At long last, it is time.
The Six Invitational kicks off tomorrow, three months later than initially planned and 5500 kilometers away from its traditional home of Montreal. Disappointingly, both Wildcard Gaming and Virtus.pro will not be seen at the event due to COVID-19, but the fans’ appetite for it has been whet for over a year and a half.
As we count down the final 12 hours, here’s some interesting trivia you may or may not have known.
Most SI Matches Played By An Organisation
Despite players being the faces of the scene, the game would be nothing without organisations backing the rosters.
As time has gone by, many more organisations have joined the scene. In total, we have seen 39 different organisations make it to Six Invitational over the years.
The list will now grow to 45, as Cloud9, Oxygen Esports, Team oNe, Cyclops Athlete Gaming, Mkers, and Parabellum will be taking part in the fifth edition.
Right now, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Liquid and Spacestation Gaming are the organisations with the highest number of appearances in Six Invitational, even ahead of G2 Esports. If we counted PL Finals and Majors, however, G2 would be first with 22 appearances, followed by FaZe Clan (17), Ninjas in Pyjamas (16), Team Liquid (16), and Team Empire (16).
Most SI Appearances By A Single Player
Things change when we look at the player stats. Only four players have participated in every PC Six Invitational; Troy “Canadian” Jaroslawski, Tyler “Ecl9pse” McMullin, Leonardo “Astro” Luis, and Gabriel “cameram4n” Espanhol.
Meanwhile, the trio of Alexander “Skys” Magor, Dylan “Bosco” Bosco, and Gabriel “LaXInG” Mirelez had also played in the 2017 event on the Xbox One.
It is also worth noting that the Brazilian trio of João “Kamikaze” Gomes, Gustavo “Psycho” Real and Julio “julio” Giacomelli will be making their fourth appearance together at a Six Invitational, having represented Black Dragons in 2018 and Ninjas in Pyjamas in 2019 and 2020.
Meanwhile, the FaZe duo of Astro and cameram4n will be playing its fifth Six Invitational together, with this being the only duo that has played in the same roster in every Six Invitational until now.
Most SI Maps Played By A Single Player
Only 12 players have played 30 maps or more.
If we look at games played, Canadian leads by a margin of three matches. The current Spacestation Gaming player lifted the hammer for Continuum in his first appearance in the tournament before repeating his success a year ago.
However, the difference gets bigger if we look at maps. The Spacestation Gaming man has played 52 maps at the Invitational, being the only professional to cross the half-century mark.
In total, only twelve players have played 30 maps or more, which include three other Six Invitational champions; Niclas “Pengu” Mouritzen (36), Fabian “Fabian” Hällsten (36) and Juhani “Kantoraketti” Toivonen (31).
In terms of games, both Fabian and Pengu are tied at 14 games with Ecl9pse and João “Kamikaze” Gomes, Gustavo “Psycho” Real and Julio “JULIO” Giacomelli.
The historical duo of Pengu and Fabian are the two players with the highest win-rate, mainly because of their performances at SI 2018 and 2019.
It is also worth noting the absence of Astro and cameram4n, as the two miss out despite having played in every single SI. However, with a best finish of joint-seventh, the absence is not too surprising.
Highest SI Win Percentages
Looking next at the highest win percentages at the Invitational (for a minimum of 10 games played), the duo of Fabian and Pengu lead the way after two wins each.
However, if including their former (now retired) teammates, Joonas “jNSzki” Savolainen and Daniel “Goga” Mazorra hold an impeccable record of 10 wins out of a possible 10 after having played in and won the only two Invitationals they had been a part of. The Finn and the Spaniard have only lost four maps, three against Evil Geniuses and one against Spacestation Gaming, and two of them in overtime.
Special mention goes to Alec “Fultz” Fultz, too, as he played and won in his first-ever Invitational last year. However, the American has only played six matches, excluding him from the list.
Despite the high flyers, a few players are still winless in the competition, with Valentin “risze” Liradelfo being the clearest -- and cruelest -- example. The Belgian player lost all six matches played across 2018, 2019, and 2020, having won only one map out of 12.
While he will not get a chance to improve his record this year, the winless Giants Gaming roster will. The team from the Red Dot lost both its Six Invitational games in 2020, which added to Lunarmetal’s and Ysaera’s loses with Team Envy in 2017, Singapore is still looking for a first Six Invitational win. A similar thing can be said about Cloud9, as some of their current professionals played for mantisFPS two years ago.
Of those with 10 or more matches played, there are the current Team Liquid players of nesk, xSexyCake and the current FaZe Clan player of bullet1. However, Brazilian teams’ record in the competition is fairly poor overall, with Ninjas in Pyjamas being the only LATAM team to reach a SI Final.
Miscellaneous Trivia
That's right, there's more fun stats to go around.
Virtue at the Six Invitational 2020 with Fnatic.
- Jake “Virtue” Grannan will be the first player to have competed at the Six Invitational with two teams from different regions (Six Invitational 2020 with Fnatic, Six Invitational 2021 with G2 Esports).
- If we were to count coaches, Adenauer “Silence” Alvarenga would be the fifth professional to have competed at every Six Invitational, as he played for Santos Dexterity in 2017 and coached FaZe in 2018 and Liquid in 2019 and 2020.
- Italy will be the 26th nation represented in a Six Invitational.
- For the first time, there will not be any German player competing at the Six Invitational.
- After Fnatic failed to qualify and Wildcard Gaming withdrew due to the pandemic measures in Australia, the SI 2021 will be the first one since 2017 without an Oceanic roster.
- Before the Six Invitational 2021, 162 players had actually been part of at least one Invitational. This year’s edition will have 37 debutants and the list will increase to 199.
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Catch the Six Invitational 2021, starting tomorrow at 11 AM CEST (UTC+2), live from Paris, France, as we gear up for the first international event in over a year.