility, playing off those layers, they would lose
round nine and then they would pivot to ten and eleven and the big proponent for their
success in both those rounds were Clash. Clash delayed so much time, stopped so much
of Wild Cards push where then they would ultimately run down the clock and they
were panicking to get them into the site to go for a defuse, you know, go up fight
these players and then it just trickles down every single defense after that for
some reason DZ doesn't go back to top floor DZ doesn't bring the clash and
now we're here we're going to a third map where those minor tweaks bringing that
operator could have changed everything yeah slowing wildcard down definitely was
their success being able to add those layers the shield having faults on the
two-eyed say this is one of his more exceptional games I feel like he was
always making the right decision up until that last round the last round
with the retake.
If he was alive, the newers could have clutched up if he just had a team in alive.
But I will say the one commending thing that got Wildcard to push over the hurdle is sometimes
it would get hectic.
Sometimes it would be a back and forth situation.
But the fact that they would always take a moment regardless of the time and make sure
that they're droning out the last few players from dark zero, that shows respect.
They understand who they're playing against.
They know that any one of these players can win a round individually.
They take their time and they're playing very disciplined, very disciplined and very consistent.
And yes, they with some round slip, but at the end of the day, consistency and discipline
will get you past the finish line.
And that's what we saw.
And we saw those hero play moments from it feels like so many different people in the lobby.
We saw it in the end.
They're almost a clutch there from Newers and folks.
We saw Spiker hold off a very aggressive DZ early on in overtime.
We also thought saw the entries on both of these teams really find their stride fox.
I mean they were continuing to put up the numbers that we know they can put up they was playing well newers were playing well
I mean both teams had their players playing nearly at their best. I mean, we know what newers is gonna bring to the table
He's an amazing entry. He's been so good for dark zero and he has the spot all to himself now as opposed to this previous teams
That he was on where he had to share but newers has been doing his absolute best in the last shot
He hit in the last one through the floor. That was gross this one right here. Oh my god
I thought he was going to clutch it up, but thankfully for wildcard he did it and on the side of wildcard Bay
I mean we were talking about how we need the baby shark to step up, but more specifically the entries
I mean it seemed like on shallay both the entries were getting the short end of the stick
They couldn't find anything that make it happen, but Bay himself he really was coming alive
He was the spearhead and on a map like labs
I mean he has a lot of freedom to find those openings find where he wants to go and I think wildcard with him a
and they can get Baby Shark as well to be able to wake up.
Sky's the limit on map three.
And there's definitely a difference between the two
ideologies in terms of how they approach the entry,
where entry is definitely more standard on Neewers
and where he's getting in your face.
He's taking those initial gunfights.
On the side of Bay, I mean, he flexes
between a lot of supportive operators,
but once he can set up, once he can help the team,
then he's kind of let off on a leash
and he can go off on a roam.
He can find these opening kills, open up these rounds.
But now we're going into a map like clubhouse.
I mean, entries don't get me wrong.
It's going to be hard getting into this building,
it's going to be hard fighting for this territory.
But again, if you're DZ and you're understanding
you can slow down wildcard, use the clash to your advantage.
They had no answer for it, two rounds in a row.
And it just really blows my mind that every single defense
after that, even going into overtime,
you wouldn't pivot back to it.
I mean, it was right in front of you.
And if you're Dark Zero, you know right now
the entry game from wildcard is the biggest weakness.
Clubhouse is very difficult to entry on.
There's not a lot of rat positions
where you can get a pick away.
So I'm hoping, for that sake, that Dark Zero is going to lean into that factor.
Bring the clash, bring a lot more info base, trap operators to be able to stall out the entries,
because if Wildcourt is unable to get that advantage in the late round,
you stall out so much time that they need to take that second to drone out the last few players,
and the time is on their back.
That's where we see Wildcourt kind of scurry away, scramble away,
and start letting the round slip.
So that's Dark Zero's main focus going into clubhouse.
Well, we walk into a situation now that is kind of a storybook as we could ever want.
Map 3 in what has been a very tightly contested series on the clubhouse on all of all maps.
It's like, it's a Siege's nerd's dream right now.
It's essentially the Colosseum.
There's nothing that you're going to be pulling out of your hat that's going to surprise the team.
It's really just the fundamentals and the sheer willpower and endurance to go all the way of the distance.
And you're going to go on the most standard map of the moment.
An interesting fact, I mean, you know, we've talked about Spiker picking up Dash's role that is going to be playing those shield ops
Even in these past two games he's played. He's only played the shield operator twice now
So he's pivoted off of it and in a map like clubhouse
We know how strong these shields can be and how impressive that they can be
So personally given the fact that that entire half for the most part was really defender sided
I would like to see Spiker take a little more role on those on those blitz on those black ears
take a little more frontal pressure and then you know facilitate and go for these
executes because so far it hasn't really been there but when he does that we see
wildcarts struggle I agree there I don't want to contribute wildcarts
immediate success and playoffs to spike or not focusing on the shield so much
so but I will say when he's got a gun in his hands I mean map one the reason
why some of those rounds run was because of spikers so you know it
could be a double edged sword when you do look at this team and what they
can do on clubhouse. I mean, we haven't asked for predictions for most of the stage here,
but in a major qualifying moment, I think we got to looking at these two teams laxing.
I mean, I know you're you're I know you're excited for this wildcard the way they've
been playing. They look like a new team. We've talked so much about it and then DZ.
They're the powerhouse. They're the behemoth that we've been talking so much about. Who's
going to take this? They're going to be cloud nine. Okay, that's not going to
Actually, it's a tough one, but I'm gonna have to say Wildcard.
Honestly, especially after how they played it versus SSG, and they honestly got demolished.
I think there's a lot that's gonna be played from there.
That's the last thought that DZ would have on them.
So maybe they're gonna try to go for that same cutoff.
They're gonna try to course them into gunfights that they just aren't able to get into.
And then for the Wildcard, like I said, you're gonna take from that game, learn from
it and implement it, especially going into this match now after going through the
gauntlet of map one and map two.
fair bet I'd say dark zero just because the way that you're watching each
will play I mean the way Kino's been on the shield that such a shield map been
important he's been exceptional he was so good on Chalet and they are he shields
that much and JR yeah there are a lot of positions where you have to be
holding blue holding these hard positions and JR is the best hard
angle holder in NA in the world I'd say newer's on the entry false is
been playing great I mean I think it goes without saying that I'm gonna put
my faith into Dark Zero. But this is such a close contest. We came into this talking
about the history of these two organizations, right? It was Dark Zero. Every time they play
Wild Card, Org versus Org, it's Dark Zero coming out on top. Roster versus Roster,
it's Wild Card, who's had the edge so far in this series. I mean, you see it here.
When you look at the stats, there's not really that big of a difference though. That's
like, it's so close. It's so hard to predict and say who's going to win it. Now, if
you were going off of group stage, there was a clear decider who was going to
win this match up. But so far from what Wildcard has shown is improvement every step of the
way. And I'd say on the side of Dark Zero, it's been far more consistency than maybe
what we've typically seen from other iterations.
So you just see those smiles on their faces, Fox, and you know single smile.
Well, there was Bay! There was Bay smiling for a moment there. I mean, not before
Tommy Martin blocked him. Never mind. Ignore what I said. You can see the focus on
their faces right now. The point is, you know how much it means to these teams.
Can we go back to this?
Because he's still, I mean, he has a mug in it.
Obviously these teams still have two chances.
This upper bracket, if they go to the lower bracket,
they still could potentially make the major.
Both of these teams could be there.
When you put yourself in their seat, though,
and you think about the atmosphere,
you think about how Dark Zero, they haven't dropped.
I guess that was the first map they dropped all stage.
Could that change their mentality here?
Even though they have that much experience,
do you think that could rattle them at all?
dropping the first map of the kickoff.
I mean, that's a great question, Jonah,
because we haven't seen something that has happened
to Dark Zero yet.
So we don't know how they're going to approach it,
how it'll affect them in game.
You'd like to hope that with a team,
this experience and that has been playing this good,
they're going to let one map go.
You know, it is what it is.
You can't win them all and it's better to lose that one,
lose labs, wildcard best map,
get it out of the way, understand what was working,
which was clash and slowing wildcard down
and try to incorporate that into going into map three.
I mean, you can't imagine it's going to hold all of them back just because they lost one map.
And that's why, again, I picked Dark Zero to be able to win it because
so far we haven't seen any shake-ups in their consistency,
and that was such a big issue that would plague that previous as a G-Rosser.
And now, the new Dark Zero roster, we haven't seen it yet.
I'm hoping we don't see it at all, at least until we get to Salt Lake City.
But the pressure element is something you got to bring into question because, yes,
everyone wants to win this game to qualify to Salt Lake City.
The first and second seed at that point you're playing without the pressure of making it to the event
No one wants to go down to the lower bracket and play a team that has a one round behind them that has their
You know the gas and their tank ready to take on dark zero. They want to be able to end it here
You know both exactly what any Siege fan wants a battle for a major spot on a map
We all know and love we go to clubhouse to decide our second Salt Lake City spot
We go down to Jesse and Parker with the call
Greatly appreciated all right long faces for both of these teams and I don't know why they're not more enthused here
I think it's the pressure more than anything two big organizations
Ten players who know what it takes to qualify for an event and it is a single map showdown
And the winner doesn't even get time off Jesse
They go right into the upper bracket finals up against five fears when this map is done
wild card have put on impressive performance and have steadily improved but overall DZ has looked like the better team through and through do you expect that to change on clubhouse.
I think it absolutely could Parker I mean wild card again we said this in their first series we said this when they were starting out to come back on shall I walk or have grit.
have grit this is not a team that gives up if this game goes deep if it goes into overtime and I
certainly think it will given how maps one and two wins I think wildcard have the grit to pull
through dark zero have looked better fundamentally I'll agree with that I think particularly on some
of their attacks you go back to shout life you go to some of those later attacks on night haven
labs they look so well coordinated when they push in and when they go for that map clear wildcard
will need to find some kind of answers that now if we load into clubhouse because it's it's
really difficult to fight back from a disadvantage.
We both set it on that last map.
Every single round, the opening pick got converted into a round win.
So if you're going down early, there's somebody on Dark Zero who's
finding that early frag, whether it's Kino bursting it on the shield and making
space for his teammates, whether it's somebody else on a Doka B or a Grim or a Ram,
maybe it's going to be Nuer's running around the snake.
If you're losing those opening duels, it's going to be really tough to eat
yourself back into the matchup.
So I'm hoping to see wild card battle back in that fashion in some way shape or form
I believe I'm not sure exactly what side they're starting on actually barker. I won't speak
On to that my understanding is that because dark zero had the better round if on their win
They would get choice, but we'll wait to see that confirmed before we before we say for sure
Clefos on deck you guys think about 64 percent over the DZ that might be the most walk our favorite
We've seen it all day Mark.
I was gonna say it's been holding pretty steady
and I think DZ remains the favorite team here.
A lot of times this is also just a popularity contest.
It's not necessarily who you think will win.
What?
Who do you hope will win?
I know, I know, I know.
Really?
Wildcard will start an attack.
You were wondering where their sides would be.
Well, there you have it.
Mentioned it, the conclusion of regulation on map two.
But after 15 rounds of Nighthaven Labs,
The team that bought the first kill won every single round.
Now, this is in stark contrast to Chalet,
where only five of the 12 rounds were won by the team that got first blood.
Now, obviously, these maps are very different.
But again, I think that even labs plays a lot more similar to a map like Clubhouse
than it does like Chalet.
So while they're all completely different,
and the big one obviously is going to be that garage portion
that is held with rafters leading into the top floor of bomb sites
because rafters is usually held on one of those sites.
Sometimes team depending on if the team wants to extend all the way out to cash
and all that, but we'll see about that in action.
I do think that with Wildcard, these first two rounds are going to be integral.
Will they need to call an early timeout?
Will they be able to match up against DZ on a map that allows maybe
a bit more free flowing of a defense?
Then Nighthater maps where teams, especially DZ, could be a bit too static.
Clubhouse is a very played out map.
Takes about a minute and a half to drone.
You usually know where people are going to be,
and chances are, if you get an idea of what the site setup is,
you can figure out if there's one or two players that are going to be roaming
or where people will be on site.
If Wildcard can very quickly get that information and assess,
and then rush or DZ off of it,
there's a high likelihood that Wildcard could snipe the first two rounds here on the map.
GZ will start on defense, down on the bottom floor.
Duster with pretty typical sight set up.
And nothing is super weird about these defender operators.
Yeah, no, we should have a pretty standard clubhouse
on deck Parker.
Wildcard playing clubhouse for the third time this season,
officer playing it twice during the group stage,
taking down Outlast and then losing to SSG.
It's a small sample size still, only two games.
I don't want to read into it too heavily.
But in those matches, they actually
were a much better attacking team
than they were on the defense.
75% round win on the offense, 45% on the defense.
So despite DarkZero getting a side selection
and choosing to start on defense,
Lockhart might not be too upset
that they have to start on the attacking side here.
They have been a very good club attacking team
so far this season and are hoping to show that once again
today, starting on the bottom floor,
gonna come through from DZ.
It is not, ah, it's actually a pretty heavy roam game,
as I say that.
Neuers and Kino here on the top floor,
couple players holding the routes back down
what's they do with faults and J9o, so it's going to really be onto these roam clears of wild card,
Bay and Baby Shark to try to force these players out of vision and work better on the pick.
Is Ami holding down the fort on that rafter's position? Down goes NJR, the Goyo,
early to Spiker, who was to be looking for something through Burt Tunnel.
A funny moment with Bino on that particular part of the map, Jesse, if you recall where
he shot over, he tried to shield charge in and then died to the Goyo flames. It
It will not happen this time, and we'll be no surprise for Wildcard, who find a kill without losing a single point of HP.
Newer started this round, and the Rafters, watching over towards Cash, he has completely seeded that ground,
and now Bay might be in for a bit of a surprise.
Now Pierce decided, let's get closer to the Bonsai, there's half the round to go, we've already lost a player,
I like this call from Daisy, we'll keep Newer's alive for the time being, even though he does immediately begin to engage Bay from Blue.
Down another one!
Yeah!
Both of those have his own unstoppable Jesse
Apparently he is 2 and 0 now to start here on clubhouse killing two really good anchor operators
NJR and faults the second he killed NJR
It could have been a fast rotate from Walcard down towards the site and that kind of brings everybody back
Spike her brought back down to earth as well as these was rain of terror will end
Janon O with the knight herself able to take down that cap of town
but not until he gets that hatch open so there's also be more angle to play around with wild card
We'll have a couple different avenues down towards the site
And they still have numbers the DMR saying you know, but it's not light enough to take down Hadrian at the bottom of main
Now goes chain. I know wild card looking unstoppable now. It's all up to Keto who's inside the church
Maybe grab your rosary and say some prayers here because you've got the walls closing on you and you're gonna need a miracle to survive
He gets dropped and wild card shed a single member on route to victory
I don't know if Kino got one before it ended all doesn't really matter all these compared terrific start for wild card
You go back to the desk segment that we just had after that night Haven lab 15 around barn burner from Fox and laxing
And one thing they were kind of hammering on was how these ease a lot of their successes on the defense came to
slowing down the attack of wildcard from playing together from enabling trades from not being picked off so much in the early game and I'm kind of surprised after that
Analysis where I thought was spot-on to see DZ go right down to the basement and go right into a roam strategy
Now even clubhouse again, you said it different maps, but they play quite similar
And given that the bottom floor was the only site you had significant struggles on for dark zero as a defense
It's surprising to me to see them go back to a bottom floor bomb site and go back to a roam strategy
where maybe it's not a Romer, but it's still an individual player who died early.
It's NJR and Durst, and it ends up going down first.
It's another early pick then, come from Kansan, and Svalte tries to retake that dirt position.
It just gets a little bit messy, and there's no option for a trade-out from BZ in that round.
It feels like a far cry from Chalet, where it seemed like every single kill was getting traded.
It felt like there was always somebody behind the other player to overkill back
and to try to keep those numbers tight on the side of Dark Zero.
So Wildcard up 1-0 and they'll need to be better in the purple if they don't want this
game to get away from them.
And Spikers been sensational today Wildcard again showing really good depth for this entire
series.
It's been a, it's been an exciting one and we still have one more Besta 3 to go.
Remember there's no rest for the weary here and one of these teams will be pretty
tired for the next matchup against Five Ears.
Adrian topping the chart so far with a full wildcard through these three maps.
Baby Shark, as has been sadly the tradition through this kickoff at the very bottom,
numbers well below everybody else on this roster.
Fulls takes down Eugens, and GZ will find some life here at the start of round number
two.
The poor standout performer on Darkseer, the hidden Kino, which is way too late
I mean, if you really expected him, his deployment has been relatively dismal, he's been struggling to find kills,
he's also stepped up big time, but again, a lot of these numbers, really even.
Best KD in the lobby is J9O at a plus 5, like, it's just showing that every single player is getting in on the action,
and this has been a very, very tight series. It doesn't come to expect when a playoff spot will be in a major spot, as of now.
Yeah, I mean, when your shield player is bottom fragging, I don't think it's a good one.
Sorry, everybody's been willing to wait in this series. No bad performances just yet.
Good rafters here coming through now from Wildcard. They're pushing G9O back.
He's been caught on a line charge too, so they'll know that he's crawled to the far side of rafters,
but he's got help as well.
This Chonka fire from NJR will catch a player on the staircase,
Bay going down, now a 5v3 lead, and they still haven't cleared up the new zombie.
Kansan's sleeping for a moment and J9O just pops his head up for the pick and goes right back down to the rafters.
Team lead a wild card and Baby Shark is the last two to go.
J9O finished off by Spiker. They are at very different parts of this map.
One surveys what has happened to this Frankenstein breach.
The other inside of Garage is four players from DZ now remain.
Baby Shark wants a kill over in Cash, but it's being held by somebody on Reg.
Never mind poor coverage. Newer's there on the swing after Mr. Changa, Benjaro almost died.
Now it's Spiker in a position where he has no hard breach to open up that wall.
He's got to read on somebody towards Brio in a pain-gaze system as well,
but he gets finished off by the flames from Folsom. Laughter on the side of DZ, a
perplexing end, and we have a tie game.
Those gas pipes, they explode. Watch your feet because they can do quite a bit of damage.
Nice little finish off there from Dark Zero.
It started actually with a vert pick Adrian on the gridlock is trying to take below the bomb site and dark sir
Didn't have anybody playing downstairs in lounge, but they did have faults holding the vert angles from cash
That's how they work themselves into that one-man lead
And then I think it's that duo play from J9O and NJR, which grows the man advantage over towards garage
Stalls out even more time coming through from dark zero. You also saw that as you said Frankenstein
Preach over on the CC wall
that's just gonna happen anytime Mira is left up on the board really nice play
whenever easy and it kind of goes back to what the theme has been through this whole
match right partner it's like when the round gets decided by individual fights
on the roam clear wild card finding a lot of success when it comes down to the
site post where these you can play together and they can play behind
their utility it's a really tough nut to crack
Intrinsion utility on their side. Defender on a defender side and map you don't
say. You don't say. Five seconds left. I do. You do. You did say it. I heard it actually
myself. I heard it. And sometimes when you're not sending me minion gifts, I
listen to you. I mean you're such a big minion fan so. I'm not. I try to learn
your pleasure. I do not understand it. Out of nowhere you just started, first
it was that squid emoji. He just started sending me squid emojis. He'd send me
message then there'd be a squid emoji after I say what's the squid for it he
goes oh you know I don't know I take the bait I take the rage bit every single
time now he's been sending me minions spare me likes his grandpa likes his
gifts we're sorry chat he gets confused but once he focuses back on the game
it'll be more comprehensible this is the worst cast of my life
I didn't even need to gas the two-hour-long clubhouse.
Well, this one could get there.
Careful what you wish for.
Cross your fingers that nobody's internet dies here.
This is the mirror windows that were causing the issues last time around.
This time they're going to go for the exact same look of the breach.
Mellon peed off as Q Barrier is used to plug that hole just jostling that utility now and Mr. Cusie
Breaches don't go back to droning half of the round or they're about expired.
Wildcard not yet in the building. Still trying to put some pressure on these defenders by opening up walls.
So Adrian kind of alone there on the garage side. Hopefully to lake pressure I think these CC players that might be existing over here.
Newer's one of them, not in CC, but a step down below.
Faults at the top of red. I think he just got mistroamed.
Is the strone seeing him? It's struggling. He can get past the breach.
That could be a poor call. In any case, Newer's position was not known.
So Adrian will fall, and that's a lot of that back pressure.
Alleviated as the rest of Wildcard are really just focused on this jacuzzi side.
Bay doesn't want to languish too hard in this position.
Wildcard already in a hole after losing their capitao,
Adrian, the star player on this Wildcard team,
imported to replace Dash.
It's how some jostling of roles
and some operators being passed around,
Dash playing those shields most frequently,
Kanzan on shields this time, Adrian playing
with the main entries on this team,
but still playing heavy utility ops.
He's the best performing player on Wildcards
with devastating loss for him.
Now just 40 seconds left on the clock.
Baby Shark comes down J9-0,
was hoping for a second,
Kino, partially blinded, still comes out ahead.
DZ, my goodness, toppling all their forces.
Almost everybody involved in that.
William might have been, a teammate's will have to find out
after the round, but another for DZ on the board.
Yeah, nice hold coming through once again from dark zero.
I believe Newers did get two in the midst of that,
just roaming a little bit on the scopo.
So not quite a teammate's, but pretty damn close.
Everybody from DZ stepping up and contributing
in that hold.
And again, I think it just comes back to that back pressure being alleviated so quickly.
The fact that Adrien is alone pressuring that cash side of the map and the fact that he dies so early to Newers
really does make things awkward for Wildcard. At that point the push really just looks like Jacuzzi and the Logi hatch.
I mean, you can't play the windows as long as you haven't cleared out CC. That position was so dangerous for them.
Darkseer were able to predict where those push were going to come from. They were holding with strong guns.
guns, you saw the shotgun coming over from Kino, ended up being just a really simple defense
where they keep the walls shut and they win those duels as Wildcard tried to funnel themselves
in, unable to attack these tall floors. Wildcard will go to tall a attack time out. A lot
of it's been problems with really just the direct to sight stuff Parker. It's been
clearing out rafters, it's been clearing out the CC extension and it's been opening
these walls that Wildcard had been doing but it's either taking them a lot of time
or they're losing a lot of bodies to get these jobs done.
Another early time out and more time to fix things.
The good news is that the fortunes for Wildcard
always improve after these timeouts
and it's not quite as grim for them as I think you'd expect.
Certainly not compared to previous maps.
You just got to stay competitive, right?
It might not have been the most competitive round
for Wildcard, but the team is still very much locked in.
