A total of 27 rookies debuted last week. Here’s a look at how each of them did:
- North America -- Snake, Gasher, Dexter, Mohesse, Xeno, Azian, and Doq
- Europe -- LikEfac, jume, Meloo, Leadr, T3b, ASTRO, and Gruby
- Latin America -- yektz, L0BIN, OmaRz, nudl, CadenT, Elmer, Cuervo, H4skk, and Nitro
- Asia Pacific -- Tyopi, Reeps96, Tuhan, and ShibeNuts
For obvious reasons, it’s unfair to judge a player by their first professional game, but it’s still interesting to look at how these new players fared. Each of them clearly impressed their new teammates during tryouts; now we have got to see why.
You can see the image in full definition here. The second game for OmaRz, nudl, CadenT, Elmer, and Cuervo are not included, as the games are yet to be played at the time of writing.
While the players’ opponents and teammates’ performances make a massive difference in how each rookie will fare, the per-game statistics above highlight several key players.
Jake "Leadr" Fortunato
SiegeGG has written a lot about Leadr’s performance already, since he beat Rogue in his debut game for Natus Vincere, but it is definitely justified.
Three of the seven clutches performed by the rookie players came from Leadr. He did this on Hibana and Smoke, while also being the team’s only planter. Two of these three clutches came in overtime, meaning the result can definitely be attributed heavily to him individually.
During week two, NAVI will face Heroic in a match that will include four of Europe’s seven rookies after Leadr’s teammate, T3b, ended with a 0.43 SiegeGG Rating against Rogue, while Heroic’s Meloo and jume ended with 1.19 and 0.79 SiegeGG Ratings, respectively, in a win against G2 Esports.
“Gasher” and “Snake”
While they had a very easy run of games -- beastcoast and Mirage in week one -- TSM FTX’s newest members impressed, as their statistics put them in the top-six in North America just behind their teammate, Jason "Beaulo" Doty.
“L0BIN”
Team oNe’s replacement for Lorenzo "Lagonis" Volpi was the best player in both of oNe’s 7-5 victories over 00 Nation on Saturday and TropiCaos on Sunday.
Playing primarily on Ash, he has been a standout star, so it’s somewhat of a surprise it took him a whole extra year to reach the BR6 League compared to his current teammates -- he played with Leonardo "d4sh" Lopes and João "Dotz" Miranda previously throughout 2021.
Next week, the competition heats up as oNe will be playing FURIA and FaZe Clan, two much more difficult opponents than 00N and Caos.
Lucas "Xeno"
Beastcoast had a very bad week one. A 2-7 loss to XSET was followed up with a 1-7 loss to TSM FTX in two games where they had to play with their coach, Mark "Mark" Arismendez standing in.
This might have taken its toll on Xeno’s performance, as he only managed a combined 7-17 kill-death spread on Iana. While this was the worst individual performance from a rookie, it was at least in line with his teammates and even ahead of his teammate Anthony "AnthonyMGS" Gomez, who ended 4-16 on Zofia.
Wu "Reeps96" Weichen
APAC’s four rookies really didn’t perform well in their opening game.
Reeps96 had the best day, as he was Dire Wolves’ second-lowest rated player in their overtime victory over FURY.
On the other hand, Tyde’s (formerly Invictus) ShibeNuts ended with a 0.83 SiegeGG Rating and Wildcard’s Tuhan had a 0.98 SiegeGG Rating, as these two teams faced each other. WC beat Tyde 7-4, and both players finished third on their respective teams.
Finally, in the North, Fnatic’s Tyopi ended with a 0.69 SiegeGG Rating against DWG KIA. While he only secured three kills on Iana, this was still the second-best performance on the team as Fnatic seemed very outmatched.
While “Sironeko” also joined FAV gaming from Sengoku, he didn’t feature in their loss to Spear as FAV is now a seven-man lineup.
Théo "LikEfac" Mariano
This addition was so big that SiegeGG wrote a whole article about his impact on Team BDS. The TLDR? If he can work well alongside Shaiiko rather than against him, this could be a Major-winning roster change.
After his 2.05 K/D in the 6 French League, everyone knew he was a fragger, but getting double the kills of Europe’s best-known entry is an outstanding debut performance and shows he can compete with the best of Europe.
Up next? Wolves Esports.
