Following separate national LANs for Germany, Switzerland and Austria, the top teams from each of these will now travel to DreamHack Leipzig to complete the €50,000 ($55k) GSA National event -- R6's very first LAN with LAN qualifiers to date.
The schedule of the tournament. (Photo Rainbow Six DE)
Jump to:
- German Nationals
- Swiss Nationals
- Austrian Nationals
- GSA Nationals
German Nationals
1st: OrgLess 2nd: Spaghetti Carbonara 3rd-4th: GoSkilla and Fierce Esports
With Hungry, korey, and AceeZ all not allowed to play in this tournament due to their participation in the 6 French League, OrgLess was left with a clear path to the LAN Finals. After losing the initial qualifier to Fierce Esports (previously known as the Benelux and Saturday League team of ForeignFive), OrgLess made it through on their second attempt to qualify for the $10,000 LAN just outside of Gamescom 2019 last August.
Here, they took revenge on Fierce in a 7-3, 5-7, 7-2 scoreline to book a spot in the grand final where they defeated ex-teammate Dave "DavE" Heitmann's new team to win both the €5,000 prize and book a place in January's Finals.
With no other German players of note able to play in this tournament, there was never any real doubt that OrgLess would take the title, but with Pascal "Cryn" Alouane and Jan "ripz" Hucke both being poached by G2 and Rogue while their coach of Ramiz "rcuth" Cuthbert moved to the up-and-coming MnM Gaming roster, their hopes to take the full GSA title will likely be a harder affair.
Swiss Nationals
1st: mYinsanity 2nd: Team Zer0 3rd-4th: Lostik.R6 and Volito E.C.
While R6 has never seen a notable Swiss roster, we have seen three Swiss Pro League players in Dimitri "Panix" de Longeaux -- previously playing for the Swiss organisation of BDS Esports -- last season’s Italian champion of Bryan "BakaBryan" Tester, and the now-retired Season 1-4 Pro League player of Jamil "eLTunisianoX" Essifi, none of whom participated in this tournament.
Instead, the four teams that attended the LAN Finals at the 2019 Zurich Games Week included four German players, one Portuguese player and a massive total of 15 Swiss players, none of whom had any prior competitive experience at this level.
As well as giving a huge number of players their entry into competitive R6, it also offered a number of great games with all three matchups going the distance. After two 2-1 semi-finals, the teams of mYinsanity and Team Zer0 took the grand final to a total of 53 rounds across the five maps, with mYinsanity taking it in a reverse sweep; 4-7, 1-7, 8-6, 7-1, 7-5.
Austrian Nationals
1st: Alpenfestung 2nd: AYB Esports 3rd-4th: Secret Powder and R6FLEX
With not a single Austrian player ever making a name for himself in R6 esports, this tournament held at the Game City 2019 event was bound to be a first for dozens of new competitive players. 15 Austrians, and 5 Germans -- including the German of Jacob "KurtXTRM" Groß who finished the Castle Siege 2018 event in fourth place -- met in Vienna to face off for $5,000 an a chance to join OrgLess and mYinsanity in January.
AYB Esports began the day by defeating R6FLEX in two clean maps (7-5, 7-2) to make it to the final, where they were joined by Alpenfestung ("Alpine Fortress") following their overtime victory over the dubiously named Secret Power team. Here, in the final, the best-of-five was a much shorter affair than their Swiss counterparts, with Alpenfestung winning 7-1, 5-7, 7-3, 7-3.
This means that Alpenfestung was crowned the second-ever Austrian champions and will represent his nation in the GSA Nationals as the third and final national representative.
Some of the LAN's players, organizers, and casters. (Photo: Alpenfestung)
GSA Nationals
OrgLess: KS, Lazzo, Drvn, Prano, Hife and Omerta (their coach) mYinsanity: Axios, Shark, Renup, KaKaShI and Neox3005 Alpsnfestung: Pacher, Slypher, Hornet, Djuna and WolfRefleXxx BYOC Team
Taking place on January 24-26th at DreamHack Leipzig, these three national champions will now be joint by the winners of an onsite BYOC tournament where they all will then compete for a massive $30,000 prize pool on top of the money already won:
- 1st place - €15,000
- 2nd place - €9,000
- 3rd-4th place - €3,000 each
This, therefore, means the prize will total a massive €50,000, the largest in European history.
OrgLess will be the very clear favourites in this tournament compared to the inexperienced Austrian and Swiss victors, however we may yet see a wildcard team form for the BYOC event to liven up the tournament as both the core of BDS and Rogue had participated in the GSA Nationals previously before withdrawing.
Concerning a schedule, the best-of-one map single-elimination BYOC tournament will take place on Friday, followed by the best-of-three semi-finals on Saturday, and the best-of-five map grand final on Sunday, where the eventual champions will be crowned.
The casters for the GSA Nationals. (Photo: Rainbow Six DE)
While the GSA exists as the first R6 LAN tournament to be made up of LAN qualifiers as well, this format has also been copied across the NA and LATAM regions, with the LATAM Masters where the best Spanish-speaking teams in North and South American faced off.
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Keep an eye out for coverage of tournaments across Europe and the GSA 2021 tournament later this year.