And round number one was a triumph.
everything's been a bit of a struggle. Wildcarts with plenty of time, so their
operator lineup not walked in, but they are moving things around, bringing solid
snake. I'm waiting to get a good read before they choose what's next. They
used two hard breaches, so some hard breach on this map is necessary. I don't
think we're gonna see a maverick shot at all, but you've got options with
secondary hard breach there goes the capitol for the blitz jesse now makes a
decent bit of sense here coming out from wildcard there seeing a bit of a
roam being shown by dark zero again I was a little bit questioning are we going
to see that come through once again from dz it was a heavy roam back in around one
and it ended up biting them a little bit they do seem to be committing to it
now I'll be very interested to see if they try to commit to this or if it
ends up being a relatively fast fallback they do have a lot of
site util in terms of Keebas, Legos, and Smokes. They could try to play towards more of an anchor
strategy but definitely some presence being shown up above. Janino and Faults are main
roamers up on towards the top floor and Neurs and Kino covering their space back towards the site
and NJR back towards the bomb site. So lots of different angles for players to attack and there
we go! Fault strikes first with a Nitro through the hatch to take down Baby Shark and give
easy to leave exactly what you need after the last map we'll be keeping a
much closer eye on those opening rules so if you're on so far here on clubhouse
three for three when it comes to opening is deciding the fate of the round it
will continue to get better for wildcruits fortunes maybe not though
spiker with one kill mirrors on the board DZ holding firm at this point
time, Neuer is in a position where he needs to get to the hash, but I don't know if we'll
be able to get that with his life intact. Shot out from the feet, swung on by Adrian,
the gap is now closed, Jesse. It's a 3v3 with half the round to go.
I mean, Neuer shouldn't even be getting one. The fact that he gets one and wastes
all that time is frankly quite good. Now DZ, still with the man advantage, he's played
towards the site. You've cleared out a lot of these important
soft breach operators, too. Like, you still got the secondary shot going to Panson
and I guess the upon a DMR, but the breaching that you're trying to play with with baby shark on that bus
It's not gonna be as available to you. You also lost a little bit of that
I was gonna say breaching but it bucked in in the pattern can so it ends up being fine
They still have the ability to open up all the hatches and walls that they might have wanted to but still not a very clean push
Spike are looking to get in towards armory with this smoke, but it is gonna be tough to some players in actual dummy
Kansan going in for the swing now, smoking in some of that gas, inhaling some of that
smoke and gas as he's made his way over.
Spike's dropped, so it's just up to Kansan and Adrian to clutch out now with DZ still
holding firm.
Spike taking down.
There's two bodies for Wildcard, 40 seconds to go, and Nate about to be tossed on out.
Neither a mini Wildcard player holding that kit.
Adrian gets one Kansan, the other.
Keenow needs to clutch to save his team. He finds one. What about the second?
He's got an idea. He's got time.
He's got coverage as well. Lots of wants as he goes for the reload, the swing in the hallway, a messy one between him and Adrian.
And Adrian wins the engagement.
Wildcard's got some magic on that one and they take the round.
Rousers shouldn't be losing. File it in the book for Dark Sierra. That's a 3v2 as we're in the final minute of that round, Parker.
But still, it doesn't seem to matter. A couple of really big picks come through from Wildcard. Just in that execute, I mean, they're able to isolate G9O and NJR very, very individually right at the same time with those positions being known down at the bottom floor.
It's an explosive entry down towards the bottom site, but it's exactly what they need to try to get in through the kitchen, get in through the main stairs.
I felt like it should have been a really difficult push, and especially after spider dies on the cliff.
But some of these fights just go the wrong way, the catch-jane I know on a quick rotate, and then Kino in this 1v1,
you could argue overheats a little bit. That long-angle fight, better for the Hupana, he's peaking it quite a bit.
20 seconds on that clock, maybe he could have played it on time a bit more, but he was just trying to go fast,
trying to catch Adrien off guard, he doesn't go his way, and this game is tied once more.
Well, if you've had evening plans, or maybe watching your favorite hockey team play, I
have some bad news for you.
Because you're probably not going to be getting to them anytime soon.
This best of three is going to, in my eyes, go the distance, barring a sudden change
of fortunes in this second half.
There's a good chance that both of these teams will ultimately make the major,
by the way.
It's just one of them will have to do it through the lower bracket.
But the way Wildcard has been internationally,
the bigger issue has been getting there domestically.
This is usually a team that finishes
like somewhere around like fourth or fifth
and then makes it into qualifiers or squeaks in
and then dominates against other teams and other regions.
But you've got it good enough domestically to get there.
You can be a top four team in the world internationally,
but if you're the sixth best team in your region,
you're never gonna make it to the events.
It's a great point to me Wildcard have never in or history finished top three in the NAL.
If they win this map against DarkZero they will accomplish that.
They guarantee top two with a victory here today.
Could fall as far as at least six if you lose this though.
So scary moment.
Here comes the push in from J'Kuvi.
Reach.
The map clear has begun.
Spiker now watching his bullets fly all over him.
DZ dominating the kill feed.
Wildcard down to just two players.
Four still remaining on the side of DarkZero.
Not much utility here to work with.
There's still a logic bomb that's generating, by the way.
The cut and thrust of this round came so early that Baby Shark will get a second use of that
gadget, providing he survives far from it.
It's still not there, and he's the last man standing, charging into the bomb site.
Nope, it was not available by the time he died.
DZ will take the lead on an absolute brawl of a round.
seeing Dark Zero gets so aggressive over towards Jim in bedroom and that round
Parker they knew that was where Wildcrate were wanting to push from they
didn't see much pressure over towards garage side so they said it's got to be
coming in from jacuzzi you saw it just before that push coming in Kino
aggresses up towards Jim gets aggressive spots those players up and is able to
call for his teammates to then come forward with him fight those players on
the entry NJR newer is everybody really getting involved in that denial of
entry from Dark Zero, so really clean stuff coming out from them. Kino ends up going one
for one on that extension, and then by the time they get to the bomb site, Jin I know,
this is a Raptors player, don't forget. He knows that there's no pressure Raptors, so
he can just come back towards site, hop in the window, not have any issues playing in
that anchor position, and it's a really good read from Dark Zero that tests them
up nicely to regain a 3-2 advantage.
We have broken the conversion by the way because Wildcard 1 round number 4, Dizzy has 4 consecutive
opening first blood so this is now a metric that we just keep tracking quite so actively
as the streak is over.
Good numbers for everybody not named Bay at this point in time.
It seems like all of these matches we have waited for a player to get a kill in the
first half.
come down to the wire.
Kansan did not succeed all the way back in map number one.
Now it's Bay on deck to go kill us in the first half.
That's quite devastating for Bay,
who's usually quite good on attack
and tends to rival some really impressive game skill
and mechanical players here in North America
and the world not having Bay is certainly hurting them.
Not too, too much though,
because Wildcard does trail by one,
but as we've seen through the first two maps,
Jesse, a 4-2, very, very likely here.
They can stop that if he wakes up.
I'm certain of it.
Yeah, no doubt they was the MVP in map 3 versus M80,
which is what Wildcard had to do to earn a spot in this match
up versus Dark Jiro, so we know how good of a player
they can be, even if he's not shown up to clubhouse
just yet through the first five.
Good opportunity now to equalize things in the sixth.
Wildcard on this attack, or once again,
going relatively direct to site.
A lot of focus here on the jacuzzi breach,
not so much over on the cash clear.
This is what kind of bit them last time
with Adrian being somewhat solo over towards garage.
He has in the exact same spot,
although on a different operator
trying to clear through that outside of the map,
Baby Shark on the smokes now with the glass
hoping to crack the site wide open.
They're gonna smoke it off and jump on in.
Adrian, good coverage.
Down goes Newers.
And now Adrian looking for a back stab
as he slamed over towards construction.
Two players in the ground for DZ.
They will come alive in the post plant.
Three kills in a row for them.
Spiker and Bay find themselves holding on to just about nothing.
Spiker very far away, they still without a kill.
Foltz has been down, DZ with just two players upright.
Unclear, Foltz is retrievable, gets picked up, Bay finishes off Kino.
He's not far removed from Foltz, he just needs to hold this position.
Denying Foltz will rotate on over, Bay gets his second.
Who's gonna get NJR?
Wildcard just need the single kill, and they will tie things up.
Hey, it's Bay! Zero kills at the start of the round, and he will finish with three, as the first half is in the books.
And three kills to match the three rounds that Wildcard will win. Both teams dead even at the halfway point.
Beautiful little execute. Love that post-plan position from Spiker, but as we're all tied up, it's anybody's game.
Let's hear what the desk has to think as to what's gone on through the first six rounds.
Of course, we're tied. I mean, we have to have this map 3 tie game going all the way the distance here guys
This is the game we wanted to see it's tied up on clubhouse kind of the score
We come to expect at this point. It's certainly delivering in for wild card
I mean to end a half 3 3 on attack that is setting themselves up really well once they go to that second half of defense
But what I really like seeing out of wild card in specific was what we were talking about early on
Are we going to see spider play more of those shields and yes, we were we were seeing blitz
We were seeing black beard and some of those rounds working out other rounds may be down so much
But even in that round in particular that last round the black beard is jumping in through gym window
They're putting pressure with the glass and the smoke from capital cutting off angles using those bolts as well
I mean, it's also weak and lucky enough
We get to hear both sides of comms and it's funny because both teams you can just hear are figuring out where things are going
right, where things are going wrong, what the opponent is doing right, and how they're
going to counter it.
And it's just fun to switch between back and forth, and which is why it's a clear 3-3-1-2
is both teams are doing such a good job at understanding and picking apart what the other
is doing and how they can fix it or correct it in the round.
It's like an unstoppable force versus an immovable object.
I think DarkZero has better set-up strategies when it comes to their defenses.
I really love their CCTV hold, where they'll have J9-0 in the rafters alone, double
Reinforce and every time you try to push them you're seen to Chaka pallets fly over the top of the wall
That's very unique, but wild card is adapting. They're adapting the same level
I'm maybe not the same level I'd say that we see at events
But their adaptation is what I think is winning them the utility that they're using the capital like you mentioned
Then be using these different operators to be able to find their opportunity into the site
It seems like if they crack the first layer of the dark zeros defense, they're able to execute onto the site
they're able to work on those traits focus on getting the case down and that's the strength of wild card now the side swap
We're gonna have to see if dark zero can use the same level of shields to be able to catch them off guard
I don't imagine we'll see too much shields, especially if a multi gets banned out
That'll be the biggest indicator for me is how is dark zero going to also break apart wild card?
Are they gonna go for aggressive entries with newer so they can use utility?
We'll see
You can take a look right now. We got a chance to figure out those operator bends
Yeah, it's the blitz that's taken off the board.
I mean, it really does come down to these final few rounds
to make the major, I mean, this is what it's gonna be.
When you look at wildcard, you look at dark zero.
I mean, I'm already seeing the clash pulled out.
I would like this outside from wildcard.
And bolts on shields, they don't ban B monty
so that they can allow it.
And then they have the clash to counter
whatever shield they might bring.
All right, we dive into the prep phase.
We dive into the second half
to decide our second major spot of the day, Jesse.
Parker, all you.
Thank you very very much. Major spot on the line as the landscape of Salt Lake starts to come into focus.
Most regions have sent their representatives over.
APEC and China are the other two regions that we are waiting on.
China plays in just a couple hours. APEC is in a couple days actually.
So APEC's teams will be locked in dead last.
Let me see if it's frustrating for the APAC fans there that need to wait quite a long period of time,
and for those of us that try to keep our sleep schedule somewhat sane,
it's a bit challenging for us to watch APAC live, but Europe is fully locked in,
South America is fully locked in, and North America will be in the give or take 24 hours.
Then it's just all up. You're good friends over in the east to start engine spots,
and the office of Salt Lake City, all of these teams will go.
We have been treated to quite a spectacle in this Vesta 3 so far.
Yeah, no doubt about that, Parker.
DarkZero and Wildcard could not be closer.
3-3 on map 3.
Wildcard going for the exact same attacker bans on all three maps, by the way.
It has been blitz and glass every single time.
Hard targeting Kino, and I mean, I guess if you've got a gameplay and stick to it,
but I do think Kino has still been finding a lot of success on the offense.
I thought his Monty play was fantastic back on Nighthaven Labs who will lock the Blackbeard
for the first attack here on Clubhouse, so clearly still finding other ways to have impact
in this match.
A little bit more pressure over on the CC side this time around from DarkZero, they've
drawn better at this point so they can play these highway windows and really at any point
could jump in to go for a plant that Kino skis an opportunity, he might just send
it.
It's going to be an opportunity to present it itself though, Jesse.
I like the idea.
It's thwarted just by the setup that they have.
They still need to go back to more, draw more, more discovery on their side of things.
They will actively draw, you know, and now they see that it's not safe
if he goes for a jump in over towards the bed
and now they're really worried about what might be over on the
C.C.T.H.
He took side of the map.
You have to imagine that folks will be the one to shut that down,
shoot something, come of it.
Down goes Jane I know to Adrian.
Adrian on his opening duel, sensational.
Nice play by Keto there.
Cannot out dodge that nitro cell though.
He dies, Kansan off the board for Wildcard.
Adrian's not going to be the only one to get it done.
They will get one.
Adrian gets one.
Baby Shark gets one.
And Wildcard take the lead.
Really nice round coming out from Adrian
Adrian in the midst of that Parker gets two really big picks as Dark Zero rotated over for that catch clear.
He wasn't really the catch player. He was really playing link between the roamers and the hard anchors.
You had Bay on the clash top red. You had Kanzan on the Kaid inside of cash.
And then Adrian just inside of construction able to have some really big values.
He takes J9o down outside the window and then launches that C4 perfectly through the doorway.
Might have even gone through the window from behind on Tequino.
I didn't see exactly where he tossed it from, but one way or another,
Adrien's able to really support those roamers from inside of construction,
ends up with a triple on the round, up in round number seven,
and makes that defense so strong for Wildcard.
It kind of shows the two sides of the coin, right?
If you try to push like Wildcard do, just in through Lodrin, through Jacuzzi,
sometimes you get burned by not having that cash control,
but if you try to clear cash like Dark Zero did,
well you can get burned just as much absolutely to spread out
Adrian in his position as strong as ever now sitting at seven kills leading
the way on his team not the lobby though Kino has turned his fortunes around we
wagged our finger at Kino a little bit at the start of clubhouse for him being
at the bottom of the leaderboard for dark zero position he has not really
been in on this new look of his team it's a familiar spot on previous
rosters which usually plays those hard support roles or at least roles that are often away
from the action. It's nice to see Kino flourish with this DZ team around him. Wildcard though
just slightly better. Bay had zero kills three minutes ago, four minutes ago, five minutes
ago now sitting at a dead even four and fours. There's been a very impressive recovery
on the side of Wildcard here. DZ to their credit in the previous round were excellent
from droning. This time they're finding success again and I don't know if
Kansan got that drone or not but it sure seemed like he saw it. This is
information that Darkseer can use effectively but just as last round saw
it's because you have that until it doesn't mean you're going to use it properly.
I'm curious what they want to use this for. It does look like it's going to be a tall
clear. Despite Tino's position just outside of Dirt Tunnel he's eating
thorn traps at the moment but he is relatively alone as the team is
starting to kind of clear up above. They can try to just get this util out of here, right?
Pop these goyos, force these players back. It'll open things up for later in the round,
which they can use to try to either force a plant through or just provide some extra pressure if
they're trying to get a plant down inside of Armory through kitchen or down those main stairs.
It's not really a roam game. Baby Shark the last roamer immediately falls off after he gets
droned out, so safely back towards the bomb site. And now you got to worry about this util
Parker, two nitrocells being played by Wildcard, a couple of these Goyo canisters as well,
the thorn traps, one still in pocket for Spiker, lots of tools and an opening pick.
Adrian continues to thrive on his defense, actually kills Kino inside, so I'm not
in shock to take that fight.
So terrific run now for Adrian as he's got three first bloods in a row, he got a
3k in the previous round too, he's gonna go to the rest, his pulse fits him down,
One minute to go, and now Darkseer, I'm knocking at the door in the basement.
They've got hatch control, also positioned by that church wall, so...
decent lineup.
They've got more work to be done.
Spiker and Bay, looking in separate directions.
Bay towards the bottom of the stairs, Spiker looking in that moto hatch.
Who is watching over towards kitchen?
With 40 seconds left, it looks like a fall-off.
Dana knows we're rotated around and over towards stock.
NJR was going through dirt tunnel.
We're starting to see GZ's attack take shape.
They've got to manage this clock.
I think we were expecting earlier action here, Jesse.
It does not break out.
DZ, oh, oh my.
What for kills in the span of one to two seconds?
DZ sure managed that clock, Jesse.
I mean, it's pure aggression coming out from Wildcard Parker.
They all choose to just swing out at the same moment.
There must have been pressure as that church wall opens
that forced those last couple of anchors to decide they had to go for that play.
Neuers is the beneficiary of it. He just pulls out that pistol, hits the deck,
two brilliant kills, and yet there must be pressure coming up towards these players.
He forced them to go for this pick. Maybe just thinking Spikers down,
we have to get the trade one way or another. A call gets made on the side of Wildcard,
and it is music to the ears of Neuers. He benefits so greatly from that.
A triple kill to answer back Adrien's from round number seven, and we're tied again.
4-4
Yes, or no, we're going to return absolutely almost a guarantee at this I said yes or no, and you have said neither of those words yet
Yes
Almost a guarantee yes or no Jesse. I don't think it was a very good interpretation
You say one word like it's a full sentence with so much oomph.
That's just the way it works here.
Adrian really is starting to fit this wildcard team so effectively.
I know that there were obviously little growing pains with this roster after losing Dash.
You know, Spiker came on DBNO and talked about that and said,
you know, we have to play a different style.
I have to get used to a different role.
We have to pass around certain operators that previously Dash could play all on his lonesome.
lonesome but you invest in the future and I mean even if they didn't want to
make that move Dash made it for them by saying he was homesick so why not pick
up a guy who just went to the grand finals of the six-invitational I
remember when you and I first made our land debut at the Montreal Major and we
casted Team Secret and Adrian was arable he was one of the worst players in the
entire event and now he's a world beater and he is the statistical
best player on this wildcard squad. What a glow up for him as a player and for his
team's wildcard greatly benefiting from him and his addition. If you'd like to know this
round because they just lost Bay and Wildcard will give up first blood.
Yeah that's an awkward one you're going to rely on guys like Thorn Traps to be pulling
down things inside of rafters. It was a great hole from Jin I know in this position
but he's the one that gets the floor as Thorn Traps hits a great head shot onto
that player and now he's easy and a bit of a mess. They're dying to Thorn Traps
They're inside the site, but it's a complete mass Parker spiker another one from inside of rafters
It's false and newer is in a 2v3 to try to salvage the pieces they've got con control
But without a whole lot to play with you till wise it's gonna be tough to try to work a plant in 2v3
This is gonna be really difficult for DZ, but last round showed us that they can snap their fingers and kill everybody in the process
Maybe shark now has an idea of where new resist
He saw some of his ankle get removed by that F2 in Neuers' hands inside of construction.
Foltz is there with him, so at least you got an idea about them.
They have to go through a singular doorway, hunting for kills.
Maybe Sharg is fighting back because he knows if he stands pat in this position they'll
shoot him from the legs.
Nice!
Vault out by the mirror of Kansan, and they'll find the final two kills wild card deciding
Hey, maybe we don't just play passively. Maybe we go for the throat and they get it and we're the lead wild card up 5-4
Yeah, that's exactly right Parker
I think dark zero thought they had a bit of a gap after they took down bay over towards kind of down below the site
He was roaming in basements. They said screw it. Let's just go in towards the site
But they didn't have control of a rafters which false was actively trying to take
They didn't have a whole lot of pressure over on the con side either was really just newer is playing that side of the map
A lot of that pressure came up red and it came in through the main breach and Walker get a really good job of shutting that down
Spiker in particular getting two kills from rafters was absolutely critical to stopping that initial push and then in the 2v3
It just got awkward. It's just not awkward. I should say Dark Zero did have an opportunity. You said it
I mean eventually the toe damage was going to be enough to take down baby shark
But when all eyes are just focused on baby sharks feet Kansan can take it as an opportunity jump out the window
Get a little frag, get a little aggressive.
Absolutely works brilliant from Wildcard.
They don't just sit still and let the easy take their time with that recovery.
Ends up going their way.
They will take the lead and prop the tack time out from Dark Zero.
A late tack time out, but this is, I think, the right time to use it.
You've lost control of this second half.
You can still recover, but Wildcard in the lead two rounds away.
Six minutes away from a birth, the second birth in North America at the major.
that will be happening on North American soil.
DZ as an organization has a long history of making it a fault.
And some of the players on this team have been at just about every major under the sun.
It would be unthinkable for them to not make it.
The good news DZ fans is that if you don't know how the bracket works,
even if Dark Zero does lose here,
they still have another chance.
Space station gaming, the organization that three-fifths
Right, more like you include the coaching staff.
Of this new World of Dark Zero departed,
is the adversary awaiting the loser of this series?
Possible Dark Zero puts three in the road
and shoves wildcard down the lower bracket
for one of the final spots.
We don't wanna get ahead of ourselves.
The point is, is that both of these teams
will still play.
The winner plays in the very next match.
The loser will play tomorrow
for one of the two remaining spots.
The other match,
1 of 30 will play Shopify Rebellion, and the winner of that will go to the Major.
It is entirely possible, by the way, that we could have 5 years of Space Station, 1 of 30, and Wildcard make it.
That would be outlandish.
It's been a crazy, brand new roster.
Yeah, I mean, you just go to show how good the rookies have been during kickoff, I mean, it's certainly an accelerated format,
But despite that, these new teams have had no troubles getting their acts together,
putting together some really nice ex-peeps,
some really nice defenses throughout this stage.
Dark Zero's skill is one of the most experienced teams,
even if they are a bit new themselves,
are hoping to kind of put an end to this,
that they can...
Trouble Wild Card.
Trouble, that's not a word.
Stomp Wild Card.
Trouble?
Make it to the Major!
What a travel and what?
What was the other word in there?
Stomp.
There was Stomp somewhere in there.
Stomp and trample.
Trouble.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
The point's up.
I was going to get a wrong day.
Damn.
Which I guess goes to really work the same way.
Nitro out, not going to land some early damage.
Actually, on a base, it's wonderful.
He's getting shot from, Parker.
And he needs a bit of help playing inside a cache.
Scott Kanzing just on his red stairs,
but I'm not sure if it'll be enough.
He has to be able to hit some shots here too.
Two rounds in a row.
