Image via Ubisoft
Perhaps the best word to describe Rogue’s performance over the past year is “mercurial”.
At times, they’ve been extremely good, at other times extremely poor. Consistency is a word far from the minds of Rogue fans.
However, coming off a hot Sweden Major performance and with some apparent early-tournament jitters out of the way, they think they’re in a good spot after their victory over CAG, and they aren’t letting an opening 2-0 (7-4, 7-4) loss to Liquid get in their heads.
Rogue coach Matthew “meepeY” Sharples isn’t letting that loss get under his team’s skin, though. “We feel like we played everything correctly, we feel that we did all of the fundamentals right, but in the end, Liquid played simply better … After the match was over, we sat back and had a bit of a joke about it,” he said.
A loss to Liquid isn’t the end of the world. Rogue are in one of the strongest groups in a strong tournament – it’s difficult finding a single weak link or “easy” win here. After dismantling CAG 2-0 (7-4, 7-4), Rogue are going to be riding a wave of momentum into today’s bout with titans FaZe Clan.
“It’s huge…it boosts the momentum, it boosts the morale,” meepeY said when asked about the effect of the CAG victory.
In one manner, Rogue are performing perfectly consistently. They are perfectly even in both maps won and lost and rounds won and lost: 2-2 and 22-22.
Part of Rogue’s solidifying form has come from Bernadette “Bernie” Ramaker, the team’s performance coach. She cites “self-awareness translat[ing] into behavior change” as the biggest factor for the team’s growth this year.
At the end of the day, Rainbow Six Siege is a relatively simple game, as are most FPS games. Rogue have become drilled and efficient, and are coming into a tough matchup with one of the best teams in the world. They’re taking it one match at a time, one map at a time, one round at a time.
“If you click on their head, they die, if they click on your head, you die,” meepeY said about the team’s upcoming match with FaZe Clan.
Rogue are halfway through their SI group stage campaign, and will likely secure playoffs with another match win. They’ll face off against one of Brazil’s titans next, but spirits are high.