Banner: Ubisoft / Eric Ananmalay
Here is what Day 9 of the NAL looked like:
- TSM FTX 7 - 5 Spacestation Gaming
- Soniqs 7 - 4 Mirage
- Oxygen Esports 7 - 5 Astralis
- Beastcoast 8 - 7 Parabellum Esports
- DarkZero Esports 7 - 1 XSET
Player of the day: Rexen
The highest SiegeGG Rating of the day came in the most important game of the day, as Rexen secured a 1.71 SiegeGG Rating with 17 kills to six deaths against Mirage. That locked the Soniqs into a Six Major spot without needing Oxygen’s help in the following game.
This performance included two quadruple kills and a triple kill, as his kills made a massive difference in three rounds during their 7-4 victory.
Round of the day: Round 9 Esports - Oxygen vs Astralis
While no aces took place, the day did see seven quadruple kills. The most impressive of these came in the Oxygen vs Astralis game, which both sent Mirage to the Six Major and Oxygen to the Six Invitational.
Round nine saw both Forrest and Nuers get quadruple kills to leave the game in a 1v1 between Forrest and VertcL. Forrest swung out to get his ace, only to whiff seven of his nine pistol shots and was flicked 180 degrees to lose the 1v1.
With a 7-5 final scoreline to Oxygen, one more connected shot would’ve likely sent Astralis to overtime.
Surprise of the day: DarkZero
XSET vs DarkZero was the final game of Stage 3 in North America. While it had no impact on the final standings in any way, both teams had 11 points in sixth and seventh place after a thoroughly disappointing stage.
That is why a thumping by DZ over XSET was so surprising, as it showed a significant amount of fight from DZ. The game was over so quickly that not a single player passed 10 kills and XSET’s top fragger got the same amount of kills as DZ’s lowest fragger.
For XSET, they sat in third place just two weeks ago and have since won just five rounds in three games.
Top moments of the day:
Here's a quickfire rundown of other top moments in the NAL yesterday.
Final Standings
With the final play day done, here are the final Stage 3 standings in the NA League.
This means the five members of Mirage will attend their debut event at the November Major, while all four representatives have made it into the top four after making two roster changes in August.
Most Lethal Player: BlaZ
BlaZ’s 110-kill count throughout Stage 3 is the second-highest count seen in NA League history, just behind Nuers in Stage 1 this year.
It is, however, just the joint-seventh highest kills-per-round figure, with six other performances also hitting at least a 1.00 KPR figure during the 2021 season alone. Due to there only being nine NAL teams last year, they couldn’t hit the same kill tally but were on their way to doing so.
BlaZ is also notably the first player not on SSG, Oxygen, Soniqs, or DarkZero to break a 1.00 KPR frequency. While Parabellum’s next five months only include SI qualifiers, there is still a transfer window in December in which he could join a top team before SI 2023.
Oyxgen, DZ, and XSET reach the 2023 Six Invitational
While all three missed out on the Six Major, prior strong results meant they only needed a middling performance during Stage 3 to lock in an SI spot mathematically.
These three rosters, therefore, join Astralis in doing so, with Soniqs also likely to qualify given a reasonable November Major performance. These five, along with an open qualifier roster, means NA will likely have six representatives at SI 2023.
This notably means that TSM and SSG will fight over just one SI spot. Short of a statistical miracle, one of the last three SI-winning teams will miss out on the 2023 tournament. This could become two, should NiP not win the LATAM SI qualifier.
NA Finals
We still do not have any concrete information on if there will be North American League Finals this year, or what their format would be.
During the prior two seasons, the top four teams in the NAL have competed in a big-money LAN Finals to determine an overall champion. Soniqs won last year and TSM the year before that.
Should that happen again, the four competitors would be Astralis, Oxygen, DZ, and XSET, as they have the most points from across the three NA League stages. These four teams are also the ones already locked in for SI 2023, meaning they will not need to hide anything for the SI qualifiers that will likely take place around the same time.
A goodbye to production