DZ some feet loving going on here as they're shooting out the toes and ankles of these wild card players
Both teams will lose bodies, but wild card losing far and away the most the time out has settled down dark zero
And they've done it again. Jesse out of nowhere. They clean out the server
everybody
Stomp sample
Trumpled in a matter of seconds as you put it and DZ have tied the game
Well, Blink and you miss it while all the focus was going over towards cash park
Or there was a hop in from Newers just sends himself into gym while the rest of his team are busy clearing that extension on the
Other side of the map Kino at the same time by the way drops him through the Lodgey hatch
So at some point everybody on these he just said three two one
Let's go the roam clear sent it the anchor players sent it all over the top floor
or somebody on BZ was pushing and it really did catch Wildcard off guard.
They didn't know where to look.
There was pressure from all different directions and it's that kind of execution.
It's that kind of coordination that Dark Zero will need to close out this game.
We've talked about it all day long.
There have been moments where they've looked a little bit disconnected.
Wildcard have won some 1v1s and they've gotten the better of Dark Zero.
They have to be able to push together like they did in round 10 to close out this game.
been walked in as the favorites. This has been a bit of a tough game for them, wild card versus easy.
No doubt the hardest match they've played since this roster was formed, but it is still in their
control. They still have the power to end this out. Two more attacks will tell us the result.
We're going all the way. You said that absolutely no doubt in your mind when you would need
overtime. I mean we need all 12 rounds of regulation that's for sure. This is a real
Got some play from baby shark one of those bullets hits his head and he is dead
That means through floors and walls by the way if you are running past a barricade and somebody hip fires
One of those hits your head we're done for that's it. That's just how it works, so
Shut lips to see another day
Orbs are exchanged. No damage done on this land of darts here
and they can recoup now, 45 seconds off the clock, still droning, bringing tons of explosives.
Nades in the Blackbeard, explosives on the Zofia, nades for the Sledge. Wildcard got to watch out.
And you'll be able to find these rumors as well, Parker. They know it's an extension from Wildcard
up towards the top floor. There's nobody on the master side, but you've still got
Hanson and Baby Shark lurking around cash. That's what NJR is trying to approach just now.
worried about these pipes. Kino and the Blackbeard as well starting to make his way in towards these
rumors. He sees them but he dares jump in. Bay is inside of Raptors too, don't forget,
so there is a very heavy presence and Dark Serial will have to be sharp to clear these guys out.
Bay living to die out of this position. NJR the very first kill and oh my! Kino almost
got one as well, but thank goodness for Kanzan. Stopping him in his tracks,
Max Nitro still now goes out.
Wildcard trying to hold this one together.
Adrian Flash by Neuers now, NJR in close pursuit.
He'll get the job done.
NJR giving up nothing in the process
of to knock at the door upstairs of servers.
There's still two players from Wildcard
clinging to this part of the map
and they've got diffuser control.
This might be a little top four Dark Zero.
Kansan drops though.
So now it's Spiker and Bay Bay
and Mark in the any way shape or form
looking to give up, fighting in this spot killed from outside.
Spiker now last man standing.
Do they know that he's at top red?
He's got a great cross here.
If he was kicked, picked up by Foltz,
they're not going to give him anything.
He'll drop downstairs.
Does he have a way out that doesn't
involve an engagement?
Beautiful use of that environmental destruction
onto the fire extinguisher.
And now Spiker will get away looking for an ego play
on the upside down repel.
Barry nearly gets it.
Shane, I know, just need to swing it forward. There we go.
It's Fultz and Spiker in a 1v1.
Fultz had bought some time.
As that explosion goes off in front of Spiker,
he'll make some noise into the post-plant we go.
This is for the lead.
Fultz is in this position.
An incredible play by Spiker,
losing all of his HP in the process.
Looking for a flank, he gets Fultz's attention.
Fultz is a little bit wiser than that,
still looking in this spot.
Spiker swinging away.
You can take the long arm here. Get patience in both of these teams.
Timer at the halfway mark, and Spiker will attempt it.
Foltz swinging on in, Spiker sticking with it, Spiker sticking with it, off he goes!
He does a lot of damage to Foltz, he thinks he's got the down, but he doesn't!
Foltz will come back again, Spiker pops up, this is it! If he hops off, it's over!
Foltz held it, May! Spiker clutching out!
Foltz gets in with less than a second to go!
OH MY GODNESS, DARK ZERO!
NACH POINT!
The two IGLs, the two captains, one on each side, one HP to share between the both of them.
They were one bullet away, each from going down in that moment.
Spikershot faulted about 10 times, but he doesn't have enough damage to actually get the down.
He thought he was dead, I thought he was down to the midst of that, Parker.
What a ridiculous defense that was, start to finish.
The 1v1 will take the attention, but this was a bottom-floor defense where like 8 players died on the top floor.
It was such a heavy commitment to the roam game around CC and Cache, initially Kansan Bay and Baby Shark holding up above.
But then Adrien rotates up towards the top floor to help Otis roamers,
and then Spike is alone on the bomb site, playing the clash thing I want to get involved.
He rotates up to try to play with the roamers on the top floor.
Just an aggressive, messy round from Wildcard where they rely on their gun skill, it nearly pays off for them.
And the 2v1, Spyper has to play that so perfectly, because he knows he's in a crossfire, right?
He watched Faults drop oil pit, the other guy is on his blue window.
He now has to take the fight against one of those players, because otherwise that's a perfect crossfire.
Eventually wins it, but then Faults has got the plant down so close to clutching things up,
things up even with that last disable I thought he had it Parker good lord if
that doesn't get your heart right up I don't know what will dark zero one away
from the major remember what I said that DZ playing a little bit more confidently
means they're not giving her palpitations to their fans and then the series happens
and I'd like to issue a correction to all dark zero aficionados you don't
have very good heart health that's just how it works DZ fans but you're
Hopefully a customer can do it at this point either way a do or die round for a wild card
The reason this match goes down the lower bracket
They play space station gaming tomorrow and the winner of that series will be one of the final two teams
Qualify for the Salt Lake City Major
This kickoff is not technically a part of the NA League usual circuit
This is a truncated series of matches an event if you will that qualifies you for the major
NALs, stage one will be coming up in a couple months time once the major is done.
Wildcard will still have an opportunity. They're hoping to go out with a win.
They need to do it through overtime. But baby sharking cans that are on the board.
Baby shark taking no prisoners. Three kills for the Frenchman.
And with a minute 40 still on the clock, Foltz is in a 1v5.
Jesse, do you just sit outside and try to talk your team through this?
I don't think Foltz gives this an attempt.
There is no way he wins this round.
He knows that, we know that.
He's hoping for a free pick first, not giving it to him though.
Everybody on Wildcard's sitting still, forces the rotate out.
Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot.
I think we're headed straight to OT.
Foltz does as well.
He's going to call the unofficial attack timeout on the roof.
1v5 will not give it a try.
You're right Parker not even able to fight for that KD. I mean what a roam from baby shark
Entered that round with the lowest kills in the server five and nine and explodes up to eight after a massive
Triple playing around those thorn gadgets just extended inside a gym
From a player that has had confidence issues who was incredible last year who couldn't find his footing at the start of this season
And now has just come alive and back-to-back feel threes when his team needs the most
It has been an incredible story to watch baby shark evolve in through this season.
He will get his team to overtime now against dark zero three more rounds
separate us from that final decision of who makes it to the major.
It has not gotten any easier to call as this thing's gone on.
Can in the round early as folks are still talking through this don't know what he's looking at
or what this team is going to talk to or talk about call out is not able to be involved in those discussions.
That's the coach of Dark Zero, migrated over from the space station gaming.
Volts is basically seen at all. I mean, hell, he's a world champion.
Very few people can say that. He's got tons of experience.
He studied under Troy, but he's also become his own man
with his own identity and his own team that is now, I think you could say,
maybe more even successful than a lot of those older rosters that he was on.
So he'll try to get the team's head squared on nicely, screwed on nicely.
As we now go to overtime, Wildcard, winning that one very quickly.
What was this, four rounds so far, just this map alone, where you literally can't even say your own name and everybody is dead.
I like the tempo that's being set. It has been very, very quick.
This has been a very fast best of three, despite how many rounds have been played.
And that is because both of these teams have been very quick on attack.
Now we will see what the landscape looks like in overtime.
Who gets to attack twice? Who gets to defend twice?
And what bomb sites do we see?
That, to me, is going to play a big part in two Ultimate Improvisators.
Well, DarkZero got the initial side choice because they had a better round if through the first two maps.
That means Wildcard get the overtime side choice, and they will select defense as expected.
So, DarkZero, maybe the harder task here, having to attack twice in these next three rounds.
There is no infinite OT, of course, so it just comes down to these final three, the first to eight will win it,
making it to the Major.
We had two even halves, it was 3-3 at halftime, 6-6 after regulation,
so we don't see a heavy advantage for one side or the other,
but you do have to imagine when you go overtime and all the sites unlock once again
that there is maybe a slight edge towards the defenders.
Bottom floor is the Scythe Collection,
and last time it was an extremely heavy roam game from Wildcard
that resulted in almost every single player dying around CP and Cache.
This time it's much the same, but Dark Zero could be taking a different approach.
Crackling a bit of a rush here, but tough to say if they'll commit yet.
How did they do that?
As we tend to see when it comes down to the wire like this,
teams will be a little bit slower in how they go about attacking,
more thoroughness with this drone work.
Just more care overall being paid.
I say that right as Foltz takes a lot of damage,
And as you can see on your screen, many bullets have found their way towards him.
Most of them, thankfully bouncing off of the shield, is thankfully for his sake.
He now has an escort to walk in this dirt tunnel, but his advance will be slowed by those Goyo canisters.
Now, popped in the tunnel a long 20 seconds, waiting for those flames to extinguish.
Just past the 2-minute mark here.
In the first round of OT, Kino has his hands full, but oh my!
NJR is also on the window! Why are there four players in blue?!
Oh my goodness!
It's been a very awkward push part for two guys dirt tunnel two guys pushing blue
They do not want to bother taking that map control
It was a lot of work last time around and even though they wanted it was very strappy too close for comforts
Still battling in dirt Adrian will give up that position now the goya's have all been burns and they've got this deployable shield
So they've got a fault in not afraid though fault jumps right in and we're in a plant spot
They've got the numbers that they want, it will continue to get better for DarkZero now.
NJR with three kills, Algoes, Spiker, Baby Shark will need to clutch, Jack himself, J9O
finds the final two.
DZ moves back to Ceres Point.
Brilliantly done from DarkZero, they don't have a lot of map control but they don't
need it.
That pushing through dirt tunnel, it's not fast, doesn't catch them off guard but
it's consistent.
the team. And he's still
playing on the left side of
the game. Jane I know following
up his monty getting those
picks. Jack is currently first
place in the running for League
MVP here in kickoff. He has not
had a single game worse than
plus four on the KD coming
into today. Not sure if that
has maintained through this
best of three. It's
certainly been his toughest
contest, but he has been
phenomenal since this season
began makes the job happen
over in dirt tunnel. At the
on the side of Dark Zero. They set themselves up with a two round buffer to get this job
done and send themselves to Salt Lake City. But Parker, if this game has taught me anything,
it's that we're probably going to need all 15.
I wanted it. I wanted a spirited match between these two teams and we have gotten
it. Oh yeah, I just know that Five Fears is sitting in the wings watching this going,
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes, tire yourselves out, show us your strategies.
The map pool right now of Chalet Nighthaven and Clubhouse leads me to think that we might
see some repeat maps for the very next series.
There will be very limited downtime for the winner of this event, whether it be Dark
Zero or Wild Card.
They will immediately go into battle, the loser will have the rest of the day to
recover for tomorrow's matches.
Again, one of 30 will play Shopify Rebellion, where one of those teams gets the third spot
and then the loser of this series will play space station gaming, where the winner of
SSG vs. 2D Detournment gets the fourth and final spot.
We started with 10 teams here in the NAL kickoff, two did not make it to the playoffs
and now slowly maturing, we've been saying goodbye.
Use some of these teams.
Mark-Zero and Wildcard have been so well balanced aside from that first map.
I mean, hell, even the first map, Jesse, was all 12 rounds without overtime,
so it's been a grueling fight for both of these teams,
and despite the fact that it's been a little quicker than we expected of a best of three,
it has been a very even affair.
Is this the end of the road for Wildcard?
They're on attack with just a little over two to one.
Jenna and O playing the Jagger inside of Rafters.
He is the Rafter's player.
the guy who's always in this position, but curious to not see him on the Azami, Neurus
has taken that and is playing down below him, trying to help cover from inside of lounge.
They don't have a risky play, but it could pay off as long as Neurus doesn't leave him
to die, as long as he can support and fight anybody who tries to walk in from bottom garage.
Good Uto Clear still being played with Wild Card, they've got the breach open without
any problems, and they see this Jager inside our afters, but killing him is
a different story, a big swing on the breach from fault, and he takes 99 damage
because of it.
How is Baby Shark still alive?
Baby walks right in, down goes NJR.
Baby Shark living on Goro.
Time's spiker on the board.
DZ collapsing.
Kino trying to salvage something.
He's got newers with him now as well.
Foltz still fighting back.
Kino takes down another.
And DZ has swung this in their favor.
Still a minute to go.
Wildcard got into the bong site.
They got very soundly thrown out by DarkZero
after finding two kills.
I'm worried if I'm wildcard here Jesse this is a precarious spot to be in
full phobie on low HP does give them an ability to exert more influence and open
up some more of this bomb say they just got to get to him because viewers right
now it's the one watching the coverage. Two smokes and nothing for planting now
though Parker that's the key thing they could work a plant the cover just has
to be perfect from Kansan. Absolutely no utility on the side of wildcard it
will be pure bloodshed. Befall spot now Spiker getting diffused kid down
He falls off. They know that they're gonna need some coverage a run out from Kino greener by spiker
He's doing everything himself. He's got the defuse kit
He's got cans in for support and now false is on the ropes
Faults outduled by cans and we will need all 15 yet
again tie game
final round I
Don't understand how wildcard can see these win cons. It is so impressive from spiker is the IGL
recognizing the spots they're in. 2v3, good smokes, the ability to start a plant,
nothing on dark zero to stop it. When that plant begins, dark zero are forced to
swing out. Once spiker gets in that plant position, one jumps out for the window,
one pushes up red stairs, and all of those angles are being stared at by the
last few players. Kansan and spiker. Kansan's cover was good,
spiker's able to pull off at the right moment and challenge those last two
angles as well. The captain pulls himself up to 13 kills before cancelling. It's the last one,
a miraculous game coming out from Spiker on map 3 so far. That was not an easy round to win. He
finds the one thing that they can do to force a win out of that round. And despite the man
disadvantage wildcard force 15 how else could this one have ended oh my goodness
eight seven could we see another reverse sweep from wildcard here's the game plan
if you're wildcard lose the first map which needs to be your own map we did
that against an 80 you win the second map in stunning fashion they did that
against an 80 they're doing the same here against dark zero and then you win that
three and everybody goes perhaps I judged you too quickly wild card we are
right there again now GZ could put that play into a screeching halt they've got
five players wild cards got five players anybody's game yours is already
encreaching on that basement position a rude dirt Tony's doing it all by his
It's been a bit worrying, Jesse, when Dark Zero has approached some of these maps and
bomb sites like individuals and not like a real team, Volkz just droned himself in.
But Neurs kills Adrien, that's a huge first target, and the namesake of that area's escape
title and Neurs will use it effectively.
GZ with a one-man lead over two minutes left, plenty of time for them to sort this one
out and take the series.
most important round of your season so far and you go bar and stage wild card I
hope you know what you're doing this bomb site does not get played at all
not even in the rarest of circumstances but it's where wild card will hang their
hopes now in a man disadvantage Adrian going down as you said that's gonna
put things into a really awkward spot where now they feel a little bit
pressured do they try to fight back and get this man count once again or
They just trust in their sight play they have Bay on the echo
They've got an ability to just play for this site denial, but they have to wait that clock down dark zero will go for an opportunity if they see it
Faults up here on the top floor hoping to clear the roamers
It's baby shark and spiker trying to hold things down up above
Canson and Bay protecting the site down below. They're not rushing things inside of easy. They're happy to use the block
Roger bombs will go off, exothermic charge will give them an opening as well.
Still fighting on this top floor.
Now the flashbangs will go, Foltz all by himself in this position and he's got three people
and you're buying years will die, he pays for his crime, burn your spiker, outdulls
Foltz as well.
Oh my goodness, Kessie wild card all over this kill feed, easy in the upper hand,
they are losing their forces, J9-0 with one, NJR takes down Kansan back to even
footing.
Of course in the final round it's a 2v2 with plenty of time for both squads to pop off.
I mean what do you do at this point?
It's so hard to get this diffuser, they're watching it from above too, don't forget they've
got good low angles and they're on a belt cam.
Stop floor control still being held by Wildcard now as they have the yellow pings.
Biker knows exactly where this is but he can't get a good read on and he'll reposition
over towards the hatch.
This could be a dead end!
Oh my god, Spiker!
I've been lost for words!
Wildcard win an insane best of three by the skin of their teeth!
And they're off to Salt Lake City!
Maybe the best map that Brady Lukens has played,
certainly up there, top five for sure.
What a game from Spiker!
The young captain on wildcard who dashes the dreams of dark zero
Far and away the best looking team in the group stage falling now to the team that just won't quit
Unbelievable the little engine that could wildcard have made it all the way GZ goes to the lower bracket
We still got one more series so hold on we'll be right back
I
Wild guard are going to the major thanks to this guy right here, spiker with 16 kills
back to back hero plays, back to back clutches to close it out.
Dude, what a finish.
Tell me what it feels like in that moment.
You are dropping down the hatch.
You are going, wait, what, shotgun in hand?
You've got two guys in front of you.
What are you thinking, dropping that hat, trying to clutch that round?
Yeah, you know, we called the guy's main door and then I said, Jake, I'm going to drop
the stage hatch.
Do you swing with me?
And then I said, three, two, one, drop.
So even if I didn't kill him, I think Jake's going to hand me.
Like, there was still a lot of team play going into that.
So let's, you know, let's, let's, let's focus on that.
Jake would have tried to me even if I didn't kill those guys.
You guys had an affirmation there, no, right?
You guys still have the time?
Yeah, we do, okay.
We do, okay.
Are you okay?
So you didn't have, you guys knew they weren't planning at the moment when you were going
for the drop.
So you could have played.
They were, they were.
They were, but they got off, they got off and then they got back on.
Oh, they did?
Oh well, I didn't know that.
It doesn't matter.
The play was amazing.
It was really heads up, they come to use the shotgun because you can't ADS when
you're dropping hatches.
Did you believe that that pump was going to reach that far?
You know, I had faith.
I was fighting against Kino.
I was 50, 50, 50.
I have good karma against Kino. He shocked me so far away last time we played them, so I have karma that it was going to work for me in a bit.
Yeah, you have a Kino shock in there.
Exactly.
No, absolutely. I think we also have another round to show you. I believe it was round, let's see, round 11 where you were in that clutch with Clash.
You almost clutched it. Obviously, you can't see the HP here, but just look at Ulta's HP.
I was so sad you don't understand how sad I was you kept tagging him every single time you got off like one more bullet
He goes down. I mean that was just an insane play already even you
So much time like for you and like you shot the fire the fire pipe burst it on the other side the first time
While you were sticking it so you could have got it off the first time the second time he doesn't peak
You could have got it off in the second time. It was unfortunate
Listen man. He's been in the lead for a while. All right. He's been in the lead for a while. He knows what's going on. Oh
My god another one
We have to show you it was so close
Oh my god, like we've talked so much as you relive this is agonizing moment again
We've talked so much about what your team has done to improve since the group stage you guys have come through and now are the second
Team to make it to the Salt Lake City Major. I mean what what were those things that you guys took from the group stage?
I mean obviously coming out against M80 was a great start
Could you narrow it down to a couple of concrete?
Improvements that you guys brought into this game against dark zero a powerhouse team that we know is hard to take down
Honestly, it was mostly just doing what I do on the scrims. That was our main thing.
Like yesterday between map 1 and map 2, I kind of said it, but like I think we're taking
a little too serious, and we're a team that needs to be having fun and for me playing well.
So ever since then we've been trying to have more fun, kind of be more loose, make more
jokes, laugh more, not just like only just like, you know, playing the game.
And then bro, 7-7, I said I'll be going bar and Jake instantly said let's go bar.
That's my boy.
I mean, did you was that something you had cooked up? Did you guys know that that was gonna be pocket? Yeah
We didn't talk about it before but like we kind of said that like we're not gonna go bar unless we really need it
And that was I kind of felt like we needed it
So with your prep for bar was that solely based off even in scrims that was also you dropping that stage hatch and getting to kill
Okay, so that wasn't a script that wasn't so that could have forever stay in the back pocket or now because you had that clutch
That's gonna you know, we're maybe we're gonna see it pulled out again
We'll see we'll see never say never we play every fourth site in the game
So it'll come out at some point. You never know when it'll be maybe seven seven major final. You never know
They should he should they should bring it out in the next match first five years just ego chow only play bar, right?
You guys got to play for I have to play JJ. Yep, exactly. You got to do it in well
Oh, yeah, it's fine. I was fine. I'll go get some coffee. We'll be good, bro
We'll be good. Well, what what would have finished you guys take down dark zero you guys make the major and we will see
How you guys are able to do come up? Yeah come the game in a few minutes time to see you crown the NAL kickoff champion
Thanks so much man. All right. Thank you. Well, what a win from these guys the captain coming through in the biggest way
I mean we see big clutches from these guys, but spiker to do it and back to back rounds
So I mean not single and he was very clear about this not single-handedly bringing his team across the line
But it really felt like without him in those two moments. Yeah, we're not sitting here right now
No, not at all a lot of those rounds were great adaptation
I think that's the biggest takeaway from a car the adaptation that we saw the comms that we were lucky enough to be able to hear
It's exactly what you would see from them at a major event the way that they were communicating
It was calm
they would focus on what the wind condition would be how they need to be able to talk to each other especially in a
lot of those clutches and
You can easily see that with that calmness the stillness understanding what's going on
everyone's able to understand what they're doing.
The trust is built, and just like Spiker said,
if he's not getting those kills,
his teammate's getting those kills.
And a lot of these rounds,
I do believe for Wildcard really came down to that,
that the trust, if it's gonna work out,
it'll work out.
If not, somebody else will pick it up.
And I think Wildcard, I mean,
it's safe to say that they are looking
a lot more comfortable than they do
to the start of this stage.
And it's great that they,
this is a great question, by the way,
like what points that they focus on going
into this match.
I do think that wildcard is hitting their peak close.
Well here is again that winning moment
from inside the wildcard comms
of sending them to the Salt Lake City Major.
Come on, Simon.
You have to stay, Jack.
Spike, are you ready?
Three, two, one.
