The Event
The group stages will start 10 AM EDT / 16:00 CEST across the Rainbow6 and Rainbow6Bravo Twitch accounts with the following schedule for the week:
The full event schedule via u/Jooooooob
The group stage will last from Monday until Wednesday, before the playoffs kick off on Friday and the best-of-five map grand final on Sunday. Sunday will also see the new DLC and esports panel in which we’ll see the reveal of the new two new operators hailing from Peru and Mexico as well as the reveal of the reworked Kanal map. The esports portion of the panel, meanwhile, will likely see the announcement of the second year of pilot program skins as 16 organisations receive new skins, charms, uniforms, and headgear.
Last year’s selection of pilot program cosmetics (via u/SlayerCR777)
Casting the event this time will be the mainly-American lineup of talent seen below with the notable exceptions from recent events of Matt Andrews and Devmarta. Replacing Matt, the usual stage host for R6 events is Goldenboy who in the last month alone hosted both the Fortnite World Cup and the Apex Legends EXP Invitational, while RaMz and Velly return to the analyst desk after a strong US Nationals appearance in place of Devmarta. For foreign language streams and casters, check out the Ubisoft blog here.
The talent for the event via Ubisoft.
Caster Predictions
To get an idea on what to expect we asked a number of notable casters, a few streamers and a member of each Pro League team from the three main regions as well as the top one from each APAC sub-region that isn’t playing in the tournament to predict who will finish first and second in their group, and who will take home the Major title:
The predictions from all 43 participants as well as the community and SiegeGG vote. For full resolution, click here.
This brings forward the following conclusions:
Group A
The groupings for the Major.
Probably the most obvious thing across everyone’s predictions is just how many people put Team Empire as coming out on top. Out of every single person polled the only person not to do so was Meligeni who picked the local Latin American talent of MiBR to top the group likely just to show support for the home teams. Empire’s dominance over the last year has made them one of the strongest favourites we’ve ever seen.
As for second place, the competition opens up much further with their almost being a tie between the Japanese roster of NORA who hopes to make it back to the semi-final after they fell to Empire there at the last Major and TSM who, while looks somewhat weak online has shown themselves to be a completely different beat at LAN.
The Group A predictions
Group B
As expected the three times Major and Pro League title winners of G2 Esports are the favourites to come out on top of group b very almost as confidently as Empire are in their own group. The only teams which are challenging them in their group are the two recent Minor winners of Team Secret and Rogue who, according to the majority, will make the fight for second place a close one.
The remaining team of CYCLOPS saw a number of people put them in second place in their group as they gained the support of all four APAC casters and two out of four APAC players asked, however, none of these saw fit to put them top in their group.
The Group B predictions
Group C
Next we have group c -- labelled “the group of death” by many -- which is once again led pretty comfortably by the top seed of Evil Geniuses. Unlike the two previous groups, however, there is a significant number of people who believe Giants Gaming (previously known as Looking For Org) can take the top spot away from them, with many of the rest believing they’ll come runners-up.
Below these two sits the promising LATAM and NA teams of SSG and NiP who, while they gained some support, are clearly the underdogs in this group according to this sample. Interestingly, however, the few supporters each team do have to finish first seem pretty spread out across the regions showing it isn’t purely support based on home favouritism.
The Group C predictions
Group D
To round out the groups we have D which definitely does seem to be the closest. Not only does the top seed of FaZe Clan have the lowest number of backers to finish top in their own group but we see a draw between Fnatic and DarkZero at 11 predictions each on who are effectively the second favourite in the group.
This draw is basically broken when you look at predicted runners-up as Fnatic narrowly beats out the current top-placed North American team of DarkZero to be the favourites between them to make it out of group d. Lastly, we have forZe who, despite being a definite underdog here had a number of people predict not just that they will make it out of groups but that they will top it as claimed by FuriouSG, LuKid and Mity.
The Group D predictions
Who Will Win?
Despite G2 winning the public predictions, Empire are the clear favourites across this sample with more than twice the number of people predicting the Russians to win the US Major than the closest team. Also of note here is that Giants Gaming has almost got the same number of votes as Evil Geniuses despite EG’s strong history at Majors. Finally, we have serious wildcare picks from Velly who picked Spacestation Gaming -- a team which just six people picked to get out of their group -- to win the whole event
The victor predictions
We also polled a selection of the staff here at SiegeGG as we’ve done before previous Finals to see what they think will be the outcome of the Major:
The SiegeGG Staff Predictions; For full resolution, click here.
The main differences here saw that while Empire were once again clear favourites to win over G2 (11 to 5), Evil Geniuses were very close behind at four votes while just a single person thought the Giants would win. There were also more picks to win the Major for the teams of DarkZero with two people behind them and NiP with a single pick once again.
To learn more about how each team has been preparing for the event check out our interview with the teams below:
- Shockwave: "We learn from the mistakes of others"
- Dizzle: "Fnatic vs TSM would be a great game"
- Karzheka and Dan: "Whoever steps up in the important moments wins"
- Risze: "No one scares us but we remain cautious"
- Shokei: "The IGL is dependent on each situation"
- BKN: "We have a formula for continued success"
- MeepeY: "Teams That Stagnate Get Left Behind"
- Pojoman: "Joining TSM is a huge deal"
- Gotcha: "Group C is called the 'Group of Death' because EG is in it"
- Astro: "Brazilian teams do not take scrims seriously"
- Papilia: "NORA-Rengo can still compete... ...even without Wokka"
- Pengu: "We are looking a lot stronger than before"
- Bosco: “[We are] focusing on our teamwork and communication more than anything”
- Psycho: "Our team has been very underestimated"
- Slashug: “We are confident against everyone in our group”
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And so that’s what to expect for the upcoming Six Major starting tomorrow as 16 teams play off for their share of the $500,000 prize pool. Keep an eye out here at SiegeGG for full results, highlights, roundups and statistics for every game of the major!