After the conclusion of the Drone Cup last February, the competitive Rainbow Six Siege scene comes back to Spain with the introduction of a new league: the Spain Nationals. This new project will be the substitute of the ESL Masters and will be composed of ten organisations, Movistar Riders and Vodafone Giants being the most recognisable ones.
How does the tournament work?
The tournament presents some differences with its predecessor, the ESL Masters. The main difference is the number of competing teams: from 8 to 10.
With 10 organisations in the competition, and with a double round-robin format, there will be a total of 18 game days. Once all the matches are done, the 8 first teams will be divided in 2 groups of 4 teams. The rosters will compete in a double elimination bracket, after which the 2 best teams of each group will make it to the Finals.
Even though there are only six foreign competitors -- four British and two French players -- all the teams must compete with at least 3 Spanish players. If a team is formed by 3 foreign members and 2 Spanish players, at least one of the foreign players must have been living in Spain for at least 3 months. This is the case of Movistar Riders.
Who will compete?
A tally of 10 teams will be part of the Spanish tournament: Movistar Riders, x6tence, Team Queso, Team Dragons, Team Wizards, Arctic Gaming, Cream Esports, Efficiency Team and Ramboot Club. The first seven mentioned teams were automatically qualified after finishing in the first six places of the ESL Masters -- except Arctic Gaming, a team that was invited, and Team Queso, the organization which bought the Team Wizards roster -- while the other three teams got their spots by playing the qualifiers.
Movistar Riders:
chOi, Yami, Aurel, Jugger, Welshyy, sakke, Daisari (Coach)
We are used to see Spanish rosters not getting really involved with players from other European countries; however, Movistar Riders is the exception. Nowadays, chOi and Yami are the only players still on the team that won the last ESL Masters, where three of the five players that represented Movistar Riders were Spanish.
Movistar Riders, after having a bad performance at the Drone Cup, showed their talent during the Six Invitational qualifiers where they were the only Spanish organization that made it to the closed qualifiers stage.
Movistar Riders were the winners of the Grand Finals after beating Vodafone Giants 3-2, via @Movistar_Riders
Vodafone Giants:
DriD, LioN, baroz, vASS1LYY, p0Lo, ByTommy (Coach)
The Vodafone Giants roster will play the tournament with a full Spanish squad, as per usual. However, the roster presents a difference: they signed p0Lo, Movistar Riders captain, to replace sakke, who left Vodafone Giants to sign for Movistar. It was, basically, a trade between both teams. With this change, Vodafone Giants aims to win the national league, after winning the last Regular Phase but losing in the LAN Grand Final in Madrid against Movistar Riders.
This roster can be a bit nostalgic for some of our readers, as four of these five players, DriD, LioN, baroz and p0Lo, played together representing gBots, the only Spanish organization that made it to Pro League, during Year 2 Seasons 1 and 2.
Vodafone Giants won the Drone Cup, celebrated on February, and played some great matches during the Challenger League and the Six Invitational qualifiers; however, they missed the chance to qualify for the closed qualifiers.
x6tence:
weskeRR, Kuriboh, Juk4, Wispy, Billordo
Without any doubt, this is another of the favourite teams to win the competition. Some of the readers will remember this organization qualifying for the last DreamHack Valencia. They were the only Spanish team that qualified for the tournament and they were knocked out by the champions I Don't Know, a team that would be acquired by Team Secret weeks before the Six Paris Major.
The team suffered some modifications from their appearance in the last ESL Masters -- Naigal7 and Indra where subbed by Billordo and Wispy -- however, these changes have worked really well.
x6tence got to play the Semi-Finals of the Drone Cup, nevertheless their best performance was seen on the Challenger League qualifiers: they were, alongside Team Dragons, the only two teams that made it to the closed qualifier.
Team Queso:
xP4TT0, nakinak, Therox, Scythe, Iluzjonist, muyfran (Coach)
Team Queso roster gets in the competition with a new look. They competed in the last Spanish league under the organization Team Wizards, and they only made one change in their roster since then.
They finished the ESL Masters as one of the four best teams of the country, finishing in the first place of the Finals Group Stage, winning against x6tence in the Winners Match. This guaranteed them facing Movistar Riders in the semi-finals, where the madness was unleashed: after being 5-0 up in the third map, on Border, Movistar Riders pulled off a historical comeback and won the game 7-5.