Swing, swing, swing, swing, swing, swing.
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!
Let's go!
Oh my God!
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!
That's that bar to show me.
Door, door, door.
That's the bar to show me.
You show so much.
I thought you liked both tips.
I was like, he's not...
Now listen, you know, I want to say the confidence is actually there.
The teamwork was there.
But if you notice where the other player was in that moment where Spiker gets that first kill,
Spiker dies there.
There's still a little bit of time for a homeboy to be able to swing across the bar
to focus on these two guys at the front door.
But either way, I mean, that was a good heads-up play from Spiker.
I wasn't even sure what the call was going to be given.
Spiker had no information in terms of just playing in vertical,
and the only option was dropping the hatch.
And I mean, I wouldn't have done that,
but given that it's with a shock, and it makes demo sense,
because if he has any other gun,
I don't think that plays out in his favor.
And we talked so much about that 15th round,
we kind of lose focus on the one right before that,
where Spiker clashed it.
It was a 2v3, needing to get the bomb down.
Another really heads-up play in that back-and-forth cat
and mouse that it could have gone either way.
They could have I mean thankfully he had his team in on rafter. I believe the same round we're talking
Yeah, and so them being able to get into the plant spot originally because dark zero is playing safe
They're relying on smoke canister them using the capital bolts late round to be able to get the plant off
Potentially they push each one of them gets a pick you see that spikers in a position to be able to clutch it
I mean stuff like that just takes small little
adaptations. It takes time. You have to be able to be calm in moments like that and that's where wildcard
throts is in moments like that. We haven't seen that for the start of this day. I'm glad that we're
seeing it now going into this event because once they get to the event we know what damage they can
do. What I think goes into what he was talking about is they need to be having fun. They're
clearly a mental team and if the mental isn't there it's off by a little bit. No one's having
fun. No one's laughing. No one's joking around. Clearly it goes to show what it can turn
into so this is what they look like when they're having fun they're making jokes
they're going like hard you even heard in that last round are we going to bar
we're going to bar like that clearly goes to show they're still having fun
given how intense this matches and that being said dark zero I mean I feel like
we're talking a lot about wild card this game literally was decided by a 2v2
spiker dropping down the hatch and getting two pump shotgun shots where
if that bullet doesn't fully kill the first guy we're saying wow DZ DZ
played a phenomenally well as what as well they were adapting so well their
entry game was so on point their strategy there was so much creativity in
their strategy I can't imagine we don't see dark zero also making it to Salt
Lake City and it feels right that you know we come to this point seeing what
really felt like the highest level of siege we have seen so far from this
region in kickoff and and hopefully we'll continue to see that even grow
going forward here's our bracket picture as things stand we have given
away the only two Salt Lake City major spots that we're gonna deal with
with today, the other two have to be decided in the lower bracket with SSG, Dark Zero.
That match is now confirmed with Shopify Rebellion and one of 30, those four teams, two major
spots, that's what tomorrow is all about.
Ahead though, five beers and wildcard, they have to decide who becomes the NAL kickoff
champion.
Very important for seeding for the major, but not all that significant at the end of
the day.
definitely not. But I think when you're in comparison of both the two teams, I think for
five years, obviously these players have never been in this position. They've never been
in position to go to land, maybe outside of forest. But everyone else, they want this
moment. They want to end here on a high. They want to end here as the best team going
into SLC. And then for the side of Wildcard, it definitely hits the nail on the head
in terms of they made this roster change. Was it worth it? Is it paying off? Clearly
it is. They just made the event. It's just a little bit of a cherry on top to
finish here as number one. If five years will face their biggest test yet and they will do it
against Wildcard in the NAL kickoff final happening in just a few minutes. Don't go
anywhere. These teams are getting ready to go. We'll see in a few.
wild card and five fears they have made the Salt Lake City Major they can let
out a nice sigh of relief but now they are straight back into the gauntlet we
got to decide the NAL kickoff champion and that's gonna happen right here and
now hopefully these teams are rested at least in the case of five fears Fox
they will be wild card not so much they just came off a harrowing three
map series but five fears they've got a chance here I think to really prove
that they belong at the major because yes you could say they had a little easier road with a 1 of 30
team who was disconnected for half a map. I mean statistically if you're saying easier road then
yes 1 of 30 did show up to play and five years definitely trying there. I think there's two big
factors to talk about that aren't really in game. I think one of the biggest ones has to come with
the mental aspect. You're saying they're not really warmed up. Yes they have had that time
to watch the games they can't really make counter-tracks on the fly, not too many at least. So there's an
element of being iced out, cooled down, going into this next series. But now here's the other
talking point is this team wants it so bad. I'm sure every team in the NAL obviously wants to be
first, but there's a team that has been grinding for this moment where a majority of the roster
have never hit those heights ever in their career, let alone even played in the NAL.
It's a team like five years that they have so much to earn so much to win
they want to make it known that they deserve that final first spot and that's
kind of what I want to see I still want to see them show up and put on a
performance because obviously they're gonna be excited you just made your
first event but I don't want you to put all your eggs in one basket at the
point because the job's not done we obviously saw some of them go to
Twitter celebrating very early on but there's still another game in front of
you still could be the best team going into SLC and what we saw at the
The very end of that game on boarder was we heard from JJ himself say, you know, we kind of needed to rain it in.
We now understood it started to click. We weren't playing our game. Now we fixed it.
I want to see that exact same mentality coming right out the gates into this match because you are going against a wildcard that just fought through hell to get to this point.
Hopefully being in this situation now that they have made the major takes a little bit of pressure off, right?
They said they were playing really tight,
but a lot of pressure on themselves,
maybe playing a little looser,
can be a little bit better for their play style.
Something that was working for them, though,
especially on border,
they had some great defensive performances
that stood out that said,
oh, that give Omsi gave us the suggestion
that this team was in an upward trajectory.
I mean, just the way that they were able
to play off of each other,
I think it's the biggest takeaway.
I mean, them being able to assess
what's going on in their defenses,
being able to acknowledge what is the win condition,
how do we come back from it?
We get picks, okay, let's play slow.
Let's use the man advantage.
Let's be in a situation where we can close out these rounds.
And I think that comes into play
when we talk about them needing to reel it in.
Because when they're getting the man advantage
so many of these rounds, they haven't lost it today.
When it comes to their match against BNF 30,
they don't just throw it away.
They don't get over aggressive.
That's where the first pick comes in.
And then from there, they're maintaining
that man advantage.
It's something that not every team can do.
There's great teams that are even plagued
by that difficulty of getting the opening kill.
and then just giving it away by getting to overzealous.
I think there's an element of pressure
that is not on their shoulders anymore,
but there's also the element of they don't want to mess up.
They're playing, once they get that first pick,
not to mess up.
So they're playing disciplined,
they're playing coordinated,
and they're using that advantage all the way through.
Wildcard, what they were showing us
against DarkZeroLax was a new level of adaptability.
We were kind of asking the question,
is this the international land form
that we know this roster has?
It felt like, and maybe this is a stretch,
but it felt like we were seeing that.
It felt like maybe it wasn't their final form,
but it felt like Wildcard found it again.
Again, I don't think it's by any means their final form.
I think they're still inner workings,
especially bringing on Adrian.
They're still little areas, even for Spiker,
making the additions of swapping off shields,
whether he's gonna play shields or not.
But what is fact is that they are improving,
that we are seeing the changes from round to round,
game to game, the adaptations being implemented, the clutch being had. I mean, we would be in
a different situation if those clutches weren't there, right? And we would be saying a completely
different story here at this point. But the fact is they were there. You don't want to rely on those
clutches by any means, but they are there in a show that any single player at any given moment
can come through here. But the important thing here is they stay focused, they stay locked in,
and they stay having fun. Because that was the biggest thing that Spiker talked about,
was just being able to have fun, not letting their mental. And again, they have the
competitive edge here because they just went through a how of a series and you look on the side for
five years they had to be iced out throughout that entire time. We've been talking a lot about
spiker naturally so because he just came off some wild rounds on the side of five years JJ's
had a lot of the conversation so we thought all right let's look at these two players and see
their contributions not only yet throughout the day here you're looking at their stats
over the course of their games today in the best of threes when you look at them I mean
They're matching up pretty one-to-one obviously spikers getting a lot more kills, but again, they went all three maps
Yeah, I mean it goes without saying for both high gels
I think they'd bring different aspects to their team. I'd say when it comes to the side of spiker him being more adaptive
I think he showed us a lot to believe it when it comes to his flexibility today
He was playing not the shields and when he was on the shields on maps like clubhouse
He was being very affected. That's more than what we saw when it came to the regular stage
So he's improving immensely as for JJ blasts
He's only going to continue to get better alongside for us because he doesn't have to hold the weight of being that main shield player
He can play flexible he can do what he needs to do
And he also himself was getting into a lot of those difficult positions those rat positions being able to get those multi-kills
And I mean the going 3-0 an entry when you're supposed to be the IGL shield flex player and
Spiker himself doing his absolute best to be closing out rounds. Yeah, let's round
Yeah, it's like each one has their own great attribute to it that rounds out
their playstyle. Well, like let's talk maps as we dive into our last best of three of the night.
We've seen cutthroat games on pretty much what feels like all sorts of different maps ending on
clubhouse most recently and we could potentially end on clubhouse again if it goes the distance.
Again, we saw that series with M80. It was a lot of back and forth. A lot of who was controlling
that tempo. A lot again big clutch rounds. We had that round from Kansan in the basement
where he gets that 4k, he shoots that yokai with what, 4 seconds left on it,
we'll point 4 seconds on it, and then we go to another basement round where Adrien gets a big 3k,
so still a lot of clutch factors that push them over the edge in that map series,
but again, you're going to go back to that, you're going to correct it,
and then I'm looking at Fortress. Now this has been a very strong map so far for the side of Five Fears,
but this was, well in doubt, one of the best maps for Wildcard. Sure, they got punished on it just recently,
But again, you take so much from that loss that you fix it going into the next time, where it gives a little bit of false sense of hope
for the side of Five Fears or a false sense of reality that they might think they're too strong on it in comparison to what we just recently saw from Wildcard.
Well, one of the big factors when it comes to a map like Fortress and a little bit of Cafe, but mostly Fortress, is the shield play.
The dual shield play. We've seen Five Fears do it time and time again.
When it comes to their last match against one of 30, again, that was the first series where we've ever seen a team target man two of the shields
forcing Five Fears to have to adapt.
Five Fears still won.
They don't necessarily need the shield,
but it was a lot harder, a lot harder of an issue for them to overcome.
So if you're wildcard going into this next series,
is that something that you're keeping in mind?
We can have an easier run, potentially,
if we are just banning out the shields right away.
And again, it'll be a good testament to Five Fears,
is how will they be able to dissect?
I'm looking more specifically at Fortress.
Without those shields, what operators are they going to bring
going to bring to subsidize them taking position.
That's what we haven't really seen from Five Fears yet.
I'd love to see a more traditional ad drones
in front of the entries and see how they succeed on that.
And that going forward, I mean, going into a map
with Clubhouse, I mean, wow, Wildcard,
they're really good at Clubhouse,
but you know, it came down to one round.
Yeah, anyone knows, Five Fears,
I would really like to see them get
a little bit more comfortable, right?
They squeak through that first game as it seemed like.
So this would be a big opportunity against Wildcard
to do exactly that.
Let's crown an NAL kickoff champion.
Why don't we?
Over to Parker and Jesse as we dive into map one.
I think there's almost no universe
in which anybody was picking five fears in wildcard
to be competing for one and two in the North America League.
There's a reason why we play these matches
and we don't just do predictions
and give awards based on what people think.
You, the people think the wildcard will win the cafe.
You also, the people thought
that easy was gonna win and you were wrong on that one.
So you know what?
Let's see what actually happens in the matchup
because I think this one's gonna be electric.
Five fears, beating expectations,
undefeated through the group stages,
marching their way to a spot at the Salt Lake City Major.
They have yet to drop a map, Jesse.
That may change today,
or five fears starting on MomCards map
could surprise us and end up the champs
without a single map being lost.
Yeah, no doubt, but an impressive season so far
from Five Fears here in kickoff.
They've been playing expertly,
but Wildcard's still coming as a favorites, all right?
There's no doubt about it.
Five Fears had an easier qualification game,
not only having the opponent,
that most would tell you is the weaker of the two,
Dark Zero versus one of 30,
but also 5v4 for part of that first map.
So this will be the real test for Five Fears,
the toughest game that they've played
and becoming a five man team.
Wildcard, they didn't realize that to play this.
You heard it from Spiker in the interview.
He said, oh, that's right, I have to play JJ.
It'll be fine.
Here they are, Wildcard of Five Years,
starting up on Cafe.
Should be an exciting matchup,
especially with this studio that Five Years are in.
I believe this is the Envy compound down in Texas.
Don't quote me on that,
but I believe that's where they're at at the moment.
Well, the giant N on the board
This is building champions might want to give that one away.
I did think it's a little intriguing that they're no longer with envy the organization.
It still might be using some of that infrastructure.
Admittedly, I don't know that much about envy.
When they bought out by optic and then they read and they split off of them at some point
or they bought optic or something along those lines.
And I don't know.
These four, it's, I have no idea.
And they also used to call it envious.
Would you last at the end and then they just became envy and then they're tagged for a while was n.
Wait, was that a different Orc MVS or is that the same one?
So, they were ENVYUS, what factory at any time?
Okay.
And then, I know mostly about the Dallas Feeble in the Overwatch League, that's really like my main...
I don't really like, I'm not like an eSports guy, like outside of doing this for work?
I'm not...
I'm not an eSports guy, just what my whole life has been dedicated to.
life has been dedicated to for the last 10 years.
Yeah, that's fair. That's a very fair statement to make. I agree with that.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, partner, we're rushing.
We are in. Five years are quick to this one.
Maybe trying to hope that some fatigue is set in for this wildcard squad.
Orist almost dies early. That's the Blackbeard who's made his way into train.
And it's five years right now that seems to be a train heading towards the bombsite chew chew
Down goes baby shark at the hands of
Fens and five years will strike first a reminder forest is bow
Captain jack is snake
Not solid snake the operator. We will make sure to be very careful with our words here
Adrian was terrific against dark zero was a huge part of why they were able to succeed
He finds a two-piece
Minute 45 to go. Wild card with the lead right now.
Nice little start to repel this rush parker.
Killing force in the Blackbeard in particular.
Such an important frag to will shut down that spearhead.
They still got JJ with a diffuser and Rival will answer with one back,
but the trade is so quite quick to come in from the spiker.
Now it's still half the round to go.
JJ and Benz will try to work a plant, but the chaos continues.
JJ's a bullet magnet at the moment.
Benz was the very first one to drop blood.
We'll fall at the hands of Bay, and now it's JJ trying this rodeo,
and Bay will finish things off wildcard.
Still rolling from their DZ matchup, still locked in, hot as ever,
and they'll take round number one here on Cafe.
Very good start to come through.
You can tell that they're not too exhausted
from that last best of three that they have played.
I really do like the attempt for five fears.
Why not just send it in quickly?
Try to catch your opponents sleeping a little bit,
But ultimately doesn't really go their way. They were very ready for that as they jumped in through the through the mining window
Might have even done the exact same strat if that was a mining and dining plant or a bomb site
That's usually where we see that style of a rush come through
But technically a different site as the one room has moved a little farther east
So they have to go a little bit farther with that rush
And I think just that extra time gave walker the edge to kind of read into what was going on and then resist themselves to stop that play
I heard music for a second there and I forgot that there was atmospheric music in cafe and I was like, what the hell is going on here?
I was like, did I? Is something happening? Did I leave the volume on? Like my phone an alarm is going off or something, you know?
Okay, I...
Thank you.
That's the part of those speakers. They're gonna play music throughout the map and it's not just cafe, there's, you know, there's the helicopter on border.
There's a lot of fortress, some radios to shoot.
Oh, most maps really are great.
Okay, I got it now. I got it now. I did not need to see the speakers, but thank you to either
Staphon or
So you don't know who is observing or match of it whether it's Staphon or Ponkey
What's those speakers you could listen to your favorite band for you?
The things that I wish I could say to you would get us banned from twitch
so I
would like to remain on this platform and just say the
But the arms wide open is an incredible sum, and you are wrong if you say otherwise.
Factor round number two, Wild Cards starting off quite strong.
This is their map.
They should be on the less preferential side, just for the way that this stuff goes.
Five Fears had some struggles against 1 of 30 earlier, including the first map where
1 of 30 played down a player for half of the map.
Wild Cards still firing.
Take down Forest. Adrien toppled on the stairs.
Kansas will eliminate Fens.
JJ, trying to assert some control on White Stairs,
is unable to do so.
Shield on Shield Crime,
as Baby Shark is now moving to this position.
Adrien is retrievable.
Wildcard will go back up to five,
while Five Fears sits on just three players.
Snake, down below.
While he was in pursuit,
but they will get out of the way on the side
of Wildcard and leave him empty-handed.
I believe that it was Adrien
downed by Kansas Nitro, by the way.
He was pretty far from it kind of shocked he gets down to but back up in reporting for duty
So we're not too concerned about it too many advantage for wild card now in JJ blast staring down a clash
Baby shirt did a great job of hiding this off there inside of piano during the prep base
They wouldn't have known this is coming probably wouldn't have stuck the monty if they knew this was here now
They've got to deal with it one way or another those the stems walls come through and they're doing a great job
Just a little in the class notice the forfer baby shark. Thanks to the smoke grenade
will go off. Failing to kill Adrian earlier might come back to haunt them. And it will,
Adrian with the final kill as well. Adding insult to injury.
European addition to this team, what if two European additions to this team is baby shark
European as well. Paying off and Adrian just continues to settle in on this team looking
as good as ever. We get a little goofy sometimes. Wildcard
clearly wanting to play this aggressively. I mean I love that play just with the
the clash, you bring it inside a cigar, you force JJ to have to play very strange on this
Monty. It's not often you'll see a Monty prone mailing a clash shield for for dear life and
credit to JJ. He got the kill, but wasn't quite enough, especially with that big two man deficit.
A couple of early deaths now from Forest on important operators. First the Blackbeer
and then the second one, of course, playing on that repel with the Gamos. Gonna need
to sharpen up some of these entries if you're a Five Fears fan because Wildcard
have come back shooting in their second best of three of the day.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised here if this next round doesn't go well.
Five years decides to call a timeout at some point to maybe slow down this wild
card team. You're playing on your opponent's map.
You should be the one running up the score, but wild card look is locked in as
ever. And honestly, vibes are really good.
Why'd you get on both teams?
Even when five years are losing, they got some, they got some vibe hounds on
the team, always in pursuit of those good feelings.
I was wondering if we had a timeout that was called here or not, we're in a tech pause.
Don't have any info as to why I- I like to splash before my eyes because I thought of
the very first matchup with 1 of 30 and I was like please no.
Yeah, 5 fears are sending out their agents to remove the internet of one player on wild
cart.
Who do you think it would be?
They EMP'd Beano.
Who do you think they're EMPing on the side of-
You know, with the IGL, so I'd imagine they'd remove the IGL as well, with Spiker being taken out for Wildcard.
You think they're just gonna remove the IGL, who also happens to have been one of the reasons for Wildcard clenching their spot,
and happens to just be steadily progressing to be one of the best players in North America, while also guiding a team that has found a new identity
and is doing so on a brand new role, and still fragging whether it's a shield or not? You think they'd EMP that guy?
They're both very similar players, the same guy.
Very good players, both of them Parker. They got that in common. It feels like everybody
has really been clicking on this wildcard team and it's crazy to think that once again
this organization has never in the history of the NAL finished in the top three. Now
not only are they guaranteed top two but are knocking on the door of first place
overall. No matter who wins them or five fears it will be a brand new team
getting first place in one stage of the NAL. I know this isn't technically a
stage but I'm gonna count it for those purposes of this stat. Five fears their
first season of course here in the North America League so it would be big for
them as well to start off with the first overall.
Forrest looks like he is not on Rainbow Six Siege so I have to imagine
something is going on on his side of things. We will update you when we know what's going on here.
Canson, make your bed and for God's sakes clean up your garbage. What is that cardboard box? Get
that thing out of here, man. He's been down on the Cope Zeroes too. You saw it in the background
and if you've been paying attention, he's been he's been sipping throughout the games,
keeps him energized, keeps him caffeinated.
Speak of the devil.
Well, Jesse, you're not allowed to talk about specific brands, okay?
They don't pay us any money.
We don't talk about them.
I only drink water until a drink company sponsors our show and then I only drink water in that
product.
Fair enough.
Like when we were sponsored by PayPal, that's the only place my money went.
Oh, what a iconic ad.
Better days.
Am I right?
What does it take to call next?
I will say as now we here we stall and we're stalling for for the lobby to get back set up
When I was first approached about that PayPal stuff
We were never told that it would be used as an advertisement for the league
It was just supposed to be like supplementary content that went on YouTube to like shine a light on five or six
I can't remember how many we did
Five or six of the episodes we were supposed to do one more episode, but then I'm getting canceled
It was gonna be call-out actually and unfortunately didn't get a chance to interview him. I really would have loved to
So still have not had a chance to interview call it in any formal setting here
At least it was never locked in that it was called but he was supposed to be the one
I don't even know if they even approached him about it
But either way if I had known that you would be hearing what does it take to call next every 40 minutes on the broadcast?
Obviously I probably still would have taken that I probably still take it
But I would have felt a little bit worse. I mean it was iconic back in the day every single
It was not iconic it was not iconic it was iconic
It was iconic in the sense that every time I walked into the green room
I had three talent skewer me over it
What does it take to call next? I don't even know that's the thing man
It's kind of a nonsense question like I guess it takes vocal chords
well, I'm
Was to ask the
Interviewees and they would answer the question not me
So I'm not supposed to know they're supposed to know and I need to do a good job
He did get to interview some great people within the community. It was a lot of fun
obviously
you don't hear that advertisement anymore and
Mercifully people don't have to hear my voice all that frequently even though when there's tech classes you have to hear my voice. Sorry
Before you're walking if you like it. Anyway, we're back in action. Everything is all back up
I'll be getting locked in for round number three
Wildcard so far Jesse's in very firm control here. No timeout was taken. We should be really clear about that
So five years can still take it
Wild card just up to oh, and that's it five years trying to work through this
Maybe five years just don't really feel like they're in a game until they get a tech
Like it kind of it's like a ritual for them. It's like okay now. We've got a tech pause now
We understand we're playing a professional match or a mo six beach. This feels like home. Let's lock in and do this
Because they were getting kind of stomped until the tech pause in their first feel three two
I mean it wasn't stomp those four two, but they were down
keep in mind that the way that wildcard plays jesse is that they must lose map one
wildcard simply has to lose map one if they do not lose map one then it's over
if they don't lose map one then we don't really know what's going next because they've been so
consistent with that trend ever since these playoffs began. They have been map one losers
and map three winners, which I suppose is the trade you'd like to take. Bakery push being
formed by five fears after the spawn peek kill. They will then lose another battle on the
window to equal us out down to four on four. Unfortunately, losing fends there on the
twitch. He's had a rough start to this game as well, but the position is nice.
