Banner image: Ubisoft / @capturedbycyga
Like a bull in a china shop, w7m esports were explosive in their match against Oxygen Esports yesterday. After two oppositely one-sided games on Theme Park and Clubhouse, the series was decided on Border, where the Brazilians advanced to the Six Invitational 2023 grand-final.
As such, Oxygen dropped to the lower bracket, and are now waiting to know who their next opponents will be out of today's clash between Astralis and G2 Esports.
Astralis come into the game after two very close series against the European Six Major champions of KOI and Team BDS. Despite being the weaker side in terms of statistics in both matches, Astralis took full advantage of their opponents' sloppiness.
Against the Frenchmen, Astralis advanced to the next round of the lower bracket after completing nine clutches. Meanwhile, against KOI, they clutched five rounds.
Meanwhile, G2 head into the game with Fabian "Fabian" Hällsten's record against North American rosters' still intact. The Swed has never lost against North American rosters, a record that includes 15 wins.
Read more: Fabian hates NA: With 14 wins and zero losses against the region, M80 are next in his crosshairs
The Europeans' best player so far at the Six Invitational 2023 has been their newest signing Benja "Benjamaster" Dereli, who has an overall SiegeGG Rating of 1.13. He's closely followed by Jack "Doki" Robertson and Jake "Virtue" Brennan, who have SiegeGG Ratings of 1.11.
On Astralis, Jack "J90" Burkard's 1.04 figure is the highest Rating on the team, followed by David "Iconic" Ifidon's 1.00.
In total, Astralis have accumulated 26 clutches, while G2 Esports have 22. As they are the two remaining teams with the most clutches, and with Astralis' current form, we may see multiple exciting plays in the series.
Meanwhile, Byron "Blurr" Murray and Roman "Forrest" Breaux's have the lowest number of plants amongst the four remaining teams, with 21 and 16, respectively. Both players average less than one plant per map, with Blurr's 0.95 looking slightly better than Forrest's 0.69.
Considering all of these statistics, the game has all of the ingredients to have fast paced rounds based on kills instead of plants.
The winner of the game between G2 and Astralis will face Oxygen Esports in the lower bracket final.
Oxygen Esports' best player in the competition has been Ethan "Nuers" James, who has a SiegeGG Rating of 1.24. He's just 38 kills away from equalizing Stéphane "Shaiiko" Lebleu's kill total in the competition, which currently stands at 273 after 24 maps played -- four more than the American.
If Oxygen progress to the grand-final, we will likely see Nuers surpassing André "NESWKGA" Oliveira's record of kills in a single edition of the Six Invitational, with the Brazilian having got 289 at the Six Invitational 2021.