Although this was a big disappointment by then, Team Queso is one of the toughest opponents in the competition and they will create lots of problems to any team. They were another of the most successful Spanish in both CL and Invitational qualifiers, and even though they didn't make it to any of the closed qualifiers, they impressed with their results.
Team Dragons:
Scorpion, Curr3nsy, jwey, batfat, YORPU, SeTTS (Coach)
The Team Dragons roster has been constantly growing up. After an inconsistent first half in the last ESL Masters, Team Dragons had still some chances to make it to the Top 2 during the final stages of the tournament. Between fifth place -- their final position -- and second place all the teams were tied with 25 points, a detail that shows how close the Spanish league is. Although they became more consistent, they didn't make it to the semi-finals match.
On February, Team Dragons showed off their improvement in the Drone Cup, where they reached the Grand Finals, losing to Vodafone Giants 3-1. Their display in the CL qualifiers was also something to highlight, as they made it to the closed qualifier, where they lost to MnM Gaming, a team that's now playing in Europe's second tier.
Team Wizards:
MonkyDaBlue, Llywarth, javixu, Lucian, Critical
A roster formed by three players from The G-Lab Addicts. Critical, Llywarth and javixu all come from the Spanish team that played in the last ESL Masters. To these three names we have to add MonkyDaBlue, who also played some matches under Black Claw.
As we mentioned before, Team Wizards was part of the last ESL Masters, but they don't have anything to do with that team. After Team Queso acquired Wizards roster, Team Wizards were obligated to find a new team. Not having a roster meant that they got auto-eliminated from the Drone Cup, so this will be the first time we see this organization in a Spanish competition since the Madrid Finals.
Arctic Gaming:
iFlama, Uve, W_Mike, GroLazZ, iSniPer, Silence (Coach)
When the Spain Nationals was announced, all eyes were placed on Arctic Gaming. Both the organization and the players don't have relation with the last season, so seeing them as another invited team was strange to say the least. Arctic Gaming is a well known Spanish organization that will explore the Rainbow Six world for the first time at the Spain Nationals.
Cream Esports:
Jot4, Basily, Onekz, EscrivaZ, Jabbawockeez, Reina
Cream Esports roster was the first one to get an organization after qualifying through the qualifiers. Two of the players, Basily and Jabbawockeez, played in the last ESL Masters, alongside Team Dragons and The G-Lab Addicts respectively.
This team counts with the only female player of the tournament, Reina, who will be the first woman to play in the highest Spanish division of Rainbow Six Siege.
Efficiency Team:
SART3N, Setzz, Antifah, Galthan, M4DMAN
This organization is not “new” in the Spanish scene, as they competed in the Predator League, a tournament that counted with the participation of Pengu, Goga and Fabian.
Efficiency Team made it to the Spain Nationals after winning the qualifiers. The team is led by SART3N, who played in the last ESL Masters with Team Wizards. This is also the only team, alongside Movistar Riders, to have a foreign player in the roster: M4DMAN and Setzz. The British player is well known in England as he played in the ESL Premiership under Unnamed. His experience and skills in the game were seen at the qualifiers, being the most valuable player of the tournament.
Ramboot Club:
XC3L3NT, GABOBU, Aquiles, Zowkander, HAKA, Z1R00
To finish the preview of the Spanish teams, let's talk about Ramboot Club. This organization acquired the EC4 Gaming roster some weeks after finishing third in the Spain Nationals qualifier.
Without experience at major tournaments in Spain, Ramboot Club will try to cause an upset.
The Broadcast
The Broadcast will be formed by the following casters / analysts:
- Marc "R0SS" Rosés
- Erik "MrXavito" Javier
- Álex "AlexPolo_" Polo
- Ignacio "Adonai" Ballesteros
The matches will be played every Tuesday and Wednesday from 6pm CET and will be broadcast on the rainbow6es Twitch channel. Ramboot Club against Efficiency Team will be the first match of the league, this Tuesday 23rd at 6pm CET.
You can visit and check the Spain Nationals schedule on their official website.
Timetable of the Week 1 Matches, via @Rainbow6ES
The Finals
The Spain Nationals haven't announced yet where the Grand Finals will be held. However, an announcement is expected to come during the midseason. The last Finals were played in Madrid (19-21 October) during the Madrid Games Week.