They cleared out Bakery at this point Parker and they can start to work themselves in
for a plant shop.
Plenty of units are for this.
And a real short of cheer on the attacking lineup.
No shields being brought for the first time.
JJ with a gun in hand.
And I mean, his numbers were pretty good,
but the longer the kickoff went,
and the more of the gun in the group stages,
the more of the actual fraggers on the side of Five Fears
started to pick up the pace, and JJ's numbers plummeted.
Which is to be expected on the role that he plays.
This guy right here just got to kill Snake.
He's not the one on your screen that's Adrian,
but Snake has been really strong for Five Fears
and it has been quite a glow up another desk.
He'd a ton of praise on him before that one of 30 matchup
that happened many hours ago.
And for good reason, Snake has been terrific.
Yeah, no, Snake's been very, very good so far
through the North America League.
The big reason why five years have gotten to this point
here now playing in the grand finals.
What a swing from Kandid.
Equalize the numbers once more, though.
That pick from Snake going to have to be built off
as they've lost his advantage 60 seconds to go.
And this push on red is the one side angle that's coming through and not through the bakery.
Kansan was tempting fate on those stairs with the logic bomb giving ample information to Five Fears.
He was hoping that they would swing because he did have some backup.
No, your stream did not freeze. Kansan was just a complete statue there.
Still red stairs control. This'll be tough to translate to an actual side execute for Five Fears.
At the moment, they have no utility whatsoever, completely starved of both primary and secondary gadgetry.
The same cannot be said of Wildcard, especially with the Nitro Cell for Adrien.
In comes Rival, the Okai Drone scooting away.
That's information that Wildcard can play off of for the next 20 seconds, and it looks like there's multiple up.
Forrest taking some heat with limited time left.
Five fears are just far too patient here. Snake finds an opening, down goes Adrien.
The pop-up from Spike are answered by Rival, and now Kansan will need to clutch out.
Back to the bomb site he takes down too.
He needs to waste enough time.
Rival gets him at the last second and nail biter.
Five fierce stunned by that one.
Kansan nowhere to go.
And those guys on your screen, they
pick up their first round.
What a ridiculous push coming in, Parker.
I mean, that 3D3 really got started in the last 10
or 15 seconds when Five Fierce finally decided to screw it.
We got to send the bomb site.
They had about a minute to work on the 3v3, but they decided to maneuver their players around, didn't really love the bakery entrance,
kind of left Rival alone there to try to get in for a plant while Forrest and Snake did their best to try to pressure in from the hallway.
Ended up just being Rival though, who had to clutch up on that final couple of frags, kill Spike, or as he rushes in through the bomb site, and then I mean we all saw it
taking down Kansan in the 1v1, it almost would have been poetic to see Kansan clutch a 1vx on the bottom floor of cafe
But I suppose you can only get so many miraculous clutches on one bomb stay, can't you?
Yeah, I mean eventually that well is gonna run dry and well
Trying to sustain your stop off of clutches is just not really a realistic way of going about it
But I mean fundamentally and foundationally this wild card team still looks really really good
You know you've won two rounds you lost your third round with a 1v1 clutch with
Time as low as humanly possible. We need to see that again in an instant.
Slow motion replay to see how little of that clock was actually left.
But that's a real nail-biter in one where if you've ever been in that situation as a competitor,
you know how heartbreaking that is, knowing that even a half second can make such a big difference.
And here we go. Look at the clock on the top of your screen.
Point nine seconds left.
There are one second left when people tell you that seconds count. That's the type of thing that you can show them to prove them, right?
So with that said wild card
Could be up three nothing
But they let it slip through their fingers with less than a second ago
Well, I need to recover here
They still managed to take two of the three bomb sites
But a spiker said in his exit interview after toppling dark zero
We play all four bombs I thought every single map so I don't imagine that the standard rotation applies for a wild card
Yeah, absolutely. You never know when that force site's gonna come out to Neuron Cafe.
Probably the most common map where we see all force sites getting played. All sites can be strong.
Off-floor may be the rarest, but again, Robgarn happy to mix things up here.
I saw a ram charge to open things up as they try to drop in through the red hatch.
It does provide a bit of an awkward angle for Adrien.
It may even make it harder to drop this hatch now.
Now, would Adrien be able to watch that angle from all the way down into the bomb site, just inside of the train?
It's gonna be something to watch out for, if they do want to drop this hatch, here it comes!
So cool! Adrien gets smoked!
Never mind, Forrest knows what he's doing, he'll find the first head to start round four.
Forrest is just...he's a player, you can never quite put your finger on, and it's good that he's gonna be back in action on land.
He's always a fun guy to talk to.
If you see him at an event and he's not preoccupied,
do go out of your way to say hi.
He's been around the scene a lot.
And he's got a persona that maybe people don't think
he's as approachable, but believe me, he is.
Always a good thing when new faces make majors, by the way,
providing that we make it to the Salt Lake City Major.
It'd be great to talk to some of these newer additions.
Of course, everybody's gonna want a piece of JJ Blast.
He's a big personality and he continues
make himself known. Now goes rival Wildcard will find a second. How does they get that kill?
Snake pushing in, dodges the nitro sound, misses most of his points, but ultimately wins the duel
against Kansas. Looks for more, Spiker shuts him down, bends all alone on five fears. Wildcard
going back to the old reliable bombsite rotation, not handicapped by what is and isn't locked.
They will succeed. Bay the final kill and Wildcard back to their winning ways. Three
We won the score line for the newest team to qualify to the Salt Lake City Major.
Nice lockdown coming out from Wildcard.
It was really a two-sided push on the white stairs Parker.
Most of the team was pushing top white.
They were trying to get down those staircase and they were just feeding into the shotgun
of Bay who cleaned up both rival and JJ trying to push that angle.
And then we were spectating Snake down on that bottom floor.
It does get one and hit a nice 360 but unfortunately not able to clean up the
Rest of the player is still just sitting there at the bottom of the white staircase.
It's a clean up from wildcard as they managed to get those last couple of kills.
And as you mentioned, secure that 3v1, or 3-1 scoreline I should even say.
Attack timeout from Five Fears, kind of an interestingly placed timeout here,
because they've only got two more rounds here through this first half.
Clearly, feeling that these next couple of attacks are really critical.
They do not want to give up an early lead on their opponent's map pick.
No, not at all. And I mean, five years of some issues, they've been a very high-vibes team,
which is something we did mention. But if you saw JJ after their first round win, he did not
look pleased. Now, maybe it could be something in the game or with his setup or it could
be just something with the team. JJ made a very emotional tweet after winning the
matchup against one of 30, basically saying that, you know, like, it's not about like
success. It's a dream. It's literally a dream for me to finally play at a land event. You talk to
players on any team, you talk to people who aren't even in tier one, and they'll all tell you that
a dream is to make it and play on land. In front of a crowd, maybe not. Art felt words from a guy
who doesn't always show a ton of emotion like that, but you know that he's gonna be fired up
and wanting to prove that they are the best team in North America. He leaps with a kickoff
Reminder that this is an event all on its own. This is not a part of the actual NAL stage.
Stage one will be in a couple months. I actually don't even know what stage one is going to be
beginning. I don't know if those states are public yet, and if they aren't then I haven't seen anything.
But this is just kickoff. It's just a short little burst to see who goes to Salt Lake City.
In five years have made some very obvious improvements, but I would argue Jesse, no team
has improved as much as Wildcard. They went from looking like a team that wouldn't even
even being copied in convention for the major two weeks ago to now in a position to buy
for first overall what a glove it's been and honestly huge credit to the team for being
able to recover and play the way that they have.
You had all you have to do is go back to the halfway point of the series of verse
M80 and if you told anybody that they'd be playing for first place in the grand finals
they would have laughed you out of town but here they are wildcard managing to battle
back in both BO3s that they have played here in the upper bracket.
improved drastically from what we saw from them in the group stage. Now versus
Five Fears. Young team on the other side. Wildcard as well, I mean not young
anymore, but it wasn't that long ago that we were talking about them. It's kind of the new kids on the block.
They, Spike, or a baby shark. I mean these are not old players, but they're not
exactly new at this point either.
Time to see what this defense ends up mounting for. It's a nice throw that
starts things off as we go to JJ Blast.
Janssen with the opening pick.
Janssen's numbers in mighty good shape,
given the slow start that he had in the best of three
that has just transpired.
The one thing I've liked about this wildcard team
is that even when one player is sluggish,
there's somebody else to pick up the pieces.
They were never at any point in time,
all failing at their roles.
Down goes Baby Shark.
He was a player that was into the microscope for a bit
and Adrian will trade it back as will Bay.
All of these players working into the storyline here.
Stay on five kills cans and on four kills. These are terrific numbers at this point in time in the match
Yeah, really good to start things off and again
It's a man advantage favoring wild card Adrienne another one with TCSG
He's been so active in this position just towards the bottom of the map
Running out when he has to and it's a cleanup from
Spiker and the boys to finish things off now a 4-1 split to go into our final round in the first half
really strong start and it just really comes down to the fearlessness Parker it
feels like every single moment somebody's making a move on wild card someone's
going for a run-out someone's tossing a nitrocell someone's going for a big
swing they're not just sitting still and playing scared they really want to get
active against this five-fears team and it's working very nicely there were
people who believe that five years over achieved during the group stage with
their 4-0 victory now again it's for best of ones for best of ones don't
always give you a good idea of where a team is and sometimes you find immediate chemistry you play a couple teams that don't have that chemistry
You win two matches. You probably shouldn't know one but because it's so short you walk away being an undefeated team
five fears very nearly lost a
5v4 against one of 30 earlier today
They had an extra player for half of the match and they still almost lost
And 1 of 30 is a brand new team. They got here to Challenger, the Challenger series. Yeah, they've got some experience names that you've heard before, but nothing like Forrest. Forrest probably has more pro-experience than the entirety of 1 of 30 combined.
Experience doesn't mean everything, but it certainly helps. So the fact that Five Peers was able to go up for nothing and then struggle against 1 of 30 could just be similar to the same identity of this team on Envy where they started really strong in NAL Stage 2
stage 2 and then ultimately came back down to earth while other teams caught up. It's
something to keep in mind. It's not necessary what's going to happen in Five Beers and
Absolute Horse Jesse will be the second best team here in kickoff because they are playing
in the grand final. But if Wildcard are making steady improvements which we know they are
and Five Beers might have overachieved, there is a possibility Wildcard could run
away with this series very fast.
Keep in mind too though, this is Wildcard's map pick, you might not think that, just five
fears are starting on the attack, but five fears have actually been a much better attacking
team than they have been on the defense all season long, which is why they chose to start
attack here on their opponent's pick, so it's not maybe a huge surprise to see them
dropping down early on this first map.
The second map and third will tell, I think, the bigger story, but plenty of time to
pull this one back.
Your final attack here before we go into the side swath, it's going to be multi-dimensional
a forest once again playing downfall on that log and floor.
There's nobody really in the mid-floor for him to flank,
so it's gonna come down to kind of the rest of the players
in towards Piano, in towards D'Gar from working one of these pigs.
Not even a bad spot by any means.
You can even just start threatening a bit of a plant
inside a bar, but you've gotta be very worried
about these players that are either in behind back bar
or in towards top white.
They're gonna use some logic bombs
to hopefully gain information.
It looks like the last one,
of course is used all of that information gathering ability most utility now has been
used by five years so you have to hope if you're a fan of the team that has been used
appropriately and has full effect on this overall execute I mean I think it's working
Fens finds two rival also on the board and defuse kit going down it always seems to
be this tertiary site that's been the undoing for wildcard and it seems to continue
I don't even know if the
diffuser ended up going down
because it was a flawless round
for five fears.
Four to the score line, so a
decent first half.
And honestly, Jesse, I will say
a surprising number given which
team chose this map and which
team chose to go on which
sides.
Really nice start here.
They at least battled back one
more at to end this half
Parker Wildcard still sit
with a four to lead heading
into halftime.
But believe you've got our
desk to break down these
first six rounds that we've
seen on cafe.
Thanks, Jesse. This one looks, uh, well, not quite like five
fears may have wanted to start it laxing. I mean, wild card do
feel like they're in control and still feels like we haven't
found that same five fears that we saw throughout the group
stage yet today. No, we certainly haven't, but it is a
true testament of wild card and momentum is one hell of a drug.
And that's exactly what they have coming into this.
I mean, me and Fox, you as well, we can hear them in their comms.
I mean, it sounds like they're in control.
They understand every single round.
I mean, round two in particular, I really want to look at because, I mean,
it really kind of just shows the confidence and that momentum that
they're carrying round after round, game after game in round two.
What you're going to see is they're using the class to kind of ward off
any of the oppression that that Montaigne's going to bring.
But you see, they get the initial pick.
They're fighting early on.
They put all this pressure on the Monty, I mean,
that C4 explosion was crazy, that it downed him,
but then you see this clash being played here,
slows down the Monty, they aren't respecting
the shield play at all from the side of Five Beers.
If anything, they're encouraging it.
They want you to bring it at this point.
And after this round, you would immediately
see Five Beers pivot off of their shields.
I think two rounds go by,
and then they go back to bringing those shields.
They get two rounds underneath their belt,
but they're making Five Beers
have to play a completely different game,
which isn't bad by any means.
It's good that they're adapting and not trying to force something, but it goes to show who's
really in control and the dynamics of this map.
Because of the momentum, like you said, it's five years bringing those shields.
It's almost very predictable.
You have an understanding, especially if you're wildcard, you're so adapted, you know where
the shields are going to be coming from.
You shut it down early on.
It takes five years.
They're playing one foot behind.
It takes them a little bit of time to get back into things, playing without the shields.
Thankfully, they got that final round.
It was a really great execute from them.
They go on to attack.
They go on to defense now, and now they can add a little bit more of the rat elements, the
unpredictableness that we need to see from them.
Maybe we'll see some more clash, but I think the biggest takeaway is them just being able
to be on their toes and fight back.
Fight aggressive, because if they take the ball game too wild card, I mean it can be
a completely different series.
I'll just say, seeing these bands, seeing the Grim and the Ying taken out, I mean
it's definitely, five fears, they're gonna have to play an aggressive game here,
because they're taking away operators that are gonna be so crucial to get into
the map let alone not just getting into the map but once you go for that mid to late round execute
so i'm expecting heavy aggression out of five years and they got that second round but they
still need a lot more as they dive into the second half gotta see five years come alive back to you
parker just me not you jesse just back to me all right well hey it's been a great day and i will
You guys tomorrow for the final day, but thanks for having me
So unbelievably real to the point where you felt this
Desk though and I mean it does it does shine a light on the way that these two teams approach this map
What is the current state of affairs? I mean?
Five years are a team that might have overachieved and now up against a wild card team that is warmed up
It just might be too much right and there's also something else that said which is that
We tend to see a lot of teams in the when we have elimination brackets go on these lower bracket runs
In the fighting game community
There is a belief that if you go on a lower bracket run
You often have an advantage because you stay current and you stay warmed up
Whereas your opponent can enter cold and by the time they are warmed up it's too late to come back.
We've seen this I think too often in Rainbow Six for that to not be the case. I think it is very much the case.
And when you have just played a best of three, yeah, you're going to be tired.
Talk to the teams that used to play like three best of threes at a dream hack.
They are tired at the end, but they will also tell you that they are sharp in match number two because they've already played a matchup.
Could just be that Wildcard are still in their groove and five fears
has to find their footing and it might come in this map. Maybe it shows up in that too.
Maybe it doesn't show up at all. But either way impressive stuff from Wildcard so far.
So far they do have that lead. We've got an interesting attacking lineup here partner with
both the Dokely and the Deimos and the Lion for Intel and now Spiker down below in Laundry
looking to jump off this hatch and get a plant down inside a cocktail. I'll tell you what, this is
not something we saw from them up against M80. Brand new strap being brought out against five
fears and this should absolutely be catching them off guard. But if they just move first,
well you can't get caught off guard. Huge jump out from force for the opening pick.
It's traded back though as Spike Earl does not allow him to get back into the building.
The animal is not supposed to be in this position, Jess. You're not... you've got five
Garahooks, what are you doing? You need to be
Sips up and across the entire map. I believe that's the preferred terminology for you to self-less by chance
Spikers not even use all of it
At all, I might not even use it, period
I don't know where he's gonna go if he wanted to include that first floor nitrous cell goes out the demos in the corner
Now it's Snake attempting something Spiker shuts him down
No Garahook necessary, Jesse, look at that just walking his way up red stairs
Sometimes all you need is the SMG-11, trying to use it to its fullest effect here.
He wanted to jump up and plant cocktail obviously, but I think as soon as he gets caught out
by Forrest, he's like, I can't go for that plant anymore, it's too predictable, so let's
try something else.
Get the Thor, I'm not sure.
Snake, we'll check the replay.
We had a Razor Bloom under the hatch for the drop.
It got blind when the Deimos dropped, and it might have blown up the nitrosal
in the process.
That's a very good question actually to ask.
Yeah, an interesting round because it starts off so intriguing, right? You've got this Amaru
down below the site, threatening to jump up the hatch, but then as soon as Five Fears
to do something as soon as they sniff out that play and realize is tomorrow down below. It kind of
just goes back into a default. I mean, Spiker rotates red, plays cigar with his team. They walk
into site. They take a couple of big fights. Baby Shark gets on the board for his first frag
of the match. That was a huge one to come in from him just playing outside on those windows.
Spiker gets in a plant support spot, and I mean, it just looks too easy coming through
from wildcard, showing that, yeah, you know, even if they bring a lot of fun operators,
They don't need fancy tricks. They don't need crazy strats
They just want to be able to get into the site force of plants and force the movements out of the side of five fears and sometimes
That's all it takes
It really can be that simple
You give me a symbol as again
Just being an engagement somebody walks in gets a kill they shouldn't have got
That flick from rival by the way if he had turned and flicked on a baby shark that completely changes the round because you cannot push up
Into the middle of the bomb site for somebody playing and having where he was so just little stuff
like that. A 180, one tap. Go back to that one shot that Gavin made on Consulate if you
recall back at S.I. Just stuff like that completely change around. There's no planning or prep
for it. It just happens. You enter a flow state, you get a good read, you completely destroy
and execute because you made a shot you shouldn't have made. Sometimes it's that.
And other times, everything goes according to plan, all your bullets land, all your
engagement break in your favor, and you end up winning the round. This is an interesting
spot pink by Fens, Jesse. Yeah, he sticks around a very long time. Gets about 40% damage
on a spiker, so I guess that's worth a little bit of a wave of his life as well, even though
there was a player that was threatening to jump up onto that piano repel, so he's gonna
be more or less fine. We'll see if that extra little damage on either player comes
in to impact the round later. Binding Dimey, of course, is our bomb site here today,
and so it's gonna be important for Wildcarts to take control of this top floor site.
I thought maybe with the Amarra Stroud round 1 they'd be looking to rush round 2, but keeping the shanigans to a minimum.
We still got Kansan playing here on this sense, and I'm really excited to see what he wants to do with these walls.
He can often be used to try to enable a drop onto the main in that skylight, and I think that's exactly what he's thinking of, but playing around the hatches as well.
Forrest goes for the run out. This is the second time leaving the building in as many rounds, so I think he's got the wrong idea of what side he's playing on right now.
Of course, Wildcard will be the very first kill traded out by Baby Shark.
Wildcard sticking together really effectively. Good read through the wall by Snake.
They're just going to continue to trade all the way down.
Half the lobby gone, half of the round gone.
Wildcard in the disadvantage right now.
Baby Shark on one HP.
Spiker halfway.
The rest of five fears?
They're in pretty good shape.
Wildcard win this round to go to map point.
On their own map early, that'd be ideal.
But it does not seem like it will come to pass.
Fens get Spiker through the reading door.
And now it's Baby Shark getting closer to the B bomb, taking out the default cam.
Three players in five years just need to sit and wait.
One of them will eventually find him.
It's JJ to get the job done in five years.
We'll close the gap.
Only two rounds now between these two squads.
Yeah, it ends up being a bit of a rush.
I thought maybe it wouldn't be.
It'd be traditional top floor clear, but no.
Wildcards say we're just gonna send it in through pillar door
and it ended up being an absolutely critical kill from Snake in the midst of that parker.
He only gets one that round, but it's such an important frag
because he downs adrian with the diffuser just inside of reading and after he gets that kill it's a flurry of trades
But it ultimately favors the defenders five years are able to trade out a little bit better than wild card are it ends with
JJ getting his first kill since the rehost as he managed to shut down
Canson after he trades snake and so it ends up just being this wild flurry of kills in the end five years walk out
the better of it
that they can clean up the vert angle on the spy pier.
So nicely done by five pier, they react to that really nicely.
Walkard is giving them the kind of complicated looks,
but five pier are staying at all to these more or less both times.
I mean, if Wildcarn's up winning this day like 7-4 or even a 7-5 score line,
then that's pretty normal for you on your own map.
And then we expect kind of the same on Fortress from five pier.
five years but I know the desk talked about it I know you talked about it a
few times yesterday wild card is the distinction of being one of the best
teams in the world on fortress now granted they got absolutely smoked by
M80 yesterday wild card only able to win a single round on their choice of
fortress so maybe wild cards taking a step back or maybe wild card just needed
time to wake up they seem to be bucking the trend here of losing the
very first map of the series is they're in control of caffeine on the
favourable side. Wildcard are very hopeful for the remainder of this map and then Fortress
rolls around. That one is going to be electric. 30 seconds off the board. Wildcard starting
their attack upstairs. Nitro Cell almost claiming Bay a good attempt by five beers and that
really could have changed the round but Bay survives another day.
Gonna be alright for the time being. Still lots of these players hoping to get an early
off. This bomb site is not too far from their grasp as they know where it's at. Just one
floor beneath them. Here comes another little run up from JJ and it will be successful. Finds
the head of Adrian at the same time as Snake making a play and goes for a little tight
call. I knew it! I knew it! Oh wow. Of course. Of course he is. You see it there in the
cabin. I mean, it's JJ. He's usually tight. I mean, the moment you're typing in
chats the moment you've lost but in this case today's a real winner nice kill by
fend they had the right idea just missed the target
reload you think wildcard calls the time now you think 5-5 the score line if
things continue to go bad could even be here I mean it's been a similar story
from five years every round lots of run-outs you mentioned force with
double run-outs of the last couple of rounds they're getting hyper aggressive
against this defense could be a call from a bonus to just recognize that
and let his players know, hey, we gotta play a little bit more passive, we gotta watch for these run-ups a little bit more, but...
