Week 1 of Stage 3 took place last week, as all four regions kicked off Stage 3.
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 -- "I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets rookie of the year to be honest"
- NA League -- "We have a very good chance at winning against TSM"
- Brasileirão -- "They just got resetz to do muringa’s stuff and AsK do sexy stuff"
- APAC Leagues -- "We’re not really sure why we won"
EU League
Starting in Europe, this stage saw three new players enter the EUL on Rogue, Cowana, and Heroic.
Starting with Rogue, joining the team was Kevin “Prano” Pranowitz, who had recently played on the GAMMA GAMING roster. In his debut match for Rogue, the team pulled off a crucial 8-6 win over Virtus.pro, which may be key in escaping the auto-relegation spot and overtaking Heroic in ninth.
After introducing fans to Bruce, the Rogue kitten, Leon "LeonGids" Giddens explained the choice to sign prano as follows:
After VP’s loss, the second Russian squad of Empire also suffered a defeat. Despite recently finishing in the runners-up spot at the Mexico Major, Empire was seemingly overwhelmed by Cowana Gaming rookie Benjamin "Benjamaster" Dereli, who had 19 kills across the 8-7 win.
Murat "Mrofficer88" Motevalli explained exactly why they chose to take this risky pickup who just turned 18 three weeks ago:
The following play day, Cowana repeated this performance with an 8-7 win over the EUL 2021 leaders, Na’Vi, despite Benjamaster dropping down to fourth on his team by SiegeGG Rating.
Sloth responded to a question about Empire’s bans, stating:
Finally, the newly picked up Heroic roster (previously known as TrainHard) also debuted a new player in Pedro “Thuunder” Muniz, but this didn’t go as well as it would have hope.
Heroic lost 6-8 against Team Secret in the final game of the day, featuring a 0.64 Rating from Thuunder himself on the operators Hibana and Smoke. As a result, the Brazilian had been benched for play day two.
This meant that Heroic's crucial game against Rogue included another new player: Brice “Shoukri” Mahmoud. Despite Shoukri’s team-topping statistics, Rogue still managed to get a win, 7-4.
As such, barring some major upsets, it seems that Heroic will almost certainly end the stage auto-relegated down to the Challenger League.
NA League
In North America, week one saw seven games over two play days. One of the most important games of the whole stage started on day one, as the two altered lineups of XSET and beastcoast faced each other in what many expected to be the battle to escape relegations.
Beastcoast managed to win this game, 7-4, with its newest member “YungAlec” excelling with a 1.60 SiegeGG Rating in his professional debut.
Velly then spoke to YungAlec, who said the following about his performance:
Elsewhere, while Soniqs beat Astralis and SSG beat Mirage as expected, a surprise result featured OxG beating TSM 7-3 on Clubhouse. This continues a winning streak for OxG against TSM, with 7-3 and 7-5 scorelines in Stages 1 and 2.
The following day saw three more games, with Soniqs’ 7-5 victory over Spacestation Gaming on Coastline being the standout result after SSG’s almost flawless Stage 2.
During the post-game interview, Alexander "Yeti" Lawson stated that the Soniqs had not changed too much from Mexico for the NAL:
This result puts Soniqs tied in first with Oxygen, a situation that had also manifsted in Stage 1, while TSM, XSET, and Mirage are yet to get on the board.
Brasileirão
Over in Brazil, the very first game was a must-watch, as Liquid showed off its two newest members Gabriel "AsK" Santos and Pablo "resetz" Oliveira in place of João "HSnamuringa" Deam and Thiago "xS3xyCake" Reis.
While it took till round 15, Liquid defeated NiP to start its campaign well, and resetz topped the scoreboard with a 1.23 SiegeGG Rating.
Following this, Liquid then lost on Chalet 7-8 in its second game against FaZe, who had needed this win after a weak Stage 2 and an opening loss against Santos the day prior.
In the interview, Gabriel "cameram4n" Hespanhol spoke about playing Chalet despite it being one of Liquid’s preferred maps:
Additionally, cameram4n said the following about how his team prepared for the game when Liquid had two new players:
One of the surprise performers during week one was Santos who, after adding in Filipe "mgN" Dutra for Nicolas "destiny" Alves, managed to beat both FaZe (8-6) and NiP (7-5).
When asked about the player change, Renato "rhZ" Costa stated the following:
Finally, the two biggest breakout teams in the world this year, FURIA and oNe, met last week. FURIA shocked viewers as it stomped the Mexico Major winner 7-3 on Coastline, with Marlon "Twister" Mello stating the following at the end:
APAC Leagues
Finally, we have APAC. Starting with APAC North, there was somewhat of an upset, as the ex-Cloud9 roster, mantisFPS, beat the leading APAC team, CYCLOPS, by a 7-5 margin on Oregon.
Via a translator, Dongseon "SyAIL" Song said this about the game:
Straight after this result, Fnatic pulled off the first 7-0 of the stage over T1, as Léo "Alphama" Robine returned to the roster in place of now-sixth man Jason "Lusty" Chen.
Etienne "Mag" Rousseau came into the post-game interview very confidently, stating:
Over in APAC South, the two Thai rosters that had been a hair away from qualifying for the Mexico Major both struggled at the first hurdle, as Elevate lost to Chiefs (7-3) and QConfirm fell to iG (7-5).
Chiefs’ Raine "Dgtl" Wright spoke about the team's newest player, former Wildcard Gaming captain Ethan Picard:
While Invictus’ Glen "Lunarmetal" Suryasaputra spoke about how his team's international experience is helping it:
SiegeGG will be covering all these tournaments as usual so check back for stats, news, and highlights for your favorite teams!