Image via Ubisoft/@itsmeERROR
As well as the title, prize money, and SI Points, the 80 players meeting in Charlotte next week will also be competing for a number of accolades. Siege esport records concerning match numbers, titles, kill counts and more all can be claimed depending on next week’s results.
Here’s a look at some of these accolades and the players who could claim them.
A new champion will be crowned
For the first time ever, the Charlotte Major be the first tier-one tournament to include no prior title-winning teams. This is as TSM, FaZe, 00 Nation, NiP, and SSG all failed to qualify for the event while Team Empire dropped their title-winning roster. Every other prior winner, notably G2 and Liquid, has changed at least three players since their title.
This means a new core team will gain the title. This will make them the fifth straight Six Major winners with no team having ever won it twice and the ninth major tournament winner alongside Evil Geniuses, G2, Empire, SSG, NiP, oNe, FaZe, and TSM.
If Looking For Org -- the roster previously known as Team Vitality -- wins the Major they will also be the first team to ever win a tier-one event without an organization. The only prior global tournament in siege history to be won by an org-less roster was “i don't know” at DreamHack Valencia 2018 where Vitality themselves finished in second.
Player records
Concerning players, there are seven players in attendance who have won previous global PC titles; Olivier "Renshiro" Vandroux, Karl "Alem4o" Zarth, Ben "CTZN" McMillan, Troy "Canadian" Jaroslawski, André "nesk" Oliveira, Luccas "Paluh" Molina, and Lorenzo "Lagonis" Volpi. This means wins by BDS, G2, Liquid, or oNe would push their respective players up into a relatively elite group of 18 multi-title winners. A win by DarkZero, meanwhile, would be Canadian’s fourth title putting him tied with Juhani "Kantoraketti" Toivonen.
- 7 - Pengu
- 6 - Goga, Fabian, Joonas
- 4 - Kantoraketti
- 3 - Canadian
- 2 - ShepparD, JoyStiCk, Scyther, Dan, karzheka, Necrox, nvK, Yung, Falko, KS, SHA77E, Bullet1
- 1 - 46 other players
For comparison, at the Six Sweden Major there were 20 prior title-winning players, making the drop down to seven a sharp reduction.
Looking at the opposite side of the spectrum, there will be 16 players in this Major who made their competitive debut just two months ago. Nine of these 16 are Brazilian, two Thai, two Aussie, one American, one Frenchman, and one Taiwanese.
Other than stand-in players, the only prior example of a player winning a title within a few months of their debut since Year 1 was dan who joined Empire one month before their Pro League Season 9 title. Wins next week by LFO, OxG, XSET, w7m, FURIA, oNe, Elevate, Dire Wolves, or the Chiefs would add to this count.
Finally of note, while we’ve seen multiple players jump regions before, Alem4o’s attendance at this event will make him the second player to qualify for a Major via two different regions. The first is his very own teammate, Virtue.
Kill milestones
A number of players will reach career milestones during this event:
- #flag@20:us Ecl9pse -- 2919 current kills
- #flag@20:au Virtue -- 1959 current kills
- #flag@20:us Shuttle -- 1860 current kills
- #flag@20:jp BlackRay -- 1859 current kills
- #flag@20:jp Anitun -- 1833 current kills
- #flag@20:ca SpiriTz -- 987 current kills
- #flag@20:br R4re -- 978 current kills
- #flag@20:us Yoggah -- 971 current kills
- #flag@20:th Sapper -- 934 current kills
- #flag@20:us Iconic -- 911 current kills
- #flag@20:th DCH -- 878 current kills
- #flag@20:us Dream -- 870 current kills
- #flag@20:au Dgtl -- 496 current kills
- #flag@20:gb Grizzly -- 493 current kills
- #flag@20:br DiasLucas -- 470 current kills
- #flag@20:br GMZ -- 442 current kills
- #flag@20:br volpz -- 390 current kills
- #flag@20:br Jv92 -- 385 current kills
- #flag@20:us Nuers -- 72 current kills
As for records, Liquid’s Paluh holds almost every possible variation of a career kill record whether its online, offline, lifetime, in just the last year or only at global events. These records are almost certainly not going to be beaten at this event.
Also worth paying attention to are the series and map kill records. At SI 2022 Elevate's Paramin "sprOnigiri" Suwanwattana tied Paluh's world record for 27 kills in a single map to eliminate Rogue from the event.
The most in any tier-one series, meanwhile, was broken by Luke "Tyrant" Casey with 65 kills against Cowana Gaming in the Six Invitational qualifiers. With the Six Major grand-final being a best-of-five match with no map advantage to either team, this would be one of the best chances of 2022 to beat this record.
Finally, the best-of-three map record sits at 49, which both Nesk reached at SI 2021 and Rexen during the NA League in 2020.
Regional rivalries
If you combine the trophy cabinets of each region across all major events, you’re left with the following counts:
- EU - 4 first places, 4-second place, and 7 third/fourth-place finishes
- NA - 3 first places, 3 second-places, and 5 third/fourth-place finishes
- LATAM - 3 first place, 3 second-places, and 6 third/fourth-place finishes
- APAC - 2 third/fourth-place finish
With both NA and LATAM winning titles in the last two events, EU’s long-lasting history of success in the game is finally being challenged. While the region arguably had the game’s two all-time greatest teams -- 2018 G2 Esports and 2019 Team Empire -- since then performances have been few and far between.
Now NA and LATAM both have a chance to catch up to EU by Major titles, however, no region can quite overtake them yet by this metric.