Stand time is something you call that attack, it's maybe the second they stop running it, so it's always a gamble, right?
They're just outside the building, just playing keep away at this playing time, and just fighting as much time as possible, I guess you could say...
Get effort by Baby Shark, this one should be a flawless four or five fears.
Still a minute to go, this friend has taken eternity.
For us to final kill, five fears now within one of tying up wild card JJ keeping vibes high.
You speculated maybe they call the timeout now, I said maybe next round let's see what unfolds.
Go through the bans first, you've got to do the bans and then the tack timeout.
So we'll find out in just a minute here.
I'm not sure if there's anything so important to this defense.
Maybe the Azami would kind of be the standard ban you'd go for here.
If you were wild card, just try to stop some of this map control that five
years have been grabbing on to will be the Azami that gets removed.
So not a big question mark there.
And then I like the Nomad ban.
It's not been played a ton on the side of wild card, but you've seen
the style of game that five years are playing.
If you're running out every single round, take that off the board
because there's a good chance of the goddess is calling this
time out saying, guys, we got to play more Nomad.
We got to stop these runouts.
I mean gridlock obviously sees a lot of anti-flank positioning on this map, too.
That gridlock obviously not anywhere near a meta operator, but with the amount of staircases that are
integral for retakes and for roaming, this being such a vertical map, those track stingers really
pay off. And I mean, we've seen gridlock on this map a ton. It was played in round number one
by rival and then was played by Fens on the final two attacks is not been a part
so far of the arsenal brought by Wildcard so they could bring her whenever
they want especially if they're worried about flanking. A lot of intel ops and
concealment has been the name of the game. Smokes, Sends being brought twice by
Kansan so a different identity. Shield's not really a big staple here for Wildcard
at least not through these three rounds and they haven't assembled the free-headed Hydra.
They have not brought the the solid Snake and Deimos, Dokobie together.
They've been relying on Dokobie. She's been played every single round and she's been a major nuisance here and will continue to be.
Frankly, she's already being chosen by Baby Shark and not be banned by Five Fears.
I do like the bans here, but there's just there's a lot of good operators right now on attack and you can't ban all of them.
Yeah, that's always the problem.
probably why we see so much variety in attacker vans because there's always
something you don't ban that you end up thinking, damn I wish we'd banned that.
Lots of frustrating offers to deal with. Usually on this wildcard team it would
often be Bay who's locking the gridlock, he's played it the most out of anybody on
this roster so far through kickoff with four grid picks so far from Bay, but
he's actually gone for the double shield comp, the blitz Blackbeard from
and from Bay. Snake is outside the building trying to spawnpeak out through the small
big window but unfortunately doesn't get anything for his trouble. Still showing that
pace though from five feet. They are not slowing down with these runouts Parker. They want to
bring the aggression over to Water Park. It's reminiscent of when we last saw
Space Station gaming's old roster play this. When you had Neurs and Ashen spawnpeaking
round after round after round. It doesn't need to pay off but it certainly does
slow you down. Even if you're 15 to 20 seconds to get to the building longer than
usual, can knock a team's execute. Off-stride, Adrian dies yet again to JJ and gets ishtalked
in-chat yet again. Marora making an appearance. Marora just got a buff in just about every
single way imaginable. A significantly stronger operator, and this was already a pretty good
map, especially on that top floor. But there is a lot of frustrating potential for these
defenders to deal with with a Marora on Bakery. Rival missing out on the shield as he runs
and now Baby Shark falls at the hands of Snake.
Five years to sell effective work.
Kansan down at the hands of arrival,
Spiker finally finishes him off.
Two more and it's on the Spiker's eyes.
That's Snake to die of pain.
Almost called him Captain Jack.
Bay gets dropped.
Spiker will need to clutch out in a 1v3.
He's done some running around the Rosie.
I'm in the door all the way now over towards Whiskey.
Autumn Brown stairs, whatever part of the map.
You want to call this?
Spiker could not even get through the window
because he'd be exposed the moment he did so.
It's JJ blast to get the final kill and guess what Jesse we've got ourselves a tie game
These are the games that just frustrate the hell out of you if you're a wild card
I mean anywhere you try to approach the building. There's four guys
Warming that location. You're trying to approach the building. You're getting run out on it was JJ blast
You ran out of garage to get that opening pick on to Adrian and then even as they try to go for that front door push
I mean, it's a bit questionable. You might be thinking okay
Why are we as wild card not looking at coach? That's where the guy is but there's two more players over towards restaurant and whiskey
I mean no matter where you look there's going to be someone
There's going to be some pressure coming your direction and I think particularly for this double shield comp
It makes it really awkward because like how are you supposed to walk in the building if every direction you look?
You're being put into a crossfire. You've got someone staring at the back of your head
It makes it very awkward to make that position happen
It makes it very, very difficult to attack into.
Walker have to be able to keep their cool on these attacks.
They need to be able to lock in and stop some of these
hyper-aggressive moves coming out from five beers.
They did have Bay on the gridlock as I foreshadowed a couple of rounds ago,
but they will swap it over to Adrien in an attempt to slow down some of the aggression.
It's one of the worst games Adrien's adds statistically are maps,
rather than Adrien's adds since coming over to this wildcard roster.
To your point earlier about how to prevent crossfires and deal with them,
There's two terrific operators for flushing people out of those positions, and they just both happen to be banned.
Grim and Ying could be so critical in allowing Wildcard to take space and flush out these defenders.
Without them, five veers doesn't need to run a warden. They still will just in case.
They don't need to run an operator like Warden every single round, and they can play a little bit freer,
knowing that you're not gonna get smoked and flashed while killed with a shotgun.
It also means you're not gonna be pushed out of a position by those bees, which are largely
Uncounterable depending on obviously depends on what defenders are brought here
So smart bands by five years and they're using them to great effect by punishing wild card and taking away really strong
Tools that are used to open things up
I'm not too surprised to see shields get run more regularly
You could even double up on shields if you're wild card
But instead they're gonna go with some heart breach and they're gonna go with lots of destruction two sets of nades
some anti-flank and then of course the intel from Dokobie. Not much mystery in this wild card lineup at the moment.
Baby Shark's smart to reposition. He was caught on a drone from Forrest, so there was good information.
Trying to assist some of these run-outs as well. I think that's exactly what we just saw. Fendt's running out.
After Forrest gets off the drone, might have been trying to help his teammate go for those aggressive moves.
Micro-Skin to the top floor, and there's a guy touched just inside of Cocktail.
This could be so devastating, Parker. They don't know rivals here, but he wits.
We'll drop the hatch.
They didn't follow up with an engagement there.
Wildcard did not want to gamble their life on that 50-50.
I don't necessarily blame them if you've got an idea
of where those players are gonna go
and you die there, that might completely send your plan
up in smoke.
The one thing that this Wildcard team
has really struggled with is information.
Zero drones remaining for this team
with over a minute to go.
I mean, there's a mausoleum on the board,
there's a solace on the board.
Of course they're gonna take intel away from you.
And it's hurting Wildcard. Down goes Bay. Logic Bomb will go out to try and salvage this entry.
But with a minute to go, Wildcard finds their lead about to evaporate.
Yeah, and if there's still players down below that can flank up Red, they can flank up Brown.
There's no real safe position for Wildcard to take.
Here on the mid-floor, they want to try to work a plant somewhere in towards Reading,
but it's really awkward when you just don't know all these players' positions.
There's no Snake on the board. The last Logic Bomb is used, so how are you going to take space on the mid-floor
And how would you be safe from all these lengths?
It's a great question to ask.
30 seconds left on the board.
Wildcars still making some calls here.
Active calming on the side of Five Fears as well.
Every time you see their player games,
Forest and JJ helping call for the team.
Spiker looking in another direction.
Baby Shark, who is rescue.
The Frenchman almost had another through the wall.
Spiker and Adrian, very low on HP.
They need to be concerned of what
remains of Five Fears.
Seven players left.
Seven seconds left.
Five Fears coming to blows.
So they win every engagement and take map point one round away from grabbing wildcards map.
It's so oppressive to play against Parker again.
They must be frustrating his hell for wildcard because no matter where you go, Fens is planking
up the red stairs.
He whiffed all his shots that round.
It didn't even matter because Snape was right there to follow him up, pressuring the
other side from Pillar.
And again, it's like if you're spikering, you're trying to play these shields everywhere
you try to push.
There's an extra guy behind you, there's an extra person to your left or to your right,
which is making it impossible to take this space.
Five Fears are just doing such a good job at collapsing onto wherever the attackers want
to go for.
And a lot of that comes off of defender information.
I mean, how many times have we seen forests now hack a drone, spot out those attackers,
get early information and beat the rest of the teammates.
The Molten Pests have been massive, it's information elsewhere as well.
If somebody hears something or sees something, they call it.
Everybody rotates to try to react to it.
It's just this really frustrating defense to play against if you're wildcard because you
never know where these guys are at, they always seem to know where you're at and if you want
to play an objective style of siege, you just can't do it because you're being a storm
or force to take five gunfights at all points of the execute.
Five seconds left.
Surely not a weak link here on these defenses from Five Fears, Smothering, Stifling, Stoppicating, whatever term we want to use to describe it.
It's all of the above.
Coming!
I just know there'll be people who hear my old, you know, Five Fears maybe coming back down to Earth.
It's possible. We speculate an awful lot just to keep up the story and
throw questions into the mix that then later get answered. And right now the answer from Five Fears is that
they are not allowing Wildcard an inch inside of this building with how good
Wildcard usually is on attack with how good players like Kansan and Adrian can
be at finding space. Hell, even Spiker is capable of doing it. The fact that all these
players are coming out empty-handed after every single engagement is quite
bad and even worse for some of them. Maybe not empty-handed, maybe they just
get killed when the round is over for them and the rest of the team has to suffer through it.
I think a big part of it too is just the drone denial. I mean I'm so
So often we flip to somebody on 5 Fears POV and they're shooting a drone.
We can never really know how many drones are out on the map because the HUD's currently
bugged, but I mean it's so frustrating you don't have that information.
They've tried to bring this snake instead from Baby Shark to give themselves a different
angle to work this info for the team to stop some of these rat plays in a run out, but
even with this snake, I mean he can only be one place in the building, he can only
be on one floor.
The shield is good to clear up close positions, but it takes so long to find every
spot and again with this Monty you're gonna have to walk into a crossfire at
some point you have to find a way to spot these players and force them out of
position otherwise it's gonna be the same story we've seen almost every
round this half and it'll be seven five five years.
This is one of the slower rounds now Jesse. A halfway point. Wildcard have won all of the best of
threes that they've had to play so far and they have done so by dropping
the first map history looks like it might repeat itself for at least the
first map portion what comes next still needs to be determined but this is
definitely not a map one team let's not kid ourselves here and if you know
watching Wildcard studying them because they will be at the Salt Lake City
major you're thinking to yourself all right why don't we just play our worst
map first we're gonna win it anyway Wildcard never lose map number one it's
really that simple fire me as your coach you will probably lose but we
will at least have a great time.
Down goes KJ Blast, his baby shark strikes first.
40 seconds to go.
Again, a very slow round here, Jesse,
but an advantage, a wild card.
And looks like they might be able to push OT with it.
Sloan said he's exactly what you need if you're a wild card,
but you cannot continue to get flanked.
Forest down to the bottom floor is a huge threat.
Snake is lurking here inside a pillar as well.
You've got to be aware of these positions
when you push in.
Forest gets a nitro cell, kills seven kills on the team.
He gets finished off by baby shark.
Adrien dies to Captain Jack, a rough one for Adrien.
They call him Snake, but maybe Captain Jack
because it's the closest you'll get to getting him.
Down he goes to Baby Shark.
So there's some kind of shark and pirate pun
to be made there.
Rival of eliminating Bay down goes Baby Shark.
Kansan with no time left.
Dies at the hands of Rival either way.
Heartbreak for Wild Guard.
Five fears still yet to drop a map in the NA kickoff.
Don't count these guys out! Five Fears! Doesn't matter who the opponent is Parker, they are here to play!
5v5, 5v4, doesn't matter! Taking wildcarts, map pick, one away from being the champions of the North American League kickoff.
Incredible stuff from a team that many people, maybe even us to a certain extent, constantly doubt, but Five Fears!
Just seven rounds away from being the undisputed best in the NAL. They get there, find out after this break.
and I'm riding out.
Don't want to get on board with stuff and my money out.
Because I can't get down so just run it out.
I'ma keep it going so I ain't got no left.
I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going, I'ma keep it going
so I ain't got no left.
I don't know about you guys, but the way this was going did not expect Five Fears to pull
this map out.
4-1 at the start, Wild Card looked like they were in control and Five Fears, they just
took over in that second half.
I mean, I said going into that second half once we saw those operator bands fall into
place that they were going to play an aggressive game and that's exactly what they did
straight from the get-go and then also bringing that little added layer of bringing
Mavi to stop any of the drone getting out getting getting rid of any extra information that they would have and it was kind of shocking that wild card
Wasn't more prepared for this
I mean you could tell that they were really trying to put the clamps on and bring in the doke bees the lions
Just to put these players in the still spot and it didn't matter every single time
Five beers was just constantly meeting them with aggression constantly taking on gunfights not respecting any ounce of territory
territory that Wildcard was trying to go for and it carries him through that entire defensive path.
Yeah, very smart play from them on their defense. I'm glad that you brought up the Mazi because
one of the main takeaways from Wildcard's previous match against Arc0 was
something we commended him on. And even if there's 10, 20 seconds, they always say,
let's wait, let's drone, let's find this last guy. And Five Fears' layers is just all about
info denial so that Wildcard has difficulty going for an adaptation to try to get into the site,
to try to get into the building,
and that's why Five Fears was dominating in the lay-round.
But more importantly, they were getting those opening kills
because Wildcard didn't have information.
Absolutely, and that is another important factor
when we talk about an aggressive game,
which that's how CAFE typically tends to play out.
They had nine out of the 12 opening engagements
going in their favor.
I mean, that really speaks how aggressive they were
and how much they were taking the gunfight
right to Wildcard, right at the front door.
And then, like we said, on that defense in particular,
playing back onto those layers where it was left in Wild Cards hands to try to figure out,
try to scramble the brain around back and ultimately just couldn't come to it and succumb to the pressure.
Well in the all wildest chaos is happening we had our giveaway take place in chat and
we've got some giveaway winners for you. So winning two tickets each to the Salt Lake City
Major we have Carson underscore W and Wise Fin Bar. So if that's you congratulations you
You should have already been reached out to by Twitch mod and hopefully you are well on
your way to getting some tickets for the Salt Lake City Major.
Now, Laxing, I heard you might have family in Salt Lake City.
I do have family in Salt Lake City, have a couple cousins that live out there, believe
it or not.
And I mean, we are going to Salt Lake City.
Are they going to have pepper?
I don't know.
That's a good question.
They have salt there, but we have.
It hits us a little better every time.
I love, I don't know about the pepper bit, but I'm liking, I'm liking the
family.
I don't know at this point. We're giving away tickets to go see my family like right going to slc
We're going to lax's family go go to Salt Lake City get at a good dinner
Yeah, you get some good Mac lax's family
They are getting the names of your cousins and their addresses and then we'll really get into it
But right now we have an NAL champion to potentially
Potentially declare here and kick off if five fears can make this happen on map to let's find out
Well, if history is any indicator of the future, Wildcard will win map 287 and then map 387,
so we're not going anywhere until about 1.30 in the morning.
Or, Five Fears will continue to go undefeated.
They are looking for first overall and are the only team that have yet to drop a map.
Now that DZ has found themselves in the lower bracket, will Five Fears remain undefeated
and do the perfect NAL kickoff run or will Wild Card like every other time before power
up and complete the reverse sweep.
This might be five years map Jesse, but Fortress is great territory and familiar ground for
Wild Card.
We'll head there for map number two.
It's crazy to think a less than a year ago JJ Blast was dead last in the North
American League and now here we are 2026.
He's not only leading a team to the Major, but potentially it's a first overall in the
NAAL kickoff.
Wildcard will be fighting tooth and nail to deny such a fate, but of course here on Fortress,
on five fears map pick, it's going to be tough.
There's no doubting the prowess that Wildcard had on this map back at the Sixth Invitational,
but a 7-1 loss humbled them earlier in the season, in five fears 2-0 on this map
since kickoff began.
That's a stat, isn't it, 2-0?
Not bad at all for the team that's finally getting to bootcamp.
It's crazy if you talk to some of these players.
This might be the first time that all five of the guys on five years are meeting in person, ever.
And there's opportunities for some of these teams in the NAL to do the same.
Should they make the major?
One of 30.
They've never met all of each other in person.
If 1 or 30 qualifies, Jesse, the first time, unless they bootcamp, which I think is unlikely,
because they're not working, as they're all going to pay out of pocket to go to, like,
Packers' basement, maybe the first time that they ever met. And there's lots of teams that
are like that. The old Dreamhacks, back in the 30 days of siege before the River land leagues,
when we only had a couple of live events a year, the Dreamhacks used to be the way
that most teams would meet. And frankly, this is kind of funny and also a little sad.
For a lot of the teams that don't qualify, they would attend events as just regular people.
And they would meet up, and that would be the first time the team actually meets one another in person.
So, two to five years for how they've done so far, win or lose this series, they will be at minimum top two.
And at this current point in time, they've yet to drop a map. They are very good on Fortress.
They're going up against the team that up until yesterday looked unimpeachable here.
Wildcard knows this map inside and out, but yesterday was a rough day. Do they fix it for today's series?
Well, they said they played all four bomb sites on every single map.
I...
Even though I said that, I question if it does apply to Fortress as well.
We'll have to watch this match and find out, but there really is a very standard rotation on Fortress F2L.
Even in the short time that this map has been around,
You really just go top to bottom, off to first, then going over to Bunks, and then over once more.
They will sacrifice a drone to clear up the Denari, but that prompts the swing from Bay.
What a big fight to take on the JJ Blast. It goes his way, even if Rival's quick for the trade.
You clear up the Grim for the Flare inside of Horse. I think that's a valuable trade.
Oh, absolutely. I don't think anybody's arguing against that.
Now Rival goes down to Hansa's Fyker, traded out by Fens.
He says Adrian dies to snake.
Stay looking for more.
Neijarstel goes off, completely misses.
Baby Shark thought he might have had the play,
but he does not, and it's Snake getting a two piece
to give the win in round one to five fears.
Well, the pace has not slowed down whatsoever,
nor have the dance moves.
JJ Blaskening active in and after the round,
opening death in that one Parker,
but it just sparks the fuse.
Everybody moves after that point
where they swing in through horse as soon as they get that trade.
Forest is deep into the site,
60 seconds into the round almost,
pushing past that horse position
and it just feels like the second somebody finds a move,
somebody finds a spot into the building,
everybody else collapses on it.
It's very similar to how they were defending on cafe
where, okay, somebody spots something
and everybody goes to that spot to go and try and fight it.
This time, they're just on the attack,
so when they go to fight a spot,
it's generally the bomb site.
And Forest can start in with a plant,
Really nice moves to come up from Five Fears. Wildcard need to find some way to slow down these pushes.
They cannot let things get messy in the early round like that anymore.
It's just not a game they're going to win against Five Fears.
Oh, absolutely. And Five Fears, Coach Phoenix, almost certainly is a keen study of the bottom fortress, Wildcard and M80 yesterday.
Obviously not a lot has been spoken about from the coaching staff on Five Fears, but I mean they are, you know, absolutely integral for the success.
this team and again I know a lot of people doubted the forest pick up because
he's been on a bit of a downward trajectory on some of his teams as
of late but forest has been an incredible addition to this team and I don't
think five years gets to this point without him his leadership and
everything that comes with it so it is great to see this five years team
completely prepared and they outfox wildcard on round number one the
tempo is something to keep an eye on this is five years map if they can
run up the score on attack on fortress and wildcard are going to be in a world of
her destiny. Wow good start from adrian he was kind of getting he was kind of
getting bullied if we're being honest on that number one partner so it's good to
see him answering back with his first frag here on fortress lots of movement
still happening on the side of five years they clear through this bottom floor
the site rotation has been shifted up despite the map that we're on kitchen
cafeteria or cafeteria waiting room coming in for the second bomb site of
wild card and with that man advantage they've seemingly been able to stop the
aggression from five fears we're no longer gun the blaze and speeding through
the map as we were on previous rounds now we're seeing things slow down a bit as
they try to take some control not being held by wild card a lot of
proteins will not choose to hold above this bombsite the statues rotating
down below expanding out throughout that bottom floor
I think that there's a little bit of a lack of action to the start of this
game but it's gonna be tough to break through once five years look forward to
execute. I mean Feds obviously want that one back it was a single bullet away
from toppling Adrian you know losing the nomad losing your main anti-flank means
that you might have rivaled take a bit more of a backseat maybe he's not going
to be as invested in the execute maybe his job now will be to find the
flankers and I mean you can see how that gadget works he's got good
information on at least two players on wildcard that could come in very
very handy here. JJ thought he was the all clear of the day. He stops them all.
Inside of Infirmary, call the ambulance, but not for me, I guess. Snake. Last man standing, and he's got four kills for two rounds.
He won't get any more, though. Wildcard shut him down, and Jesse, it's happening back and forth.
8-7 incoming is Wildcard. Take round two.
He was sitting on his on the
inside of that room, walking
things down. He's just such a
menace to get out of that
position can play aggressive
on the medical window can set
up those key bus. So if you
jump in the window, you're
going to be screwed. I seem to
go prone underneath that
winter to fight players. But
even if you're not fighting
him on the window, you try
to walk him through that
doorway. There's going to be
pressure. You try to drop
that hatch. Big mistake.
Nice little play to come out
from Bay there. It is his
home base here on Fortress
It is home base here on fortress and he thrives in that position home Bay
It's a pun you probably come up with it. We're not on day four or five, so
Exactly a little bit fatigue setting in for us
Long day for the players long day for the admins long day for producers long day for us, too
I mean I was watching the matches starting at two o'clock. It was almost nine hours ago
I was sitting here watching the very first matches.
Unfortunately, Delay has plagued a lot of that game
and set us a little bit behind.
And it sure seemed like DZ was getting us back up to speed
until Wildcard did Wildcard things.
And, you know, then we spent the rest of our lives
in that Wildcard matchup.
Once again, have an opportunity for that to happen again.
I can't, of course.
The series involving Wildcard against MAD yesterday
and against DZ today are two of the best series.
And I say this in recent memory
because recency bias is a thing, right?
We'll look at it, we'll be like,
oh, those were incredible.
And maybe there was some best of three series
that we're just forgetting about that happened
in the NAL stage two, but I gotta say,
and you know, the viewers are welcome
to weigh in on this as well.
