Siege esports is back for Stage 3, as all four region’s games began the same week.
One play day in the European, APAC North, and APAC South Leagues, as well as two games per team for the North American and Brazilian rosters all added up to a lot of action, so here’s a summary of the biggest stories of the week.
- #flag@20:nafta Parabellum Impresses as Team of the Week
- #flag@20:gb Leadr Beats Major Champions on Debut
- #flag@20:kr Yass Benched?
- #flag@20:br FaZe Clan spoil JULIO’s return to playing days
- #flag@20:au Knights have worst start of any team worldwide
Parabellum impress as Team of the Week
Last week SiegeGG calculated that Parabellum had the joint-hardest start to the season of any NA team. You wouldn’t be able to guess that by how well Parabellum sliced through both Oxygen Esports (7-4) and XSET (7-5), two teams which attended both the Charlotte and Berlin Majors.
While the team was led by their European import -- Alexandre "BlaZ" Thomas -- and Jameson "KoolAid" Lancaster was close behind, “Doq” also excelled on entry with a 4-0 record.
Next week, Parabellum face Spacestation Gaming and DarkZero, two NA titans who earned four points combined compared to PBLM’s six in their opening two games. With two more wins here, and with easier games against Mirage and beastcoast not yet played, Paraballum could in all effect lock in a top-four finish by Wednesday night.
Yass benched?
DWG KIA loaded into their game against Fnatic this week without their in-game-leader and, arguably, their star player -- Yoo "yass" Sang-hoon. Three days later, they also played their Korean Open game against TALON Esports without him.
DWG and Yass have not explained the change, with RIN stating (via a translator) that it was a “team personal reason” following their APAC North game.
Replacing yass was Park "PJH" Jae-hyun, who was best known as one of Korea’s top casters before he played for T1 in Stage 3 in 2021 and Stage 1 this year. He then became DWG KIA’s coach in May and helped the team to victory in APAC North’s Stage 2 and through their lacklustre Gamers8 and Berlin Major campaigns.
While they managed to win both their games this week and have a good chance to make it to the November Major even if yass doesn’t return, this could well be a major blow to APAC North’s most successful current team.
Leadr beats Major champions on debut
Out of the 27 debutants who stepped into the spotlight this week, the best performance came from Natus Vincere’s Jake "Leadr" Fortunato.
In his very first professional map, he hit a SiegeGG Rating of 1.46 to beat Rogue, the recently crowned Six Major champions, and Europe’s first champion in almost three years.
He also did this while playing Hibana, ending with a 12-7 kill-death spread, planting twice, and winning three clutches, two of which came back-to-back in overtime to end on a 8-6 result. This was Leadr’s show.
While players such as BDS’ LikEfac, TSM’s Gasher, and oNe’s L0BINN all also had standout weeks, few players have had such a statement of debut game since Shaiiko’s debut against PENTA Sports in 2017.
FaZe Clan spoil JULIO’s return to playing days
W7m vs FaZe has become somewhat of a grudge match in the BR6 League. As well as meeting in the Copa Elite Six final, they also fought to be Brazil’s representatives in the Berlin Major grand-final. FaZe Clan won both matches.
Now, w7m have replaced their in-game-leader with the ex-NiP World Champion and FURIA coach, Julio "JULIO" Giacomelli, who himself has a five year rivalry against FaZe.
Unfortunately for them, despite the change, the result stayed the same as a weak individual performance from JULIO clashed with a masterclass from FaZe’s captain Leonardo "Astro" Luis.
Taking FaZe to overtime is not a bad performance, but gaining the edge over FaZe of all teams was the whole point of the roster change gamble. They’ll be hoping that with a few more weeks to jive together, they’ll finally get the win in a potential Copa Elite Six rematch.
Knights had the worst week of any team worldwide
While they did have the hardest game of their season up first, Knights’ 1-7 loss against Elevate was both the joint most one-sided result of the week and included the second worst individual performance of the week, as Sageon ended with a 0.14 SiegeGG Rating.
This included a 0-7 kill-death spread and 0-2 entry spread, as his only statistical impacts in the game came from one survived round and one traded death.
Sageon, however, was not alone. The next two worst players in the league also came from Knights, while all five on the team ended in the bottom eight.
Elevate have shown themselves to be APAC South’s top dog, so whether this was just an outstanding performance from a LaXInG-coached Elevate or a very weak game for a Knights roster that just added in Matin "SpeakEasy" Yunos from Invictus Gaming, won’t be known until next Wednesday when Knights play a much easier opponent, FURY.
