As the five main leagues start coming to a close, here’s a rundown of some of the standout numbers behind this week’s results.
NiP close to qualifying for 10th event in R6
When looking back at all the teams in Rainbow Six, the Ninjas in Pyjamas core roster has currently qualified for the most global events (though the FaZe Clan organization has attended the most). Both of these teams have qualified for the Copa Elite Six, meaning they are likely to increase their count come Berlin.
Emboldened are title winning rosters, underlined are title winning organizations. "Berlin" refers to if they currently sit in a qualification spot to the Berlin Major.
Also of note from these numbers is that a massive 37 out of 46 (80 percent) of NAL, EUL, BR6, or APAC teams have either had their roster or organization compete on the global stage. This includes all 10 EUL organizations, nine out of 10 BR6 teams, eight of 10 NAL teams and six APAC South rosters.
Furthermore, if the current standings in NA, EU, and APAC were to end as they are now, we’ll only get a single new core roster to the global stage -- Rogue -- and no new organizations. The Elevate organization, as well as the NiP and FaZe rosters, will also be returning victors looking for a repeat title.
Player of the week: KoolAid
This week’s best performance was undoubtedly from Jameson "KoolAid" Lancaster, as he got an 11 kill-death ratio while also planting twice on Thermite and Smoke.
While it was against a disappointing Mirage side, this 7-1 result will be game-changing in the NA League as Parabellum now has the joint-best round difference in the tournament, putting them in a perfect position for a likely tie-breaker scenario.
Similarly, in Europe, another Dutchman excelled as Tom "Deapek" Pieksma secured nine kills to one death (while planting twice) during a 7-0 win over Outsiders. While the EUL is less than halfway through, this also puts Rogue with the best round difference in the tournament.
In LATAM this week we saw two remarkable kill counts, as Felipe "FelipoX" Lucia notched 23 in their 7-4 win over 00 Nation, while Diogo "Fntzy" Lima got 22 in his 6-8 defeat to Black Dragons. While the former result made no real difference, the lone point won by Fntzy made the difference between a second-place BR6 finish and a three-way tie for fourth with BD and oNe.
Also of note is that after a stinker of a stage, Luccas "Paluh" Molina secured 18 kills against MIBR including back-to-back 1v2 clutches and a round 15 triple kill to beat MIBR, 7-5. This result eventually meant they were a single round away from qualifying for the Copa Elite Six; a remarkable comeback after they sat in last place with one win after more than half the stage had been played.
Other than FelipoX, there was only one other player globally who achieved over a 2.0 Rating, SANDBOX’s Hyeonjin "Arukaze" Hwang, with the Korean securing 17 kills to four deaths against Fnatic.
Clear split in Finka usage between NA/BR & EU/APAC
In Brazil the top four players by SiegeGG Rating each primarily play Finka on the attack, while the top three are doing the same in the NA League.
In contrast, in the European League, there is only one Finka player in the top 12 while APAC North has just one in the top 19. APAC South has the best performing Finka player in 11th place.
In Europe and the Asia Pacific region, there’s a massive range of operators filling out the attack, with Iana, Zofia, Sledge, Jackal, Buck, Twitch, Hibana, Thermite, and Ying each having the same number of or more top performing players than on Finka.
This is simply not the case in NA and BR, where Finka players are dominating.
One interesting fact, though, is that in the NA League when Finka is banned, the majority of the team’s primary Finka players increase their kills-per-round rate while playing an alternative operator. Furthermore, the majority of teams have a higher win rate in the few rounds not playing Finka than when they are using her.
When referring to “usage” this means the operator’s pick rate when not banned.
One reason this could be happening is that when Finka is not picked, the attackers likely have a specific strategy that has been practised beforehand and so it’s more likely to work. Furthermore, due to the massive pick rate of Finka, the sample size for these numbers is low.
Yeti missing from the accolades
In the NAL, Pablo "Gryxr" Rebeil has the biggest kill differential, Richie "Rexen" Coronado has the best entry record, Evan "Kanzen" Bushore has the second most clutches, and Seth "supr" Hoffman has the second most plants.
But Soniqs’ fifth member, Alexander "Yeti" Lawson, has had a fairly disappointing stage with a 4-17 opening record -- the worst in the league -- while he has the fifth-lowest kill differential of all non-hard breach players.
Yeti is clearly doing his role as Soniqs sits in third place, but the team needs to beat second-placed Parabellum on Wednesday to qualify for Berlin, and a -13 opening record is a risk to that result.