Ubisoft Australia has announced that the Six Oceanic Cup will be held as an offline-only event, with VODs of the games only being released later on a yet unknown date. This news follows the identical ruling for the ANZ (Australia-New Zealand) Pro League, which also did not have its 11th and 12th play days streamed. It is presumed that this news comes as a result of the events in Christchurch last week.
The news comes as somewhat of a surprise, given that the A$25,000 (US$17,700) LAN event is tied with the Six Masters 2018 for the biggest-ever in the ANZ region in terms of prize money. It is also tied for the second-biggest non-Pro League LAN in the entirety of APAC, behind only the Six Challenge Korea.
SiegeGG reached out to Ubisoft Australia and ESL for comment, but there was no official statement forthcoming about the decision.
Even though the event will not be streamed live, it will still be taking place tomorrow, the 23rd of March, from 10 AM AEDT (GMT+11) onwards.
Six Oceanic Cup
Of the eight teams that made it to the playoffs stage, four had qualified by finishing in the top-four for the online-only, A$5000 (US$3500) Summer Series earlier this year. These four teams -- 0RGL3SS (ex-Athletico Esports), Mindfreak (ex-Dark Sided), Ex Nihilo (ex-Mindfreak), and Off the Grid Esports (OTG) -- had followed the ANZ giants Fnatic, who themselves had qualified by winning the Six Masters 2018.
Zero Gravity Esports (ZG) and Team Equinox, on the other hand, had qualified through the New Zealand Qualifiers after fighting off four other teams. Most impressively, though, the almost entirely under-18 squad of Extricity had made it through afterwards via the aptly named Last Chance Qualifier -- no small feat, as the two Pro League squads of Oddity Esports and Avant Gaming had also been participating in the qualifier.
In the quarter-finals, held online on the 16th of March, three of the four Pro League teams in 0RGL3SS, Ex Nihilo, and Fnatic progressed with ease, securing 2-0 victories against Equinox, OTG, and ZG, respectively. The pattern was disrupted, though, when the young guns on Extricity made it to the LAN finals instead, defeating Mindfreak 2-0.
What is the format?
With four teams going, the one-day event will have three Best-of-Three (Bo3) games -- two semi-finals, followed by the grand final.
In the first semi-final, Extricity will be going up against 0RGL3SS first -- pitting Jonathan “Giovanni” Lanciana against his brother, Joey “JoeyG” Lanciana -- before Fnatic will take on Ex Nihilo. The event will then conclude with the grand final, with many predicting 0RGL3SS and Fnatic to be the two teams fighting it out.
Of the two, it could be anyone's game, with 0RGL3SS having defeated Fnatic before, and with the Australian titans having had a somewhat worse Pro League season than would be expected of them with four maps drawn out of ten. The two will also be meeting each other on the final Pro League play day of this season, and will essentially be playing for seeding since both have qualified for the Season 9 APAC LAN in Sydney.
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The results for the scheduled games will be released as the games happen on the ESL Rainbow Six and Rainbow 6 ANZ Twitter accounts, and game VODs will be uploaded at a later date.
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