With the conclusion of today's matches, the group stage of the North America League 2024 Stage 2 is now over. Here's a roundup of today's results!
Spacestation 8-7 LOS
Spacestation Gaming kicked off tonight's action with a maximum overtime victory on Kafe against LOS. Curiously enough, yesterday's playday saw the astronauts winning by the same score on the same map against Wildcard.
Starting the match on defense, the Americans quickly built a two-round lead. However, LOS didn't take long to shorten the distance. Unfortunately for the Brazilians, when it looked like both teams would swap sides with a tie on the scoreboard, Roman "Forrest" Breaux's 1v2 clutch kept Spacestation ahead.
With Spacestation's first attack being successful, fans started to believe the Americans would close out the game quickly. However, after the Brazilians won the following three rounds, some of them started to see the orange roster as a real threat. Although they ended up pushing the match to overtime and even taking the lead, Spacestation managed to come back and clinch the two points.
Individually, none of Spacestation's players could stand out as the highest-rated player of the team was Alec "Fultz" Fultz, with a SiegeGG rating of 1.08. It's also worth mentioning Liam "Ashn" Paz's performance, as the American ended the game with a SiegeGG rating of 1.06 and an entry balance of 4-4 (+0).
Meanwhile, the best player at LOS was Leonardo "Legacy" Silva. The Brazilian finished the clash with a SiegeGG rating of 1.28, a KOST of 80, and a K-D of 15-9 (+6).
DarkZero Esports 8-6 M80
DarkZero Esports defeated M80 on Bank to climb to the top of the North America League 2024 Stage 2 standings. It was the team's seventh back-to-back victory, as the roster's only defeat of the split came against Soniqs on the second playday of the stage.
Although the game was extremely close, the final difference was DarkZero Esports' clutching skills as the team won three 1vX situations — with Roberto "Panbazou" Feliciano and Nathan "Nafe" Sharp clutching two and one, respectively. As all of these clutches came before the game's overtime, having them in mind is crucial to understanding DarkZero Esports' win.
With a SiegeGG rating of 1.24, a K-D of 12-9 (+3), and an entry balance of 4-1 (+3), the Brit was the best player of the match. Meanwhile, Leonardo "Kyno" Figueiredo was M80's highest-rated player with a SiegeGG rating of 1.15. He was closely followed by Paul "Hyper" Kontopanagiotis' 1.12 in his first performance against his former home since retiring in June 2023.
Oxygen Esports 7-4 Luminosity
Oxygen Esports faded away Luminosity's hopes of qualifying for the playoffs after the green roster clinched its first win of the stage. Thanks to the Oxygen Esports' regulation victory, the team climbed to eighth place and secured 65 SI Points.
Oxygen Esports had a great start to the game as they won their first four attacks on Bank, with the last one being an Evan "Yoggah" Nelson 1v1 clutch while playing IQ. Eventually, both teams swapped sides with a 5-1 lead for the green roster.
However, after moving to the attacking side, Luminosity got close to their opponents on the scoreboard as they won their first three attacks. Unfortunately for them, Oxygen Esports ended up closing the match as they won their next two defenses.
With a SiegeGG rating of 1.57, Yoggah was the best player of the game as he finished the match with a K-D of 12-4 (+8). It's also worth mentioning George "Silent" Hernández's performance for Luminosity, as the Mexican player finished the game with a K-D of 15-8 (+7) and a SiegeGG rating of 1.52.
Cloud9 Beastcoast 7-3 Soniqs
Cloud9 Beastcoast defeated Soniqs despite playing with Bryan "Merc" Wrzek, who stepped in to replace Gaven "Gaveni" Black due to a mass flooding in Newton, Tennessee.
The first half of the match saw Soniqs taking an early 2-1 lead after a Jaylen "Ambi" Turk 4K that ended in a 1v1 clutch. Eventually, Ayden "dfuzr" Gabari prevented Soniqs from heading to the second half of the match with a two-round lead after completing an impressive 1v3 clutch in round six.
Surprisingly, despite playing on Kafe, Cloud9 Beastcoast took control of the match while playing on attack. The team's executions were close to perfect and easily closed out the match as they won all of their attacks.
Both dfuzr and Zachary "SpiriTz" Dionne led the BLAST R6 Major Manchester champions in the individual standings with SiegeGG ratings of 1.77 and 1.56, with the rest of the players in the team ending with negative ratings. The Six Invitational 2022 champion Merc finished with a SiegeGG rating of 0.61, a K-D of 4-7 (-3), and an entry balance of 2-3 (-1). Meanwhile, all of Soniqs' players finished with negative ratings.