After Stage 3 of the NACL came to a close two weeks ago, the top four teams from across all three stages qualified for last weekend’s NACL Finals.
These were the teams in question:
- Luminosity Gaming -- Eddy, Silent, Splash, Julian, Ryce
- Reality TV -- MrB, Gaveni, Packer, Gity, and Tristan
- 1shotLFO -- nvK, Kilo, Swaylen, Razorr, and Prod
- Arial Arise -- Jaay, Tonez, Read, Freak, and QrTz
Semi-Finals
The 2022 season points leaders, Luminosity Gaming lost to Arial Arise in a very close three-map matchup. While maps two and three ended 7-1 to LG and 7-3 to AA, map one, Bank, ended 8-7 to Arial Arise.
The map itself began with two clutches, as QrTz won a 1v1 over Julian, while Jaay won a 1v3 on time. These were key to reaching round 12, with the map eventually ending very quickly on round 15. Here, after an opening kill by Tonez, six kills were exchanged in the space of six seconds with over a minute left on the clock.
By the end of the game, Freak was the overall MVP, with a 1.20 SiegeGG Rating and the highest kill and opening kill count.
In the second game, Reality TV blitzed through 1shotLFO.
1shot had been the only team that was able to take points away from Reality TV during Stage 3 as they lost 6-8. This had been due to a very strong performance from Prod, who had a 1.21 SiegeGG Rating in the regular season, but only managed a 1.07 Rating this time out.
While 1shotLFO neutralized Gaveni, Packer took his place with 20 kills to 12 deaths. Prod couldn’t make up the difference himself, with just a plus two kill differential.
Grand-Final -- Arial Arise vs Reality TV
And so, the 2022 season came to an end with a best-of-five between the Stage 3’s first and fourth placed teams.
Map one started with a bang, with two 1v1 clutches in the first two rounds from QrTz and Gity. Packer then added to this with another in round four, while Tristan won a 1v2 clutch on round 10. The game eventually ended with a Gaveni quadruple kill on round 11.
The clutches slowed down on Bank, as Arial Arise didn’t need them to dominate the map. Reality TV had performed well on this map previously, so AA’s eventual 7-2 result was quite a shock. After a 4-2 offensive half, AA then secured the opening kill in all three of their defences allowing them to close it out.
Reality TV shot back with a 7-1 of their own on Villa, with triple kills from Gaveni on rounds one, two, and five as well as a 1v1 triple kill clutch from MrB on Kapkan. Arial Arise’s lone round win came from a Tonez triple kill.
Finally, a much closer Skyscraper match ended the game. A 1v1 quadruple kill from QrTz and a 1v1 double from Freak helped give Arial Arise an initial 3-1 lead, before Gity won a 1v1 on time to tie up the half, 3-3. Freak won yet another clutch to take the lead, as they began their defensive half as they began trading rounds back and forth. This pattern was broken on round 11, when MrB got an opening double kill on Nokk before a Tristan triple ended round 12 to take the map, 7-5.
With this, Reality TV won the title 3-1. Gaveni led the team with a 0.95 kills per round frequency, while every member of the roster earnt at least a 1.09 SiegeGG Rating.
The Future
Reality TV have only lost one map in the last two and a half months.
They will now be a common fixture across the 2023 season, as they’ve won an unspecified advantage towards next year’s Major.
More importantly, assuming their roster isn’t picked apart during the upcoming transfer window, Reality TV will be a very strong favourite to possibly upset both SSG and TSM to win the upcoming Six Invitational qualifiers.
The entire Luminosity roster as well as Gaveni excelled statistically in the tournament, too, which makes it likely that they will get pre-SI qualifier tryouts with NAL teams.