I think the match up against M80 was stellar.
I think the match up against Dark Zero was fantastic
and might be one of the best NAL matches,
best of three years we've had in the NAL
in quite some time.
It's certainly a top three match for NAL
since you and I have been working together
and there's very few best of threes
during regular season that jumped to mine.
That could be better than it.
And who knows, this one could be shaping up,
could be terrific as well.
We have no idea where this series is gonna go.
Will we need Clubhouse?
Will Fortress end up being a one-sided affair?
We are unaware.
And that's part of the beauty of this, you know?
A great day to cast Rainbow Six Siege is upon us.
One minute off the board now.
Lodge bombs go out.
Five fears looking to strike some fear
into the heart of Wildcard.
And Kansen is ready.
Gage runs in again, Mary-Lippen and Intel dies, Mary's in one position and it's 0-3 with the Caps into 5-fears.
Yeah, nice little start there again. They've been doing a good job recently.
Last round in this of just repelling those entries, stopping that fast aggression.
It's still the way that 5-fears want to play, but if Wildcard are ready for it, they can stop this play before it ends up coming through.
Forest. A little bit caught sprinting.
Canson hasn't really moved to position, but is still able to catch them off guard.
He's just been just thorn in their side, sitting out here on the road more or less by his self and they just can't seem to force him out Parker.
That's two big kills from Kansan and he's still hungry for more.
Wildcard not really giving an inch here at this point in time. Kansan's lost some HP, sure, but I mean I'd absolutely trade that for the kills that he has up to this point.
Forrest and JJ are playing operators with high value and they should be getting kills, but they're not. Neither will Snake as he was falling no moments ago.
out for you too as he's had a rough go of it through the last round and now onward.
Fens dies too and Wildcard looks to take the lead if they can find Rival.
A flawless round for Wildcard is within reach, 40 seconds left on the clock and
Rival does not seem to be wasting time. From games into briefing into briefing into games,
Selma will go out falling up on that. Wildcard not moving at all, just sit
at and let him come to you. Rival to his credit does have the
the defuse kit but I don't think that's really in the calculus here Jesse. No
chance he's gonna get the objective down with four players watching him. Five in
total but four within striking distance. Blow us round wild card get the final
kill. I think it's interesting to compare their first
off-satack to their second and round number three there Parker because both
times they they answer the building pretty quick you know they don't have
a ton of information when they start to approach the site they don't have a
ton of that droning that's been done when they try to take that space but
in the first round, they just head straight to site. They enter through horse, the positions
at that point are all very obvious. They know where these defenders are going to be because
the site players, they're just going to be in common anchor positions. So they sprint
in, they take the fights, they trade things out and they end up in a really strong spot.
Then in round three, they're again entering the building very quickly, but instead of
going straight in through horse, straight to the bomb site, they're clearing the
set of the map. And there's just so many more positions that you have to be worried
about. And Kansan, all it takes is for him to be in one little spot that
You don't check one little location that doesn't get droned
You're sprinting halfway through a hallway and he swings out where you're not expecting him from it
Really is a little bit more risky when you're entering in across the map from the bomb site
Even if there's fewer players
There's more things you've got to be thinking about and I think you kind of have to slow things down a little bit
If you are going to be going for a full map clear like they just tried in around three so
Perhaps something to talk about here in this tack timeout head coach Archer
Omex will be talking with the squad to try to get things back on track after they lose the last two rounds
But keep in mind this is still their map picks that they're starting on the weaker side
It's okay if they go down there before two or so on this first half. They'll have chances to battle back
I'm glad you mentioned the coaching staff. I talked about Phoenix a little bit earlier. We talked about Archer, Omex and
Well, that's them. I'll hang with this team. And again, a good support staff is absolutely
integral for them to succeed. I will say I don't know that much about Archie, but Phoenix
comes all the way over from Call of Duty, if you recall, and he's got some tier one
experience there, so he'll be able to help this team out. Can you remember this is
Phoenix's first run with the team? Again, he did some stuff in T2, but either way,
I mean, if you can grab a coach that has done well at a tier one level, even if it's in another esport
There's worse coaches to be found here and
Hey, two to five years and again talk through it a very early time out
That's been the story for today at least in the two matches that you and I have casted and
One thing to keep in mind is that every time we see an early time out
We always say there's things the coaches here and see that we don't
Things could be occurring things could be going according to plan
and the coaches just want to fix and fine-tune something.
Four things could be going catastrophically wrong and we just don't know it or hear it
and they want to stop it from happening again.
Either way, I don't know if the right call was made here to go for a rush or not,
but a rush is happening all the same, pens at top-light stairs,
watching for flank, forest will walk that shield up, forest and JJ.
That's the struggles getting into the building and surviving.
So at least they're able to live for the first minute.
What's up, great stuff!
Yeah, I'm not gonna be speeding this up too much, Parker.
It's just a map clear from the top floor.
There are gonna be rovers here that they have to deal with.
Most notably, course, hands in,
tossing up that nitro feels good damage to Forrest.
And since he's one behind him,
do what a shot!
Dome spends in behind the Monty.
He can't keep the breach closed,
but I think his job is more or less done, Parker.
He's dealt his damage
and will now rotate back to the bomb site
to play with the rest of his teammates.
It's a great roam to come through,
and they're not done.
Base steps up for another frag and a JJ Blast.
Whatever was talked about in that tack timeout
has not translated into success in the early round.
This is two man lead for wild card.
JJ was supposed to be forced to escort in that position.
And I mean, Forrest was immediately reshielding
as he lost his compatriots side by side.
And Ab's didn't take a dedicated hard breacher near Forrest.
He's got to do this all himself.
He's side by side with Snake.
I'm not sure where Rival is,
but he's got two of those helmets in pocket
So the traditional hard breacher, I have to align at some point.
Using the smoke's great effect.
The glass has been able to push these defenders back.
If you know there's a glass on the board and you hear a smoke grenade go off,
you don't even do it.
You run.
Wildcard got that memo.
It's almost now to go onto the wall as Snake goes prone in five years,
inching their way closer to the wall.
They can maybe plant here, Parker, but I'm worried of the toxic babes,
and I'm worried about the fact that there's just five defenders still on a wildcard
who could flank, who could swing, who'd go down below.
Baby Shark flanking up the main stairs.
Now it's gonna put a little bit more pressure here
onto these attackers and just make it very awkward.
Battle takes down cans and that's one back
that they desperately needed.
But again, this flank position from Baby Shark
makes Forrest's life really scary.
That's still very winnable for Wild Card.
Forrest does need to be concerned.
Two gas canisters in pocket for Adrian.
One will go out, Snake eliminating Spiker.
Another two, hip-firing onto Adrian, those gas canisters gone!
Snake might have just saved the round.
But Baby Shark, working in shallow waters, he's got Bay to assist.
Forest will cut the shield away, where is Rival?
Force gets the job done, he doesn't need Rival to accomplish it.
Now it's Baby Shark trying to pick his targets.
His first fight goes well.
Second one, against Rival, on the ground.
Diffuse kit running away.
Baby Shark is time to reload.
He just needs to be worried about getting pressed.
Rival was scooted off.
The ace repositioning turned the door.
Baby Shark will attempt the long arm,
compelling Rival to move in ever closer.
Baby Shark gets off, but Rival gets the job done.
That one was so, so close.
These scrappy rounds taking years off your lives.
But at the end, five fears wins.
Rivals lose those very often.
Parker on attack, he has thought to be
one of the best players in the game.
Through group stage, posted a 3.0 KDR on the attack, 27-9 through 22 rounds and continues to showcase just how good he is on the offense, clutching things up in the 1v1.
Snake really does the most work in that round to make things possible, though. I mean, just plays some ridiculous shots with that glass, the hit fire holding the door is ridiculous.
Just so smart to be able to go prone on that doorway, not overstep his boundaries, and then once that push is coming in, that's when he goes for the swing.
That's when he's ready for the counter swing snake doing everything they need to in that moment to set up rival to clutch that beautiful 1v1
Five years still very much in this game
There's a reason why you don't drop a single map on your run here
There's a reason why you end up a championship game competing for first overall on the line
Bragging rats, of course, you know a guy like JJ would love to say he was on the number one team in North America
but beyond bragging rights and pride,
you're also fighting for SI points.
But how competitive North America is,
you need every SI point you can get.
Five Fears, probably the players thought
they'd be in a position to compete for it,
but if you asked most of the other teams, Jesse,
they would not have put this Five Fears team
in a position where they could end up
with the most SI points in this region before the major.
And yet here we are.
There's also money on the line,
but depending on what their salaries are
in the financial situation of these teams
maybe not always has the utmost importance.
And again, going back to that tweet JJ made,
it's about like making it, it's about living a dream.
And you know, first overall, that's a dream
a lot of people have very few can ever say
that they achieve it.
Yeah, I mean, it's a dream to go to a major.
I'll tell you, it's even bigger dream to go to SI.
So those six evitational points
gonna be so critical to get,
even though we're still very far away
from SI happening, of course, February 2027.
That's what we're qualifying towards now.
This push a little bit slower this time around
from five years, no early aggression there.
Again, trying to clear through this top floor
and again, wildcard haven't brought anybody up here.
There's not gonna be a top floor roam from this team.
They don't really like to extend up above,
as a lot of teams don't.
So instead, spreading across that mid floor
and opens the opportunity for five years
to decide what they wanna do with this push.
They can play the vert,
They can try to go for a hatch drop into waiting, but that went pretty horrendously last time.
So you're seeing a bit of a different look this time as the Monty tries to make his way into music.
Adrian has been really struggling through these two maps.
If his fortunes change, wildcards can as well.
I mean...
Adrian's been a statistical best performer on wildcard for him to be so absent.
Getting shut down by five fears is not ideal at all.
But again, it goes back to what we said on Cafe.
When one of these players has a bad game,
somebody steps up.
Right now it's Bay leading the charge on this team.
Kansan, we'll get credited with the kill
because of the razor wire.
I'm not sure exactly who's the real winner here.
Kansan finds another, a third as well.
Technically only two and Baby Shark and Spiker
are on the board.
Just a forest type good half in the trash.
Unless G.H. means something else these days, why you type that?
Wildcard wins the round after Forrest decides to talk some smack and it seemingly blows up in his face.
Yeah, truly no idea what Forrest is typing about, but I can tell you it was Baby Shark who got that initial down onto rival, finished off then by the barbed wire inside of Hamam.
They do a great job of just stopping that push as it comes in, right? Those five fears, guys?
They don't want to try that hatch drop in through waiting, so they try something completely different.
It's force trying to walk in with the Monty, but unfortunately the rest of his team start able to find that space that they're looking for
and he gets kind of caught up inside of kind of that music to gun room little hallway there in the bottom floor
where they really just get stuffed and a wildcard will swarm around them training off each other when they need to
but really just all firing at those targets around that bottom floor on the west and north side.
That's good enough to get them up to three in this first half.
Four would be excellent.
But in any case, they've already confirmed they won't be losing this first half and
I put Five Fears a decent bit away from closing up a series in two.
Anybody's game at this point in time, but yeah, I mean, crazy to think with how good
this team was on Fortress internationally, how much they've shown struggles here domestically.
And I say this with Wildcard currently in the lead, they certainly don't look like
the same fortress team that they were but one thing I would say if I was to argue against myself
was that fortress was a brand new map and there were a lot of teams who just admittedly said
we didn't really know how to play it but if you don't have time to adjust your map pool
you have to play it so was it wildcard looking so dominant or was it just wildcard being far
more familiar with the map that other teams didn't prioritize and now the other regions and
and the other teams have caught up.
Entirely possible as the latter.
Here in North America, Fortress has been played
an awful lot and teams are looking
like they know it very well.
It's the contrast that we saw on SI,
so maybe it's a little bit of both, frankly.
They will start out the killing here,
Wildcard hoping to go up four-two.
They'll trade, hands it on the board
as Rival goes down.
Fends the only kill for five fears
at this point in time.
And Wildcard might have lost Bay,
but they've still got four players up,
all with guns in hand.
Now it's JJ Blast taking a heap of damage
On the ground, finished off by Adrien.
Perfect opportunity for Adrien to talk trash back, but the man's all business.
There's a round to be won, Jesse, and there's only two left on Five Fears.
Make that one.
A minute 40 on the clock,
and it's just Fens, outduld by Adrien. Huge round for the import.
And the first half is in the books. Wildcard up, 4-2.
Questionable push leaves me scratching my head a little bit, Parker,
so I'm not gonna explain it at all.
Let's bring the desk in to talk about all six of those first rounds.
Thanks guys. This one feels very familiar. Same score line when we last checked in at the half of map 1.
Lackville stands out to you so far.
You know I don't want to get too ahead of myself. It was a good half for Wildcard, but we already saw what happened on one defense swap already.
However, I do want to focus on round 4 in particular. I mean this was a great round from Snake.
I can't say in his shoes I would want to be in this position with Glaz this close.
unsure what's on the other side of that door.
But he's the one that opens up this to allow them
to be able to take this side.
I mean, huge heads up play.
Then hitting that, that no scope head shine.
Then it just kind of slowly goes back and forth.
Who's going to trade it out?
I mean, Foufaux on the shield, beautiful play.
But then it comes down to this 1v1 or 2v1 rather.
Now to a 1v1, which was a great heads up play
to just be able to play back,
wait for the defuse to be stuck,
and then to push in.
It was great from Snake, great from Rival
to be able to finish it out.
I mean, it really is a true testament of Wildcard's intuition, I mean intuition there in these situations, but overall, just in this series so far, I mean, it's kind of the exact opposite of what we were seeing on the side of cafe.
The aggression's there, but it's almost too much aggression. They aren't knowing when to dial it back and Wildcard is punishing that time and time again.
Even in that last round you saw, Fofo goes into the wall, doesn't check if there's a player on the side, not doing their due diligence, just clearing a little bit of extra to give themselves a little more space.
and Wildcard is punishing them on each and every single front.
Yeah, just looks like Five Fears is riding on the high
of what they finished in the last series, in the last map,
just because they're playing so aggressive on their defenses,
they swap to attacks.
And now they're playing very aggressive, it's there,
they're trying to keep up that tempo, but it's a different side.
But what I don't want to see is them get a 2-4 split
and change off that.
I think that's the exact same ideology
that they need to bring going into their defensive half
is maintain that aggression,
make sure that you're shutting down the information from Wildcard
which is a work so successfully in the previous map.
So if you're on the side of Five Fears.
It's not great for the entry.
Also the entries as well.
I mean, all six entry kills have gone
in the favor of Wildcard.
That was another talking point that we had
in that cafe match where nine out of those 12
were in favor of Five Fears.
So we got to start seeing opening kills.
And I do agree with your aggression point.
I think at some point they also need
to understand the position that they're in
when they can dial it back.
Yeah, exactly.
As long as they can keep that aggression up starting out
and then exactly get it on cafe.
Well, Jesse, I know you were scratching your head.
Does that clear things up a bit?
I'm assuming that's a question for us.
Does it clear things up for you?
No, I mean, it clears things up certainly on the round
as a whole.
It doesn't help me as much on round six, but that's okay.
I do think they have a great point
when it comes to those opening picks, Parker.
I mean, six straight for wildcars,
a huge red flag, four or five years.
They need to be able to control this early game.
To be honest, it's something they did really well towards that second half of cafe, right?
Any time somebody was in a position to go for a push on the side of Wildcard, someone
was answering on five beers.
They won five straight opening frags on that second half when they started things off.
So I'm hoping we can see that bounce back once again here on the second map of Fortress,
but it's going to be difficult with Wildcard playing as well as they are.
To that point about opening kills on Cafe, Wildcard was only able to muster three of the
twelve first Bloods.
It was five years all the way down.
I mean, you wouldn't be shocked looking at the score line.
Wildcard obviously dominating here and the one cool thing about this is that everybody
not named Spiker has a first Blood on the side of Wildcard.
So four players on this Wildcard roster have a successful entry.
One of them have negative entry stats at the present playing time.
That is terrific.
It hasn't been a lot of objective play from 5 years.
I mean granted, they only won the two rounds, but they were not a very objective focused
team.
They did to their credit get the Fuser down in round number 4, but they'd already largely
broken that round open.
That's if you remember when they came down to the 1v1 with Rival, so ultimately a
great series for both of these teams.
good underlying numbers here from Wildcard that if they continue we'll give them an edge
from here on out which will push us to the third map. We will see Clubhouse yet again.
Wildcard's got to lose map number one. That's the way the script was written. Jesse there's
not much more to say.
Well my question is, are five years going to play as hyper aggressive here on their
defenses as we saw on Caffe and so far we haven't seen that as much. JJ on the
clash unlikely to maybe up his kill total in the second half but certainly providing
good value for his team just forcing back this white crush a little bit. There was
a twitch and of course spiker on the demo is down below the shotgun but couldn't
bait them into any of those early frags. This is definitely a reaction on the
side of wildcard where they know how five fears that the playing on these
defenses so they're being very slow very passive with it waiting for five
fears to walk into them but as of yet 90 seconds deep nobody on five fears
is taking the bait. JJ will do anything at this point in time to try
and get a kill. It's been a very rough fortress for him. Scoreboard is accurate. JJ is the
only player not to muster anything. Five years of Snake leading the way. Everybody else
is under water. When it comes to this KD rival though, running down Adrian. Adrian
has been negative the last two maps. Very detrimental to the overall success of this
wild card team. Now, you have to recover without the ace. What secondary hard breach
which is available, none.
Hope that he got his helmets off.
Hold on a second,
Wildcars getting some kills here,
Jesse, two of them to be found.
Four is firing away inside of Commander,
and now it's Wildcard chasing Five Fears.
It gets worse though.
As now, Kansan is debilitated from that razor bloom.
It went off, it also hit Baby Shark.
They'll limp along for quite some time.
This is very advantageous for Five Fears
in this final 30 seconds.
You let JJ get a kill, now he's angry,
Now you've made a mistake.
They can try to throw out these last couple of players,
but against a Clash Parker, this push is so tough.
He's standing behind that shield,
JJ cracking that goose egg on the board,
looking for more.
He's got the shield in front of him.
Keep him safe, playing around it so well
with that secondary.
Clash, a great impediment that needs to be dealt with.
JJ does find a second.
This five-fierce team will close out the round.
The gap shrinking in for the first time.
first blood spilt by five fears rival kick started a great round.
Yeah, it's tougher for wildcard there Parker because they are
primarily trying to get in kind of towards the bomb site. They
had pressure all over the place with baby shark down below. You
saw cans in over towards old tower. I mean, there were players
all across the map there, but the players that were hitting
towards site, these guys over towards white, we saw this
fiker we saw from Bay. They really were just running into
this clash that with all of this other utility that was
Post up in towards the bombsite and they made it really awkward for them to try to work some of these frags
Forest was really sharp inside that bombsite
Gigi of course as well with that first and then second kill later on to so important to help get five fears back in this game
It's not exactly like cafe. I don't think the style of round we just watched from five years with anything similar
So with a file the style of the events they're playing on cafe, but the score line does track
What if it's an 8787 by Waldkirk?
Just what happens?
Oh, that's when I go clinically insane.
Thanks for that.
Great, you're not there yet.
No, no, no, we gotta reach that point.
I thought you'd reach that point long earlier.
No, you're an Oilers fan, after all.
After losing to the exact same team in the exact same round of the Stanley Cup Finals,
the second year in a row, I would've lost it.
I don't know how you sold it off, but I gotta say,
they should study you in a lab.
I mean, I get to watch the best player in the world, the best two players in the world,
every single night, do the best thing I'll do.
For us to JJ, I get to watch them every night playing here in Rainbow Six Siege, and we
just see exactly what type of value they provide.
This clash is going to continue to be a staple in the Five Peers defenses until it gets
banned out.
I imagine that'll be the ban after round nine, but of course it depends on who's
next to you, Parker.
It's a little bit, especially on these top floor defenses, it's a little bit tricky to get past this clash because generally teams will either push from the north and they'll clear the whole map or they'll push from the south and go straight to site.
Whichever way you choose to go, JJ will just rotate that direction, stare you down and enable kills for his teammates.
I don't know if we've highlighted JJ's lack of offense through this map in particular, but
despite the fact that he had really good numbers for the first couple playdays, do keep in
mind that he's the guy on the team that really should be getting the least amount of kills
most of the time.
It may get an argument that maybe Forrest also falls under that category, but the
three players on five fears that you need to worry about when it comes to killing
are Fenn's rival and Snake.
But they are not getting kills, usually that is a troubling sign for this team.
Of course, JJ and Thor is the capable bear of much, but they're not the people who should be.
That was an interesting turn of events there.
Nitro-Stell goes out, almost no damage was done, base amount kills, JJ also gets bends,
but just like that, five fears taking advantage of it, all three so far for Bey.
He's just got Rival and Snake left, and he's on a single point of HP, breaking
double digits at 11 kills right now far in the way the lobby leader. We take a
backseat here, Bay. Maybe let Spiker do some work. Spiker getting diffused down.
There's a rotate coming in. Spiker falls off expecting somebody over towards the
door. Bay has a blind spot so Spiker has to cover it himself. Down Spiker goes
to rival and Bay will need to ace clutch. Single point of HP. Not seeing
snake in the corner. Jesse, we've got a tie game. The round goes to five fears. Parker,
I don't know what's going on in this game anymore. JJ Blast was outside the building.
He planted his clash shield. Correct me if I'm wrong here. We didn't get a great view of it,
but I believe that clash shield was planted outside the building and he was taking gunfights.
Absurd things happening in the mind of JJ Blast, but I'm told we will get to see this.
So I'm excited for it when it comes through five years have continued to be aggressive. Yes, there's the shield
It ends up being a kill from Bay as he breaks the shield with that vault animation kills JJ behind it
But it's all for naught despite Bay's excellent frags in the chaos
It is just five years thriving out here. You saw the nitro stopping that push in through the kind of north window just outside of
Breathing you saw a lot of high pressure happening in and around that bomb site
But it just feels like in the chaos when things are getting messy five years or just finding all the success
Something really interesting about this team is that they just they you can never really distance yourself from them
Even after all those opening rules go in their favor, right the desk highlighted it first six rounds all first bloods
Wildcard. Last round. Wildcard first blood. Not just first blood, first two bloods.
Two first bloods. I actually don't know how you make that plural. By the way, what happens?
Five fears immediately answer with a 3k. Now this has happened during a number of these rounds.
Even in rounds that have been lost by five fears, the first two kills will break in favor of Wildcard
or the first kill will break in their favor and immediately five fears takes advantage of that.
