Image via Ubisoft/@Kirill_Vision
When Ubisoft opened the door to group stages with teams from the same region, many expected XSET to collide with two Brazilian rosters.
It happened. The North American League side led by Matheus “Budega” Figueiredo was put in the same group with FURIA Esports and Team Liquid.
So far in Charlotte, the team has been sloppy. Still in the fight, obviously, but the team’s inaccuracies throughout the first two days of the tournament put them in a tough spot.
XSET’s first result was an upsetting loss against CYCLOPS athlete gaming, a result that could eventually make a huge difference. The team closed the first day with a twelve-round victory over FURIA Esports, which created a four-way tie in the standings as all teams had won and loss a match.
Against Team Liquid, the team was really close to grab the three points or, at least, get to an overtime. XSET started things off right with four successful rounds, but Liquid eventually completed an impressive comeback after two Luccas “Paluh” Molina clutches.
“It’s simple mistakes, it was just miscommunication, I thought I couldn’t play and I actually could. The mistakes we are making now are really simple, it’s fixable for tomorrow,” admitted Leonardo “Kyno” Figueiredo.
“Our executes were a little bit messy, because we actually never experienced that, when you do these kind of adaptations you just got to win the key gun-fights and hope for the best, it wasn’t our best day,” said Budega.
Still about the team’s loss to Liquid, Zachary “SpiriTz” Dionne had a terrible match, one the worst in his career. With just one kill and dying in each one of the rounds of the match while maining Finka and Jäger, the Canadian ended with a SiegeGG rating of 0.02. At this point, you can’t ignore such weak numbers – if he had been a bit more clinical, XSET would have most likely won the game.
With XSET still having three games to play, and with the team being aware of the mistakes and how to fix them, the NAL side will probably get better for the next games. “We are not overthinking ourselves, we are here for the experience right now, I want to play with a crowd, I think that’s basically our goal right now,” concluded Budega.