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With an outstanding record at international group stage games of 16-1-1-1, Brazilian side w7m esports were the favorites to finish in first place in Group A.
But KOI ignored the numbers to get all the four points in their final match of the group stage. If that wasn't painful enough for the Brazilians, G2 Esports' brutal victory against Spacestation Gaming saw the bulls fall from first to third place.
Meanwhile, Spacestation Gaming's defeat pushed the North Americans down to the lower bracket of the playoffs, where there will no longer be a second chance for them. Elevate, who didn't play yesterday, finished the group stage at the bottom of the standings with zero points.
Here's everything you need to know about Group A:
KOI top group after sloppy start
William "Spoit" Löfstedt's performance against w7m esports was exactly what the fans expect from the Swede, smart aggressiveness, which came just when his team most needed it.
Meanwhile, Tom "Deapek" Pieksma has been impressively combining his support role in the team with his fragging skills. Overall, KOI have seemingly returned to their Berlin Major champions vibes after a slow start to the competition.
Yet, problems remain with their attacks.
Looking at the team's stats at the Six Invitational 2023, they have won 70% of the rounds played on defense. Meanwhile, on attack, KOI have only won 39% of rounds. Heading into the playoffs, they will probably have to work to figure out what's their main issue on attack.
A rudderless Spacestation Gaming
If KOI's lack of successful attacking rounds sounds worrying, that's because you have yet to hear about Spacestation Gaming.
Playing against w7m esports on Chalet and Border, maps that tend to be attacker-sided, the astronauts could only get one attack out of a total of seven. Against KOI, the number was even worse -- Spacestation won only two out of 12 attacks while playing on Border and Bank. Finally, against G2 Esports, SSG got zero on Kafe and three on Villa.
In total, against the top three sides in the group stage, Spacestation Gaming have only won six attacks out of a possible 30. In other words, Spacestation Gaming only won 20% of their attacks against G2 Esports, w7m esports, and KOI. With Elevate in the equation, the number increases slightly, up to 30%.
Spacestation also planted the defuser eight times against the top-three sides in the Group A. This means that the astronauts completed more plants that actual attacking round wins. While they didn't get to plant the defuser against w7m esports, KOI disabled three times the defuser, while G2 Esports did it once.
Not only that, Spacestation were the only team across all -- including APAC teams -- to lose a map 0-7. And they lost 0-7 twice, only managing one round in the 15 played against w7m.
G2 Esports unexpectedly overtake w7m
Despite Benjamin "Benjamaster" Dereli still adapting to the G2 roster, the European side have looked great so far.
Karl "Alem4o" Zarth and Jack "Doki" Robertson have taken control of the team and have contributed well in both support and fragging tasks.
The Brazilian has been extremely versatile operator wise, using 14 different attackers and 14 different defenders at least once. However, on attack, he has largely played Dokkaebi and Lion, while largely playing Smoke and Warden on defense.
With their victory against Spacestation Gaming and thanks to one map won against w7m esports, the Europeans overtook the Brazilians on the last day of the group stage to finish in second place.
Elevate eliminated with no maps won
Elevate finished at the bottom of the standings and were the second team to be eliminated from the Six Invitational 2023 as they followed the footsteps of Dire Wolves.
Coming into the Six Invitational 2023 as APAC's main hope, the Thai squad were the flops of the group stage. Despite winning a great number of rounds and pushing the European teams to overtime once each, the SI 2022 top 12 team couldn't win a single map.