Roundtable: Four big storylines heading into the Six Invitational

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David Via: First LATAM international debutants since FURIA Esports in SI 2021

Last year’s main storyline was without a doubt Brazil’s take over of the Siege scene. We must look back to the Six Invitational 2020 to find a non-Brazilian winner, as Spacestation Gaming emerged international champions. 

Despite this being a change to the EU and NA dynamic, the majority of the Brazilian representation hasn’t changed a single bit. 

MIBR has gone through many obstacles this year, but far from changing its main line-up, the team decided to bring a sixth player in Luiz “SKaDinha” Salgado just in case something goes wrong again. FURIA Esports and Team oNe remain untouchable, considered to be the future of the country – two incredibly young, talented, and now experienced players. 

All of that sounds like a bad joke compared to the region’s three colossals, FaZe Clan, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Team Liquid, who have cores that have gone through absolutely everything Siege has to offer as an esport – deception, success, international glory, among others. 

But there are two names that will be making their international debuts this week, something we haven’t said of Brazil since SI 2021. Pablo “resetz” Oliveira and Gabriel “AsK” Santos have merged with the team, but are yet to play a Siege game outside their country.

With becoming BR6 champions after defeating Ninjas in Pyjamas in a BO5 series, these two kids are ready to shake the international scene alongside the almost three-years-old core formed by André “NESKWGA” Oliveira, Luccas “Paluh” Molina, and Paulo “psk1” Augusto. 

Hunter Cooke: How large of a role will COVID testing and positive tests play?

So far, there are six total teams that are affected in some fashion by COVID-19 testing at the sixth Six Invitational. Natus Vincere, Oxygen, Elevate, NiP, Team Empire, and FURIA are all dealing with complications due to positive tests. NiP and Oxygen aren’t all too affected – their positives came from their coaches, per tweets. Elevate, FURIA, Empire, and NAVI will be affected more – they had players test positive, according to tweets and testimony from Paramin "Onigiri" Suwanwattana. 

Not having all five of your players in the same room is a disadvantage when playing teams with all five players in the same room, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The degree of disadvantage remains to be seen – with players spending so much time in online play due to COVID, it makes sense for them to be a lot more comfortable with having to play in hotel rooms. 

However, as we’ve seen in the past, it hasn’t been ideal. DarkZero played with two players form their hotel rooms at the Mexico Major, and were promptly bounced from the playoffs. Oxygen played with players in their hotel rooms at the Sweden Major, and were obliterated in the group stage. 

It’s demoralizing. It’s tough for cohesion. More than anything, it’s simply uncomfortable. What’s likely worse than the disadvantage itself is knowing that it’s a disadvantage – playing from your back foot can be a tough mental obstacle to overcome. 

These teams’ destinies still remain in their hands. What they decide to do from here, in the face of adversity, will decide their placing. They can be owned, mentally, by their disadvantage. They can rise above it. The choice is theirs. 

Shikhar Gupta: This is APAC’s strongest stable, and not just because of DWG KIA

Let’s get one thing out of the way early on; DWG KIA are absolutely title contenders. They’ve set themselves the goal to reach the grand final this Six Invitational, and could well do so. After all, they were one bullet away from sending the Sweden Major winners out in the semi-finals.

The other three APAC teams, Elevate, CYCLOPS athlete gaming, and SANDBOX Gaming have people skeptical for good reason. APAC, as a region, has very little international experience, and Elevate has none at all so far. Yet, as DWG KIA have shown, the underestimation can work if there is a solid team underneath waiting to capitalize.

APAC pros have been on record stating that the Thai play style is frustrating to play against, and Elevate are the best at extracting the maximum out of it. They won’t look pretty while doing it, but they can certainly grind out match wins. CAG, meanwhile, have three LANs worth of experience spread out over an unchanging roster. The Japanese can certainly hit the ground running here at SI 2022. 

And, of course, SANDBOX are close friends and rivals with DWG KIA. They have historically been one of APAC’s best teams, and they showed this at the Sweden Major. They’re far from perfect, but their immense experience means they know what needs to be fixed and they will come out swinging in the group stage.

Haydar Ali: No missing teams and no stand-ins for the first time in almost three years

While six different teams currently have covid-positive members, at the time of writing SI 2022 will see all qualified players play at the tournament. While a very simple statement, this is a rare occurrence in R6 with players consistently missing out even before the covid-19 pandemic led to extra precautionary measures.

While the last two majors saw Davide "FoxA" Bucci and Bryan "Merc" Wrzek be unable to attend due to being covid positive, SI 2021 also saw multiple covid infections on Virtus.pro stop them from travelling to the event completely. As well as this SI 2021 and the Mexico Major saw neither Australian teams compete due to regional travel restrictions.

Looking before the pandemic took hold, SI 2020 saw the reigning Pro League champions play without their captain Jack "Doki" Robertson due to him serving a six-month ban while the Pro League Season 10 Finals had three Brazilians unable to attend due to visa issues. Finally, the Raleigh Major saw Yasuhiro "kizoku" Nishi stand-in for Tsukasa "Merieux" Asano who had been hospitalized just before Nora Rengo’s opening game.

This means for the first time since the Season 9 Finals back in May 2019, we’re close to a full-strength tournament. Coupled with the much improved competitive format, this event having more teams than any tier-one event to date, and the introduction of watch parties for the first time, SI 2022 is really shaping up to be something special.