With the announcement of the future of the North American League and, specifically, the Canadian Division of the tournament, the Montréal-based organisation of Mirage has acquired a star-filled lineup to compete in the league.
Captaining this team is the ex-Challenger League player from the Season 10 lineup of Shrug and caster for the 2019 Six Invitational, Season 9 and 10 Pro League Finals, and 2018 US Nationals, Rob "Flynn" Flynn. Joining Flynn on the team are a number of ex-Pro and Challenger League players, as well as a few fresh names.
Firstly we have the ex-Pro League player from Year 2 of Kyle "zilchy" Wrigglesworth, who made it to the Season 4 quarter-finals alongside Pojoman, Hotancold, and Mint on Flipsid3 Tactics. Next up is Chase "NotLoading" Neely, Flynn's teammate from Shrug who played in Seasons 9 and 10 of the Challenger League. While being an American, he can play due to an allowance of a maximum of one American allowed in the Canadian league.
Finally, we have the two relatively new players of Peter "Silent" Christie-Cnossen and Alexandre "quartz" Moranta, who both have little prior experience as they both had only recently turned 18. The five players now join the organisation of Mirage ahead of the Canadian Division's Pro League qualifiers on May 30-31st.
To know more about the signing, SiegeGG spoke to Flynn:
Could you introduce your team to us?
After your time in the Challenger League and behind the desk of many an event, you now come back swinging as a dedicated competitive player. How did you decide this is what you wanted to do?
Signing with Mirage prior to the qualifiers themselves is a certain show of confidence. How certain are you of becoming one of the four Canadian Division teams?
What is your opinion of the future path Rainbow Six is taking, inside North America and globally as well?
What made you settle on Mirage as the organisation to sign with?
Mirage has previously competed in Seasons 1 and 2 of the Canadian Nationals in 2018, where they finished in fifth and sixth with a completely different lineup.
Outside of R6, they also hold teams in games such as Rocket League -- where they finished joint fifth at DreamHack Montreal 2018 and competed in their equivalent of the Challenger League -- Fortnite, Rocket League, Smash Ultimate, League of Legends, and Clash of Clans.
Most recently, however, the organisation was acquired by Northern Arena, the tournament organiser who ran the first three Canadian National events back in 2018.
As many of the well known Canadian names are aiming to stay within the US Division of the North American League, this makes this lineup likely the favourites within the Candian subregion. Should they qualify for the four-team Canadian Pro League tournament, the team will then be playing "in lockstep with the US Division's tournament schedule" in weely best-of-three matches.
Winning this tournament will both qualify them for the Regional Qualifiers each Stage where they can win a spot at the following Major while also earning themselves Global Standings Points to go towards the Six Invitational leaderboard.
As well as this lineup, 17 other teams have signed up to the qualifiers as well, the most notable of which being "Squires" which includes the American ex-CCS champion who's previously played on both Disrupt Gaming and Rise Nation in Mason "DotD4sh" Brasher.
This Mirage team will likely be one of the most important Canadian teams to play at a professional tier, and one which will hopefully lead to increased competition and viewership within the newly revamped Canadian scene. The players will thus first be in action in a weeks time with the following lineup:
Rob "Flynn" Flynn Kyle "zilchy" Wrigglesworth Alexandre "quartz" Moranta Peter "Silent" Christie-Cnossen Chase "NotLoading" Neely
