Banner image: Ubisoft/Kirill B.
Team oNe crushed a COVID-19 addled DarkZero Esports 2-0 (7-3, 7-2) today.
DarkZero’s Paul “Hyper” Kontopanagiotis and Brandon “BC” Carr tested positive for COVID-19, and all players were thus relegated to playing the match from their hotel rooms. Hyper later stated that he tested negative for COVID-19 on a PCR test. The location of the other DarkZero members was not publicly disclosed.
Team oNe’s miraculous story continues with the massive win. Before this victory, the Brazilians needed a 7-2 scoreline during the group stage against CAG to push the Korean side to a tiebreaker map. The improbable happened, Team oNe got their 7-2 and won the subsequent tiebreaker map to take a spot in the quarterfinals. “The feeling in a match where you can’t lose one round... it’s something absurd,” said Karl “Alem4o” Zarth.
Team oNe bulldozed their way onto Villa, racing out to a 4-0 lead on their attacking half, which led to a quick 7-3 victory. Similarly, oNe started fast on Chalet with a 3-0. Chalet’s start was different, though -- all three opening rounds were decided by oNe battling back from down man counts.
Particularly, Juliano “Levy” Andrade dos Santos was excellent. He pulled out two separate 1vX clutches, and notched 1.25 kills per round against DarkZero. DZ did not have a single player pull over a .95 SiegeGG Rating during the match, a stark contrast from their excellent group stage. While COVID-19 wasn't the sole cause for DarkZero's loss, it's hard to imagine that there was no negative effect on the North Americans.
Alem4o credits his team’s accurate mid-round calls and communication, especially when he and Lorenzo “Lagonis” Volpi are dead, for his team’s ability to pull back extremely negative man-counts. He also says that anyone on his team has the individual skill to bring back any round at any time, which helps tremendously.
“We have momentum right now,” Alem4o said. “... After the tiebreaker victory against Cyclops, we are ready for anything.”
Now, Team oNe and budding international star Alem4o are in the semifinals of the Mexico Major, and awaiting tomorrow’s match against Team Liquid. One semifinal is all-Brazilian, the other all-European. Question is, which permutation of a grand final will we see?