Elevate has now ventured to a third region in Rainbow Six with the signing of the Onyxian 2.0 roster, formerly known as Oddity Esports. Furthermore, Trent "Worthy" Mitchell Rose has been brought in place of the departing Jonathan "Gio" Lanciana. Also announced together is the position of Patrick "Warturtle" Gleeson as an analyst for the team, a role he has been on since the start of the season.
Both pick-ups come just two weeks prior to the restart of Season 11 of the Pro League, where the team will be gearing up to close out the season with qualification to the APAC Finals. However, despite its strong position in the league right now, nothing is guaranteed yet -- something this new Elevate team will be acutely aware of.
Onyxian 2.0, then Oddity Esports, had a stellar Season 10 campaign all the way until the final play day, where things went very wrong for the team. Needing six points across two maps against the struggling FURY, who was second-last, it seemed that Oddity was a lock-in for the APAC Finals over Wildcard Gaming. Unfortunately, Oddity faltered in the very first map, losing it and a chance at an APAC Finals debut. Instead, not only did Wildcard qualify for the APAC Finals, it also made it to the Pro League Finals and got within one round of beating the eventual champions of Natus Vincere.
To know more about the move and pickup, SiegeGG spoke to team captain Isaiah "Vast" Smith-Patterson:
Your team loses Gio, but gains Worthy from Kanga. How did these changes come about?
This change was a mutual decision -- Gio wanted to see if there was an opportunity on a different team he could pursue and we wanted to not waste any time, as having to pickup a new player is a long process that initially does come with some setbacks. We see a lot of potential in Worthy, we believe that with our experience we can shape him into a really good player in time.
Any role changes to come?
Not really, Worthy has fit right into his roles. This was an easy transition because he played the same roles and operators on Kanga.
Given the statistics for Gio so far this season -- rated at 1.12, 68% HS on Buck/Valkyrie -- while Worthy was rated 0.84 on Zofia/Jaeger and had a 0.15 SRV and 0.53 KPR, some might feel that this change is a downgrade. What do you have to say to that?
We don't feel that it's a downgrade at all. During this process of picking up Worthy, we were thinking long term rather than looking at his current performance. This is his first season of Pro League and he was playing for a team that you would consider to be a mid/lower tier team in ANZ PL. We weren't looking at his stats rather what his attitude is like, if he can gel with the team and how he takes criticism. He met all those criteria and we were more than happy to work with him.
Your team has very nearly secured qualification to the APAC Finals after a painful miss last season. How are you gearing up to get across the line this time?
The old roster when playing for Oddity Esports. Only Vast (first from right), redd (second from right), and God Legion (third from left) remain with the team now. (Photo: Oddity Esports) Missing the last APAC Finals was heartbreaking for us. This season, redd, God Legion and I have used it as motivation to ensure that we don’t make those same mistakes. I feel like we got through the biggest hurdle this season, which was having to use our coach for the super week. We feel more confident facing the higher tier teams in ANZ and we feel confident with our roster leading into the next half of the Pro League.
You have also signed with Elevate. How does that feel?
It’s such a good feeling, we’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this for a very long time and it feels like our hard work will finally be rewarded. This has been a huge motivational boost for the team and an incentive to work even harder.
Online perception of Elevate has been less-than-stellar, do you have any concerns?
The team doesn’t have any concerns whatsoever, at the end of the day this is a business and the team gets along very well with the Elevate staff. We are grateful for this opportunity and we intend to work with Elevate for a long time.
What kind of support will you be getting from Elevate and how much help do you see it being?
Elevate are giving us full support, which involves a competitive salary, bootcamps, and the opportunity to grow within the R6 ecosystem on a bigger scale. They want this team to succeed and they are more than happy to provide whatever we need to do so. Bootcamps are what the team felt we needed the most out of an org -- we felt that it could help us break our skill barrier. This is the first time the team has had support like this, so I’m unsure how long it will take for the support to show in our results. We won’t be getting complacent -- if anything we will be putting in more work and taking our careers more seriously.
After last season's failure, the roster parted ways with Oddity just two days prior to the start of Season 11 of the Pro League after having swapped Todd "Todd" Francis and Vincent "Vinnie" Danielle for Raine "Dgtl" Wright and Jonathan "Gio" Lanciana. Since then, the team has been doing well, having had seven wins and just one loss across seven maps so far. As such, this new Elevate roster finds itself in second place after the first split of the Pro League, three points ahead of TBD and nine points ahead of Wildcard Gaming.
So far in the season, the entirety of Onyxian 2.0 has been on point, with Gio having secured a seventh-best 1.12 rating primarily on Buck and Valkyrie so far. Not only that, he has had the third-highest headshot percentage in the league at 68%, and has been tied for third-best on his team. As such, his loss will be felt on this new Elevate team.
The statistics featuring Onyxian 2.0 and Worthy for the first half of Season 11 of the Pro League in ANZ
Elevate's new signing, Worthy, on the other hand, has not been nearly as good on paper. He has been the ninth-lowest rated player in the league at 0.84, but has gone +3 on Opening Duels despite having a -13 Kill-Death delta primarily on Zofia and Jaeger. What will be a key point of improvement for him on Elevate, however, is the 15% survival rate and a 0.53 kills-per-round value.
Now with Elevate, though, the team will be getting a lot more support in the run up to a possible remedy for last season -- qualification to the APAC Finals. Elevate, for its part, has been a familiar face in Rainbow Six since 2016. It first saw success in 2017, when its Xbox roster in NA won the inaugural Six Invitational, and very nearly saw a repeat in Season 5 of the Pro League when its team -- now on PC -- made it to the grand final of its second Pro League Finals in a row. After losing that team to Counter Logic Gaming, another North American team was picked up but saw little success.
Two Brazilian Pro League squads then followed, in Season 10 and the first half of Season 11. However, after the recent reveal that the Brazil division in the post-Season 11 competitive format will be comprised of the 10 teams qualified for the BR6 2020, it meant that this second Brazilian squad would not be included. As such, the organisation parted ways with that roster in February and has now signed what seems to be one of the two ANZ APAC Finalists this season.
Now, the new Elevate team will be back in action on the 19th of March against Wildcard Gaming with the following roster:
Isaiah "Vast" Smith-Patterson Trent "Worthy" Mitchell Rose Raine "Dgtl" Wright Jake "God Legion" Harris Luke "Redd" Cini Emrys "Sinnix" Clegg (Coach) Patrick "Warturtle" Gleeson (Analyst)
