Before the start of the Six Invitational 2024, the back-to-back BLAST R6 Major champions in Year 8 w7m esports announced that the team’s roster hadn’t renewed their contracts to represent the Bulls in the upcoming season – therefore, the Six Invitational 2024 was going to be the squad’s last performance under the touros. Eventually, the Last Dance ended in Brazil’s second hammer as the players pulled off one of the most epic comebacks in Rainbow Six Siege’s esports history.
While the former Bulls signed for FURIA Esports, w7m esports decided to stay in Rainbow Six Siege. After all, the organization had earned slightly more than US$2M in prize pools only during the previous two seasons. The team decided to sign the former core of LOS and announced the return of Gabriel “Volpz” Fernandes, who had competed for w7m esports during Year 7, and the former E1 Sports player Denis “Dodez” Navas.
Obviously, the comparisons between the old and the new roster didn’t take long to arise. Many fans questioned the signings as they thought the players wouldn’t live up to the expectations set by the three-time international champions.
Although the Bulls began the season with a 4-7 defeat against FaZe Clan, the Brazilians managed to get back to the top-half of the standings after three consecutive victories – the last one against Team Liquid, where Volpz was chosen as the team’s MVP in what was a great performance by the Brazilian against his former teammates. Eventually, w7m esports finished the group stage in second place with 20 points, five more than FURIA Esports.
However, it’s not about how it starts but how it ends. Unfortunately for w7m esports, FURIA Esports sent the Bulls to the Last Chance Qualifiers, where they lost to Team Liquid. Such results saw the Brazilians missing out on the BLAST R6 Major Manchester.
Despite the team’s disappointing end to the first split, the Bulls qualified for the Esports World Cup. In the semi-finals, the Brazilians met again with Team Liquid and qualified for the grand finals after two heated 7-5 victories on Nighthaven Labs and Chalet. A few hours later, FURIA Esports lost to Team BDS in the second game of the day.
“It means a lot to the team,” Júlio “Lobin” Gabriel admitted in a written interview with SiegeGG. “It’s a great team, Tier S I would say, and that shows how good we are, and of course to show that Volpz was not the imposter neither the problem there.”
Volpz crashing Liquid's key.
In Brazil, the departure of Volpz from Team Liquid divided the fans. While the players have been crystal-clear about the team’s decision, admitting that the communication with him wasn’t the greatest, the move is still a controversial one to this day. An example of this is the team’s decision of letting Volpz crash Team Liquid’s Esports World Cup key.
“It was what everybody and even Volpz wanted, it had to be him after being put as a ‘villain’ from the Liquid side, it just had to be him,” Lobin admitted.
To crash someone’s key, you first must defeat the players on the server. The Bulls’ first victory came on Nighthaven Labs, which was the third map of the series that saw w7m esports falling against Team Liquid in Brazil’s Last Chance Qualifier for Manchester. Back then, the result was a 7-5 victory for Team Liquid.
“I think the thing that we learnt from that game was how bad our attacks were on Labs, so we did a lot of changes and adapted a little to their playstyle and of course there were a lot more counter play in this match,” the Brazilian said.
The Bulls’ victory on Team Liquid’s pick saw them heading to the second map of the series in a more comfortable place. Eventually, the team closed the series with a 7-5 win on Chalet, one of w7m esports’ best maps.
Later today, the Brazilians will play against the back-to-back Gamers8 champions Team BDS. However, they already lost to them in Riyadh this week, as the Europeans defeated them on Nighthaven Labs by a score of 7-2.
“We always say that those type of losses should come when you can lose, so you open your eyes to something like it happened in Atlanta against DPlus and what we saw is that we need to play with confidence and not let the mood of the team go down or sad because of bad rounds or something like that. We really focused to only play without regrets from there and further,” the Brazilian concluded.
No matter what happens today, w7m esports have already secured US$350,000 and 600 Club Points. However, a win against Team BDS would see the Brazilians adding US$400,000 to that tally. Meanwhile, Team BDS will try to secure what would be the organization’s third championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.