When Oxygen Esports came into their upper bracket final against w7m esports today, no one -- from the spectators to the analysts and the players -- would have expected it to play out as it did.
Starting on Oxygen’s map pick of Theme Park, w7m ran amok and only allowed the North Americans a mere one round as they romped to a 7-1 victory. The shocking manner of defeat could have stunned Oxygen’s players and broken their mentality. Instead, it was the fans who had their jaws on the floor on the second map.
Border ended as soon as it began, with an eye-popping response from Oxygen seeing the Brazilians lose in devastating fashion -- this time in a 7-0.
With the first two maps only having featured a total of 15 rounds, the matchup was already headed to map three. For comparison, the preceding Astralis vs. KOI matchup saw 15 rounds on the decider map alone.
“How I see it is if you ever get seven-oh-ed, seven-one-ed by a team … it’s not the other team playing, like, amazing,” said Oxygen Esports coach Taylor "Redeemer" Mayeur in an interview with SiegeGG after the match. “I think, like, you’re just playing absolutely horrible.”
As a result, Redeemer and the rest of Oxygen were confident that they could still grow back into the game. After all, the fix lay within themselves rather than in trying to stop their opponents from doing anything in particular.
“We were trying to do too much at once,” elaborated Redeemer, explaining what they had to fix heading into Border. “It was just minimising the constant chaos on attack.”
That was an “easy” error to correct and it showed in how Oxygen came out guns-blazing on the second map. Round after round went in their favour as w7m wilted on their own map pick in a shocking follow-up to their first-map dominance.
“We were being too slow and we weren’t really being just… precise in our callouts and in our direction,” continued Redeemer. “There was really no voice.”
Redeemer also noted that it was the first Six Invitational for three of their players, which likely also affected the way they responded to w7m’s constant success on the first map. But he made sure that his players believed in their own strength and did not feel overawed by the Brazilians’ strength.
“Obviously, they got great players … but, second map was like, you know, these guys aren’t better than us. Let’s focus up,” said Redeemer.
Things were far more balanced on the third map, which took 12 rounds to be decided, as both teams went back and forth. However, despite both playing to a high level, the Oxygen coach lamented the fact that his team did not live up to its potential and “kind of gave [the win] away”.
Things had been poised and level at 5-5 on that third map, Clubhouse, but it was w7m that surprised Oxygen despite being on the attack for the second half. The Brazilians won both rounds and booked their place in the grand-final as a result.
“We had a strat and we didn’t fully do that strat,” explained Redeemer.
Despite the close map three, Oxygen also missed the output of the best player in the tournament today, Ethan "Nuers" James. The young gunner only managed a SiegeGG Rating of 0.99, a far cry from his pre-match SiegeGG rating of 1.27 across every game he had played until then.
His efforts have been crucial to Oxygen’s success so far and Redeemer heaped praise on his growth since his debut event at the Charlotte Major nine months ago. Then, the rookie had been good but had been shut down by an even more impressive Astralis.
“I’m really proud of him in terms of growth, mentally,” praised Redeemer. “I think he’s become a lot smarter a player.”
Importantly, he and Oxygen are not dwelling too much on today’s loss and are raring for a rematch against w7m come Sunday. To do that, they will have to win against either Astralis or G2 Esports tomorrow to book their berth in the grand-final on their second attempt.
“I think this game kinda really showed that [w7m] are beatable,” said Redeemer, focused on lifting the caber on Feb. 19. “[Tomorrow] is going to come down to who wants it more and who makes the least amount of mistakes, so I can care less who get (to play before the grand-final).”
“I just want to win this whole damn thing.”