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Week 3 of Stage 2 took place last week, as all four regions kicked into gear.
Following most of these games were interviews with the victorious teams, so for those that missed them, we've summarised the best quotes and responses from the players below.
Jump to:
- EU League -- "Renshiro injured his neck -- a nerve injury"
- NA League -- "Even on their best days, TSM seems beatable"
- Brasileirão -- " FaZe weren't playing really great strategies, they were just rushing"
- APAC Leagues -- "This is the strongest lineup we've fielded"
All the quotes below are extracts of the interview, not the full conversation. A timestamp to the full interview can be found linked with the quote.
EU League
This week was a super-week in Europe, meaning that there were a total of 10 games and 10 team interviews, giving us a lot of valuable insight.
The games themselves saw the same teams -- BDS, Na'Vi, G2, Empire, and V.p -- gain six points with fairly clear wins as they dominated the top half of the standings in that order.
Firstly, Mees "eaglemees" van der Arend came on behalf of the new league leaders BDS Esport and clarified his role in the team as an analyst rather than coach:
As well as this, he also talked about the week prior's loss against Team Vitality:
Next up was Empire. Following a 7-5 victory over Vitality, Danil "JoyStiCK" Gabov had this to say when asked about his team's apparent fall in performance when playing online:
After Na'Vi's win, meanwhile, Jack "Doki" Robertson stated the following about how the team spent their long break during the Six Invitational:
As well as this, Doki explained Rickard "Secretly" Olofsson's newly increased impact on the team:
On the flip side, here's what Secretly said about Doki after Na'Vi's 7-3 win over Cowana Gaming on playday four:
NA League
Next up, North America which this week had four really interesting games.
Firstly we had an 8-7 from XSET over beastcoast, in what was widely titled "the worst match in NAL history".
Following this were the two "big-four" teams of SSG and OxG facing-off, which ended up being a 7-1 trouncing in Spacestation's favour. DarkZero then took down the Soniqs in their fourth overtime win in five games.
The final game was also the only game that had an interview. Following a shock 8-6 win for Mirage over TSM FTX, Chase "NotLoading" Neely had this to say about the game:
Earlier in the day before this game, Mirage also released another behind the scenes documentary video in the Northern Lights series, which gave us a further look at the team. The episode also gained a lot of attention as it showed some of the lows on the team following their 1-7 loss to SSG.
Brasileirão
In Latin America, the BR6 League this week saw the notable upset of MIBR getting stomped 7-2 against INTZ due, in part, to Budega still standing in for FelipoX on the roster.
Elsewhere, almost all the results went in favour of the favourites, with the lone exception of the Black Dragons who managed to beat NiP 8-6 and FURIA 7-4. Unfortunately, neither of these games were followed by an English-language interview.
NiP's following game after this loss was against FaZe Clan on Sunday in what is always one of the most anticipated games of the season. While their prior loss gave FaZe fans confidence, the match ended with a clear 7-3 scoreline on Clubhouse, where Psycho excelled.
Julio "Julio" Giacomelli said this about their play style against FaZe in particular:
The day prior, Team Liquid had also won against W7M by a 7-3 scoreline. The W7M roster also includes its ex-coach of mav, who was kicked following an abuse investigation.
Team Liquid's coach of Adenauer "Silence" Alvarenga had this to say about the team:
APAC Leagues
Finally, we had APAC, starting with the North sub-region.
This week saw Cloud9 pick up their first point of the season after going up 6-0, only to lose 6-8 to FAV gaming.
As well as this, CAG continued their winning streak against DWG 7-4, FNC smashed T1 7-2, and TALON upset GUTS with a 7-4 win.
Looking at the Fnatic game, this now puts them in third place, with more than twice the points of fifth place. As such, the Australians are likely well on their way to another APAC Playoff appearance.
Here's what Etienne "Mag" Rousseau had to say about the game:
He went on to say:
Over in APAC South, meanwhile, Play Day 3 saw a very unusual set of results as the bottom three teams -- Wildcard, ORDER, and Chiefs -- all won their matches, while Qconfirm kept their flawless record against second-placed Knights.
Looking at the last two games, ORDER vs Elevate and Chiefs vs iG both ended in tight 8-7 scorelines to the Oceanic teams, with these being the first points of the stage for both lineups.
This, therefore, means that this was the first time we've heard from these teams, with ORDER's Ryan "Speca" Ausden in particular stating the following:
Week 4 will kick off its games tonight with the EUL, followed by NAL on Wednesday, an APAC super-week from Tuesday to Friday, and then the BR6 tournament over the weekend.
SiegeGG will be covering all these tournaments as usual so check back for stats, news, and highlights for your favorite teams!