Whether they get more active or wildcard overstep, we don't get to see every single engagement, so it's hard for us to say
But five fears are a really really tough team to distance yourself from I see the words crappy lock it applies here
Wildcard taking charge already some damage done to Kanzan as we hit one minute into the round usually the discovery phase
But wildcard want to pick up the tempo a little bit. Yeah a little bit rare as the Kanzan is the one jumping on these shields
Here he is though, taking the roll over from Spiker, sometimes based on this roll too, starting to make his way but unfortunately that snake on the side angle catching the side of him and now it's more bait.
Spiker gets dropped by rivals, they're trying to make their way in through music but they're not expecting so many defenders over on that side of the map parker so it ends up just being players individually jumping into crossfires and wildcard coming away with man disadvantages.
While you don't strike first, you get mighty, mighty close if they kill Forest.
Do we still see this wild turnaround with Wildcard going down in numbers?
They let map 1 slip through their fingers.
This should be familiar territory for them even though they didn't choose this map.
Wildcard are a comfortable team here, but Baby Shark missed an easy kill on rival Adrian doesn't.
but still an advantage for five fears.
Forrest will remain for the next minute on very low HP,
but the rest of this team is here
and even with one HP Forrest,
shuts down Bay, Adrian looking to go positive.
He's got three chances to do so.
He accomplishes it by killing Forrest
and immediately loses it to Snake.
Five fears of one three in a row
and they take the lead on Fortress.
Are we getting flashbacks yet Wildcard fans?
It wasn't that long ago,
But I'm sure you all know what this is starting to look like.
Five fears have been dominating on these defenses.
And Parker, that one looked like a cafe round, so aggressive.
This will be a clash band, surely.
There it goes, thank god.
JJ no longer allowed his destructive ways on the top floor.
But even without it, you saw it on that cafeteria defense.
Five fears just swarming the wildcard entrance
as they try to get into the building.
You can't get any map control.
You can't get any space on the side of Wildcard because anywhere you try to push
There's just players on all directions that are shooting you in the side and in the face in the back
You're just having too much difficulty getting into the map and taking that control
We will see a tackle time out come here from Lagonas
It's been a long night for the guys on Wildcard. They've accomplished their primary goal
They're going to Salt Lake City no matter what happens in this series
But they want those extra SI points. They want to be first in the region. They want the better seeding when they go to Salt Lake City
This will be their last chance for the coach to right the wrongs and get this team back on track
The bonus is a great mind for the game
He'll talk this team through the issues, but even the best coach in the world can't make five players become
champions or world champions
major champions and they'll kick off champions
I hope you understand what I'm saying here.
You can coach all you want.
But a lot of the times, you have to trust your players to get the job done.
Inexperienced rosters will make mistakes.
Five Fears commit tons of mistakes.
They're in their routine.
But they've got players that can fix those mistakes immediately.
And the one thing I will say about this Five Fears team, it's going to sound like a saying.
But they trust each other. You can very, very clearly tell that this team has full confidence in one another, and they play like it.
They trade like it, they enter like it.
Again, start contrasting what we saw in the DZ wildcard game, where a lot of times we put our fingers at DZ and lost rounds,
and say, well, all of you entered separately. Fulps drones himself in, gets picked off.
J90, drones in, Neuers. Neuers overextends past the drones until it gets picked off.
These are guys playing like individuals five fears almost never does that this is a team that plays like a brotherhood and it shows
And when you combine it with good guns kill, which is been on display
Snake and rival in particular good things can happen
DJ went for a bit of an ego peak there through the main door
Gonna picked off a kill you would have known that he erupted on camera
He doesn't know damages done in 30 seconds gone off the round
It undercuts your point just a little bit to be honest, right?
It's about how together they always are and JJ is one of the things that make me look wrong.
By himself, but you're right.
Your overall point, regardless of what JJ is doing this round, is correct.
You can't play this hyper-aggressive defense style if you're not all on the same page
and all fighting together.
Here comes JJ.
He's not got teammates necessarily directly with him, but they're on the top of the
stairs that is Adrian who is the first frag, but JJ is there for the response.
Playing with this Monty ends up running into Baby Shark, but it's not exactly who he's
hoping to find.
But again, they're making that play together.
It's Forrest and JJ talk white, collapsing on these players, just as the science gets
to building.
Wildcurt ultimately comes out ahead of this, which is usually the way it works in reverse.
Wildcurt gets the first pick, and it's five fears you come out with the numbers
advantage.
This is especially devastating, given that there's a Monty and a Gamos on the board.
So the fewer players there are, the more power a shield gains.
Managed to solve the problem of Adrien.
Adrien's still trying to go positive.
Oh, no.
That's a tough one, Jesse.
Can't say that stuff on broadcasts, so we're not going to repeat what JJ typed.
But yeah, that is that is a really, really hard loss.
Still a redeemable round here with one minute to go.
As Kansan is equalized, Baby Shark and Kansan will now need to work together
is that untimely team kill?
Quick baby shark in a position where now he holds the diffuse
kit.
Back on the drones, they will go in a 2v2.
If five fears win, they go.
The championship point.
They need to use their time, Parker.
They have to drone these last two players.
This is what the desk said they were so good at the comms
in the halftime, is how are they
able to spot these last couple of players?
Will they slow things down?
Plants here might be tricky, just
because you don't have any smoke.
What?
Shaw from Kansan finds one.
Baby shark and rival now in a 1v1.
Maybe sharks look mighty good and he does have the added benefit of this deathmark activating more in real time
This teammates giving the call here off of his position that ping will update rival knows that he's fallen off
Firing away to score being a real bullet holes and rival wins and expecting his play the pre-fire
Moves five fears to kick off championship point
What a beautiful read to come through from rival in the 1v1 Parker
He is on a sliver of HP when he plays that 1v1 versus baby shark. It is better information for baby shark, too
Those deathmark trackers they go both ways, but they're far better for the demos
It is hard to lose those 1v1s the demos if you're hitting your shots, but rival
He just expected the movement. He knew where he was gonna go. He wins the fight. It's perfect crosshair placement
Starts a little messy from five fears. They get a little chaotic
but it's messy from wild card 2 and ill-advised team kill right on the spiker makes this winnable for 5 years
and then in the 1v1 just watch it again, brilliant from rival one-way.
I do have to wonder if pressure got to baby shark.
He just team killed spiker, earlier spiker, on a shield with diffuse kit.
Outnumbering your opponents with a Deimos on the board.
I had just finished talking about how powerful a Deimos and a shield are together,
Especially when you have a numbers advantage and then baby shark gives the easiest layup to five years by knocking the spiker down
And I'm spikers a young guy
He's taught in the past on Twitter and interviews that he's emotional. He takes these things very seriously. That's a good trait for the record
But when you couple that with an experience you can make a mistake you can get ahead of yourself
Yeah, well down in bronze
would be sweating in a 1v1 like that, let alone being a pro player at the top of the
game trying to keep your team in it, knowing that if you lose your opponents go to match
points.
So, maybe Shark could have used that gadget, maybe played it a bit more passively, he
had 15 seconds left, he had the more active tracker than his opponent, and yet he thought
he could try to evade him, he was wrong, it was not necessarily the improper move,
but it was an ill-advised one and it ultimately cost him.
Now five fears have two opportunities without overtime to put this one away and be the indisputed,
the undisputed best team in North America and would do so Jesse without dropping a single
map here and kick off.
They'll lose Snake early, 50 seconds into the round, Adrian the first kill.
That's a bit devastating for five fears, they've lost their second best player.
Yeah, losing Snake is going to be a tough one, but it's always been kind of JJ
who's meeting the charge on these defenses, getting aggressive.
Not sure we'll see that as much now that he's playing this Chonka, but still.
Onus is on a wildcard to take this face. You cleared out one of these roamers.
Snake is often playing off this bomb site. It's not the one guy that you were expecting to walk down the site.
If you're gonna lose anybody, that's who you'd expect it to be.
Playing largely kind of around these windows and around this breach,
they're gonna breach between the bomb sites now.
It might open up an opportunity to get this pick. You're on to rival.
That's why he's playing so aggro on the bending window.
good damage and a kill straight back on to Adrien. It's quite late, but that'll be a trade to equal numbers back to four.
I mean getting her to Adrien is usually such a boony as taking a bit of a step back in this series.
Still an offensive threat to be sure. I mean he's got seven kills for crying out loud. It's good enough for
I guess four on the team. I guess that's technically not that great. Now the Flames will go.
Down goes Rival at the hands of Bay and JJ trying to keep this Monty from aggressing towards the bomb site
and now he will be harassed by that deathmark.
I'll go to flames, so Striker held in place.
JJ and Taganise from down below, finished off by Kansan.
Great teamwork here by Wildcard.
Fends with only three kills, four targets await him.
Would be a career-defining moment if he can get through all of them, especially
to clinch this kickoff, but...
Striker very wisely assesses he needs to push in.
Fence takes down Kansan.
This is winnable.
Striker puts the shield away.
He's just buying time though because on the left there's one more player Bay gets in on it as well all three looking to mob
Fens and they will get the final kill
We said eight seven we joked about it
We're going to the final round of regulation
Wildcard one round behind they can easily tie this in for long map to
Comes down to the information Parker comes down to wildcards flowing this game
Shutting down the aggressive moves, Adrien killing Snake at the end at the start there, but also spotting Forest out on the drone.
He was flanking down below. We saw it from I believe it's Kansans POV as they were trying to hunt him down.
But Baby Shark has the cutoff. No matter where these rumors go, they're very isolated. It ends up being with good enough information.
Free picks for Wildcard.
Gets very awkward at the end there. Fens actually ran out of warts in his clip with the TCSG, so there's no hope of him clutching that one.
one just an unfortunate weapon to be stuck within a 1v4 did his best but
ultimately it was those early picks that went the way of wildcard that helped
them to secure that round they need to be able to do that again keep an eye out on
the entry watch out for this information if they can spot an isolated
player on the side of wildcard and take them out before five fears get
aggressive and swarm the entry as a stack that's gonna be the win con they
have to be able to do it right here and right now to force the overtime
and try to force club us all according to plan the script's been written well
in advance wildcard move is map number one wins map number two we go to map
number three to see a thrilling conclusion but have the script writers
heard of JJ blast because this man he's asking for some revisions here to
the script and five fears only one more round they could potentially win
and overtime, Jesse. But why get there if you don't need to? Five years yet to
draw the map. The core of this team is that old Envy squad, the old identity of this
team, Snake having a terrific performance. I know people look at his tenure on that
old TSM roster and realize that he didn't quite live up to the world
championship squad that was there before him. But he's had his time in the
sun, and he's really made a name for himself. He arrived as a player that
very few knew up until a couple months ago, and now he's making a
name for himself as well while the rest of the supporting cast of 5 Fears is doing their
job. Well they've got one more job to do Jesse. Win this round while going to OT. Finish, kick
off 2-0 and be the best in North America. They've already qualified for the Major. They're
shaping up. You see one old card. One more round remains without OT.
It's got to finish with a bang. No real Rome presence in 5 Fears. They had Snake up
here earlier but he's rotated off back down towards the main floor as the information
was good from Wildcard. Last time they approached this bomb site, they tried to hit it horizontal,
they got swarmed on their entries, it didn't go their way. Hoping that with this top floor
control they can have a bit of an easier time into building. It's worked for them, but they
still got to make sure this execute worked. With the Thatcher, it should be able to get
opened up without any problems. There are two electroclaws dedicated to this hatch,
but both of them get cleared out without any problem. They can now go for a drop,
but watch out for the player inside of infirmary. It's going to be Fenz on that Azami
who could be so devastating to stop this drop.
They can knock pressure him out.
He's going to have a really good time denying any plant they try to go for.
I really like this top floor control now from Wildcard,
because they work their way through a bevy of distractions,
hopping over all of those hurdles,
and gaining information with some of these drones too.
Forest was tagged there as you saw on that drone,
and he's a leader of HP, and he might have gotten zapped.
They definitely want him.
All 10 players alive, Spiker getting Diffuse Kit down in the midst of the smoke.
Nobody knows, there's no protection here, but JJ finds him!
He might have just saved the round.
Wildcard down to just four players.
30 seconds left, Diffuse Kit will need to be retrieved,
so Wildcard's win con is now kill them all.
Find the remaining players on five feeters.
It's been a slog for this new look at the Wildcard team,
running up against an upstart squad
that very few people knew about.
Down goes JJ, but Tanzan gets traded out as well.
They'll continue to fight.
Thens now drop Baby Shark last one alive.
There's trouble in the waters.
Five fears searching for the final kill.
Baby Shark will get one, but that's it.
Five fears, but no worries, baby.
The best team in North America is the team so many doubted.
JJ Blast and Co.
The best and undefeated in the NAL kickoff.
He doesn't get a lot, but the ones he get,
They count Parker, JJ Blast denies the plant and single-handedly stops that push, dead in its tracks.
Wildcard put all of their utility into getting that plant down and at the last second JJ found the head.
They're going to Salt Lake City, their first place in the North American kickoff.
What a run, what a story from Five Fears.
Incredible series, Wildcard improving in front of our very eyes but just couldn't overcome the
That is five fears. They didn't drop a single map. What a run!
We'll see if it's Salt Lake City. We'll see Wild Card 2.
Let's hear what the desk has to say about that affair.
Well, what a crazy affair indeed. Five fears!
They're the best team in the North American League.
Kick-off and they do it destroying all the doubters,
going completely flawless lacks.
They did not drop a map.
Listen, I'm not a loss for words.
Honestly, I'm truly speechless.
I mean, even that last round, I mean, me and Fox were like, wow,
that is a great setup from Wildcard.
JJ just nearly gets out of that flashbang,
shoots into that smoke, gets that pick.
And I mean, like Justin said, he stops that entire strat
right then and there, and then they clean up house.
But I mean, throughout their entire series,
whether it was group stage or throughout kickoff,
I mean, they have made amazing strides,
especially for such how little time they've been together
and especially in an accelerated league
where you have to be on top of it,
you have to be improving.
And I'm just like everything that JJ has said,
that Forrest has said is coming to fruition.
I mean, JJ Blast to go from being orderless in the league
and them getting, you know, almost last place,
to then getting Anvi and just showing
what a little bit of support can get them
and now being on five fears
Dedicating as much time as any other T1 team and they get first place
I mean it just goes to show what a team to be able to take a risk on all of the rookie players that are watching
Trying to compete into T1 so inspirational that five fears is and also it goes to show that all of these teams that are currently in the
NAL hey all of these players that you have overlooked for years if you would have given them a little bit of trust
I mean, look at rival look at snake. I mean, these are the guys that have been major contributors for this team all stage long and it feels like they just haven't gotten that attention that they deserve given these performances MVP of the series is rival and well deserved.
I mean, such good performances across the board in this entire team.
entire team. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Rival also had that really big clutch in that 1v1.
It kind of gave me a flashback at SI with Jume inside the exact same spot. Having that
gun in play, I mean, it really is just fun to see these players develop and grow and
just see what they can showcase. And Rival is no exception. That snake is no exception
of that. All five of those players have all put in the exact same amount of work
and effort to get to where they are. It doesn't matter who we're highlighting.
with a team effort to get to this point. Well speaking of we have well the entire team I guess
they're all together in one place standing by for the interview we will welcome them in now rival
MVP of the match congratulations you make the Salt Lake City major on the same day you become the
champions of the NAL kickoff could this day get any better for you guys? Honestly I don't think
so I really do not think this day could get any better and for any of us in our careers
and like just how we've been through our whole time of siege I think this is the best day to ever come
until Salt Lake City and we go first place. Yeah, I mean
well obviously you guys have displayed a lot of amazing qualities for such a young team one of
them being you guys were iced out map one you had to wait you had to wait for game two to be
essentially over with and now you come back and it seems like you guys have been awake
the whole day at peak performance, how has that felt for your team as an experience and for you personally?
Well, considering we start every attack half at a disadvantage around 2-4, we know we have to go 5 straight.
So we usually take the first half off and then we come into the second half and we're like, all right, the game finally started.
We can start shooting, start clutching.
I think on cafe and fortress, it was just like a map.
Maps were really comfortable with and maps that we're able to play.
I think we weren't listening to ourselves on the attack half on defense. I think it couldn't have been more pure
I'm in we sure saw that and I wanted to ask more specifically
I mean the biggest change that you guys have made is picking up force bringing him in
Having one real veteran player to be able to give you guys all little tips and tricks
How much has that I mean it's clearly been a success but from your perspective how much has that helped you?
How much has that helped the team? How much of you guys help for us?
Well, we've helped Forest. I feel like we unlock Forest. I think we understand Forest.
I think we all buy in on Forest. He's had a bad label around him, I feel like. And we
all buy in. He's our guy. That's who we want. That's who we got. For all of us, it's incredible.
Just reviewing everybody and looking at teams that we're playing and the tips and tricks
that he teaches us because he's putting in these teams for years. I think whether
it comes to counter prep or counter shutting, something like that, I think Forest just
brings the end to it because he already knows what's going to happen. Every player
every player gets pointed out and something thing in certain things and like that just comes like oh wait this guy does this every single time
All right. Well force played that guy a million times. We know what to do before we know him better than another self and they don't know that yet
Let's figure it out for sure. Well rival I want to say congratulations. You absolutely deserve this moment
You have busted your ass off to get here
I want to ask you a personal question just like I asked JJ I mean when you look back at your career you look back of everything that you've
that you've gone through leading up until this point.
I mean, when you look at that from the start
and where you're at now, I mean,
just take me through all the emotions there.
I mean, you look at like my career, man,
it started in like, like,
like Element 1 was my first tier two thing, right?
I went through all the elements
and I felt like I was a misfit.
And then I found my best friend, right?
I found my best friend,
I've been playing with him for two years now.
And we have an unreal amount of just chemistry
and like belief in each other.
And I think like challenging like we all already said,
it was the last two wrong, right?
and qualified for pro league and a crew of misfits.
We got like me, Snake, JJ, right?
And then like we had a few others
and now we have Forest, Misfit, all the 100 Thieves deal.
Like this is just an incredible thing for my career, right?
And all of our careers, because who would have thought?
This five, this five is NAL a chance for kickoff.
Amazing.
Do you have any choice words for all of the teams
that said you guys are a crutch shield team
that you're not gonna be good?
All any words for those teams and for the teams that you're going to be facing in Salt Lake City?
You can answer this and you can also get JJ because I know he's going to give us something crazy
JJ you got any answer for teams that said we're double shield clutching hold on I got one thing all the only team
I got words for one of 30
Getting check bro three no count stays so far
See JJ hopping on the mic this could go any which way so we're gonna get ready get ready on the dump
It's like doing all the fun stuff.
JJ.
Hey, Cass.
Yeah, what's up, boys?
Hey, we just wanted to know if you
had any choice words for all the teams that we're seeing.
You guys were double shield crutches,
that you weren't going to be anything this stage.
Do you have any choice words for those teams?
No, man.
My head's down, man.
My head's down.
I just want to say we're humble and hungry around here.
We play, honestly, I think we played well below our standard
and playoff.
I think both games are sloppy and poor out of us, man.
so uh... coming i mean this is like uh...
we're just as i i don't play around with the force of the problems in the
season
workwork we're walking in for the the major but we got to be better than what we
should today
but then they're out
uh... fuck the narrative no one knows what they're talking about your
progress often to prove people wrong brother
did it thank you so much
it is at all ways of pleasure
uh... earlier
earlier saw the tweet you put out the last thing the last thing before you
go
uh... you mentioned how much this means for you and obviously that
Unity has eaten this up. I mean, can you just tell us again like
In your in your perspective right now making the major now and a I'll kickoff champions
In your shoes right now. What does that feel like?
It's just
It's in a feeling of emotions of everything just coming together and hard work paying off
I I put that my teammates didn't like it, but I put that tweet in the drafts two weeks ago
I knew we were gonna make the major. I knew we're gonna win
I thought tweet was in there the second we won. I just hit the draft and post
We worked our ass off, man, we're going for the major now, like this was the breakthrough
moment for us last year.
Last year we couldn't beat any of the top teams, last year we couldn't break through
the even McPlyos man, now we already broke through, we broke the major now, so it's
not going to be easy for me right now.
We're going to be going to international events.
There's a lot of great teams from across the world now, it's going to be another
learning experience, another curve and another hurdle to go over about, but we're going
to fight it and we're going to find a way to win, we're going to keep your
severe and we're going to be here all year long.
Hell yes JJ, thank you so much.
that in the drafts is a baller move. We will see you in Salt Lake, my friend. Congrats on a heck of a start of the year.
Love you guys. Thank you guys. Ballsack Nation, let's ride! I'll get to ride, baby. JJ takes the win.
Five fears, the celebration continue for them as they have had a heck of a playoff run and
lacks, I mean it is hard to believe that they feel like they have played well below according
to JJ, the standard they have for themselves. But if they can find what they believe themselves
to be capable of, really, what can stop these guys? I mean, it shows the growth, though. I mean,
they get the win, they get the championship, but they've looked back at it and still,
they don't believe that that's the true potential. And honestly, you shouldn't
be looking at that way as well. I mean, I'm not looking in the way that it's not a negative.
You can't have halves where you just only can rely on a defense, especially going into
international level. You need to be strong on your attacks. You need to be strong on your
defenses. So it is good that they acknowledge it and it shows the maturity on their side.
As we see there, I mean a beautiful bracket run for five fierce not dropping a single
map in the group stage. They did not drop a single map here in the bracket. They are
your NAL kickoff champions wild card a close second. They'll also be headed to the Salt
Lake City Major. But tomorrow you see on the lower bracket side that is where the
NAL kickoff will conclude with dark zero and SSG starting off the day at 2 p.m.
Eastern followed by Shopify rebellion and one of 30 and of course we will see
that final seating match take place after that but for our final day we're
gonna send some teams home we're gonna send two more teams to the major box
I mean that right there is a heck of a slate I mean there's two ways to more
goes is either gonna be the fastest day we've had all throughout the stage
or will be the absolute longest and the offsets will happen. We'll see SSG and 1 of 30 beating some Titan teams to make it the Salt Lake City.
So either way you cut it, it's going to be great. We're going to either have two amazing Titan teams making it to Salt Lake City, two up and coming rookie teams be able to make it or one or the other.
I'm just excited that we're going to get a chance to watch it all.
watch all. Yeah all these teams I mean you can just see the fire how badly they
want to make a major in their very own region something that you just don't
get the opportunity to do every day. So for everyone who joined us throughout
the broadcast today and all week long we still have one more day left in kick
off so do not go anywhere we're giving away some more tickets we're crowning
two more SLC major attendees tomorrow. So we want to thank you so much for
joining us tonight for Lynx XR Troika, Jesse and Tarot Foxe and
relaxing in our entire studio crew.
I'm Jonas Rillinger saying thanks for watching
and we will see you tomorrow as the action continues
at 2 p.m.
Have a good night.
So let's run it up!
I'ma keep it goin' till it ain't nothin' left!
I'ma keep it goin'
I'ma keep it goin' till it ain't nothin' left!