NAL Stage 2 in Review: Stats, Accolades, and Storylines

Stage 2 of the 2022 North American League just came to an end after less than a month of play with Astralis, the Soniqs, Oxygen, and XSET finishing in the Six Berlin Major qualification spots.

Here’s a quick look back at the stage, including some of the standout players, teams, and changes from Stage 1.

Top Performers

While SiegeGG doesn’t crown official MVPs for regional seasons, there are a number of top performers that stood out in Stage 2.

Oxygen’s Ethan "Nuers" James had the best stage from a kills perspective, as he got the most kills at 111, and the highest kills-per-round figure at 1.03. Considering this is just Nuers’ second professional stage, this is incredibly impressive. 

For Parabellum’s Shaun "Gunnar" Pottorff, this was his very first stage in the NAL and he achieved the third best Rating in the tournament at 1.19 and the best opening kill differential at +10 (28 kills to 18 deaths). 

Moving away from primary fraggers, we have Roman "Forrest" Breaux. While he lacked in the fragging department, he was Astralis’ top-rated player at just 1.08 as his team won the NAL for the second stage running. He did this on Hibana and Smoke while earning 12 plants and getting the second most opening kills on the team. He also particularly excelled in the game against Soniqs, which won Astralis the tie-breaker for first place..

“Most Lethal Player in NAL History”

On the final play day of the stage, Ubisoft announced that Nuers was the NA League’s most lethal player ever, having beaten the prior kill record. 

While the statistic is accurate, this is only the second stage in which the North American League has had 10 teams (meaning Nuers played an extra game compared to all 2021 stages). The prior record, which Nuers’ 111 kills beat, was 109 by Franklyn "VertcL" Cordero in Stage 1 of the 2022 season. 

Comparing kills-per-round in the NA League, Matthew "Hotancold" Stevens is well ahead in that regard.

Considering only three players have ever had a better KPR figure in NA League history, this is still a staggering achievement from a rookie player. 

Biggest Improvement

By SiegeGG Rating, the most improved player was Jason "Beaulo" Doty. This is mainly because he had an awful Stage 1 when he was the second-worst player in the tournament, only ahead of Seth "supr" Hoffman. 

During this stage, Beaulo is still performing below the level fans would expect from him, but more in line with the rest of his team. A 1.06 Rating is just 0.02 behind the top performers on TSM FTX.

Below Beaulo are Nuers and supr, both of whom we’ve just mentioned. 

 

As for teams, XSET actually got the best average SiegeGG Rating, followed by Oxygen, Soniqs, and Parabellum. Parabellum are the lone team out of these four not attending the Six Major after the team with the biggest decrease in average Rating, Astralis, will join the other three.

 

Biggest Drop

The worst fall-off in performance definitely comes from VertcL, but this is only due to his inhuman performance during Stage 1. The fact that Oxygen were still leading the NAL table for most of Stage 2 without VertcL putting up these numbers is a promising sign for them in Berlin. 

Also of note is that three members of Astralis are included on this list, a remarkable fact considering they still won the NAL for the second stage in a row. This fall-off reflects six fewer points won and a drop in round difference by 15 (+25 down to +10).

 

Best New Player

This stage saw four new players; two additions each from Parabellum and Mirage. As expected, when looking at the final standings, both of Parabellum’s players had the better overall Ratings, with Gunnar’s 1.19 beating BlaZ’s 1.07.

When compared to the players they replaced, Gunnar was once again the best, while Zachary "Nyx" Thomas’ return has led to the biggest fall after he slipped into Tomas "Tomas" Kaka’s role.

NAL Play of the Stage

This title almost certainly goes to XSET’s Evan "Yoggah" Nelson for his 16-second 1v4 post-plant retake clutch on Melusi. 

As well as being a remarkable show of skill, it’s also notable that it took place in the exact same spot as Evan "Kanzen" Bushore’s 1v4 against DWG KIA, which SiegeGG crowned the Play of Year 6 in March.

Maps

When looking at which maps were played in the NA League, Oregon and Villa remained the most popular, as Oregon got notably more defensive-sided. 

The most interesting numbers, however, came from Chalet after its play rate dropped by around 60 per cent as it became the most attack-sided map in the pool. Zero defensive holds on the Bedroom objective in seven attempts was the biggest change, as the map’s overall defensive success rate dropped to 33 per cent.

Kafe also became the least played map, taking the accolade from Skyscraper.