Banner image: Ubisoft / @robincerutti
Only four teams remain unbeaten at the Six Invitational 2023 and M80 are one of them.
After showing their title credentials with a 2-1 victory against the highly-experienced squad of FaZe Clan, the Brazilian-majority roster defeated the European League side of Heroic and Team Secret. Now, the NAL team sits in first place in Group D with 10 points.
For M80, the Six Invitational began weeks before traveling to Montreal, Canada. Following the acquisition of the XSET lineup, the roster went for a bootcamp in Brazil, where they got a unique training experience.
"The Brazil bootcamp was extremely beneficial to us," Leonardo "Kyno" Figueiredo shared in a SiegeGG interview ahead of the final day of the group stage.
"We experienced a different play style during practice and with that we learned a bunch of new stuff. It was also really good for team chemistry since we were all together for a full month practicing and having some fun," Kyno added.
Those learning points were on full show in M80's first match at the Six Invitational 2023, played against FaZe Clan. Although they were pushed to map three after losing on Chalet, the Brazilian-majority roster dominated FaZe for most of the match.
The choice of Chalet was new for M80. Under XSET, they did not play it at all until they showed it against Wolves Esports at the Berlin Major, a map Kyno admitted the roster had been hiding until then.
Since then, they played it against Rogue in the Berlin Major semi-finals (4-7), against beastcoast (7-2) in the NAL and against DarkZero Esports (1-7) in the last match of Stage 3, a game where XSET didn't ban any operator on defense.
"Our Chalet has been really good recently so we expected to win it out on regulation but FaZe put up a fight, outplayed us, and took the map," Kyno said, admitting his team needed to work on it further.
On Oregon and Theme Park, where M80 were clearly the better side, FaZe decided to ban Montagne. Heroic and Team Secret followed, as they banned the French operator when facing M80 on Clubhouse.
However, the lack of Montagne's shield did not seem to not affect M80, as they have won every map when the French operator was banned.
"The Monty ban didn't affect us at all on any of the two maps they banned it," Kyno said about FaZe's bans.
The target of those bans was Kyno, who has been seen playing Montagne frequently despite his statistical preference of Ace. Most recently, he was playing it in what's been the most controversial round of the Six Invitational 2023 -- the seventh round on Bank against Heroic.
Adam "nudl" Hryceniak had apparently used an exploit that allows a player to knife a Montagne through the shield when Kyno was protecting the defuser. Eventually, the referees decided the round had to be replayed.
"The Monty play was super frustrating because I knew that with my experience on Monty I would win that round, 100%," Kyno said. "It is what it is, the outcome was the same, and I hope Ubisoft fixes that glitch."
Despite the problems, M80 defeated Heroic 2-1. "We knew they were with a 'new' roster so we planned on taking advantage of that and try to catch their slip ups."
The following day, M80 defeated Team Secret 2-0, a squad that is yet to win a match in the Six Invitational 2023.
"Our synergy has been better than ever and we will put up a show, we ain't done yet," Kyno finished.
M80 will play against DarkZero Esports today in a game that will decide who comes out of Group D in first place. Winning one map against the purple squad will be enough to seal it for M80, while DarkZero need a 2-0 win.
Catch the clash at 4PM (GMT-5) in the third set of matches of today.