Image via Ubisoft/@kirill_vision
In case you love close and exhausting Siege matches with spicy and exotic operator lineups, Elevate might be your dream team.
Elevate is a wild, chaotic avalanche that you can’t stop. We are talking of APAC in all its glory. Today, the Thai side's victim was Rogue, a defeat that took place as Natus Vincere was beaten by the North American side DarkZero Esports.
It's definitely not the best day to support the European League rosters, as all of Rogue, Na’Vi, and MNM Gaming are now on their way back home.
Despite Rogue losing the very first map, a win on Clubhouse was followed by a temporary 6-3 advantage on map three. Rogue was on the verge of qualifying for the next round.
But a humble man from Thailand had other plans in mind. Paramin “Onigiri” Suwanwattana dropped 27 kills on Oregon, which would eventually be crucial at not only forcing overtime but also winning the 15th round.
“We made the same mistakes, moving too much, they didn’t do too much on attack so we just ran into them, we tried to fix that in the end but they always had a counter for us because they obviously saw our setups before and knew our positions. We just tried to focus on the next rounds, but we didn’t make it happen,” said Rogue’s player Kevin “Prano” Pranowitz in a Ubisoft organized post-match interview.
The way Elevate plays is completely different from professional Siege. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at stopping the best rosters in the world from competing at the best stage in the video game.
In a previous interview with Elevate’s players, they revealed their mindset coming to the Six Invitational: “We just played SI like another day in Ranked”
That quote perfectly summarizes Elevate’s play style. Abusing Dokkaebi, using Bandit’s shotgun, we even saw Twitch’s marksman rifle in action.
“Crazy Bandit shotguns and running around, no one is going to expect that, our ranked style, so I pulled out some crazy things and managed to carry the team to win Rogue,” explained a very excited sprOnigiri, who looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
Elevate has been known for his tendency of banning Finka, as they did it in every map played against TSM, the Soniqs, and now Rogue.
“We feel like our gun skill is better than theirs to be honest, from what the coach said to me. I feel like if they can have that extra HP on Finka, I think we can win gunfights. We saw they liked to push together, two or three people at the same spot, so banning Finka gave us advantage for those gun fights,” said sprOnigiri.
Despite dropping 27 kills on map three and being incredibly excited about it, sprOnigiri stays humble. “It doesn’t matter if your team loses, no matter how good you can kill, if you don’t play as a team you are going to lose. It’s a five man team game.”