(Banner image: Ubisoft/Eric Anamalay)
Alexander “Yeti” Lawson talks a mile a minute, words fly out of his mouth like the swift staccato of machine gun bursts, and each quick phrase or sentence is punctured by a split-second pause.
“When you look back and reflect on the goals we had for the year, we didn’t expect to be at a level like this at all,” Yeti said, uncharacteristically slowing down his rapid-fire speech to discuss the Soniqs’ past year, which has surprised even him.
For many, Soniqs came out of nowhere, their rapid ascension to the top of the NAL leaderboards coming as quickly as a phrase from Yeti’s mouth. They’re made from the old eUnited core, which showed promise but was one of the statistically worst teams throughout 2020 NAL play, and Seth “supr” Hoffman, who was the only remaining member of the 2020 Soniqs that came close to breaking the top four gridlock.
Soniqs at the Mexico Major. (Photo: Ubisoft/Kirill Bashkirov)
Now that the year is effectively over regionally, you can reasonably make the case that the Soniqs have cracked the traditional “top four”, or at the very least, expanded the elite regional caliber status to five teams.
Stage 1 turned North American “Rainbow Six Siege” on its head. Oxygen were the only perennial NA power to crack the top four: NA would’ve sent Oxygen, Soniqs, Mirage, and Disrupt to the May Major, had SI 2021 not been postponed to May.
Of those four teams that broke the tradition, only Soniqs have remained in the top four spots every single stage. Indeed, they’re the only team in the region with that distinction.
“You know we never really felt like we had that respect from the top four teams or even the middle of the pack teams,” Yeti said of his time on eUnited, and how things have changed in NA since he joined Soniqs. “You know, we were always just kind of like the pushovers. So, when we got to a LAN stage, you know, I can finally see these people, we can all finally see people when we beat them, obviously we're letting them know how we feel in our own way.”
For a significant chunk of fans and some players, for better or worse, Soniqs have been dubbed the “villains” of NA. Yeti’s fine with the distinction, noting that “you are what people say you are,” but they didn’t plan to be the bad guys. They have their own reasons for their actions, and as Yeti correctly states, “people mistake passion for toxicity.”
Everyone can feel how they feel, it doesn’t change the raw results on the scoreboard. If we’re going by the holistic NA year-long circuit, you could make the argument that Soniqs are the best in North American regional competition.
“Top four for every stage, would’ve qualified for three Majors [had SI not been postponed], Invite, NAL Finals... This is crazy, man! It’s crazy, it’s a lot to take in, it’s a lot to be proud of,” said Yeti.
For fans and analysts, their regional prowess meant high expectations in international competition, not just regional competition, and it’s something the Soniqs haven’t lived up to just yet—they’re still learning. Internally, Soniqs emphasize learning from every loss, attempting to find some way to make every single aspect of the game into a lesson that can be utilized in the future.
While their Mexico Major group consisted of BDS, a perennial favorite, Team oNe, the eventual Major champions, and CAG, who were key to the APAC resurgence at the Mexico Major, Soniqs didn’t technically perform well. They won the first game of their group against eventual champions Team oNe, but fell flat in the five games after that.
“We learned a lot of things from the Mexico Major, in terms of what teams from other regions or what teams that are qualified to that event in general bring to the table in terms of preparation,” said Yeti. “It was very impressive, very eye-opening in a sense to see how some teams just completely change their arsenal from top to bottom.”
Yeti says that Soniqs saw how each team changed their style for international play, and noted how specific teams will just stop everything they did in regional competitions to do “weird” things to force specific teams’ hands. He notes that the overall structure of how they play isn’t likely to change, but “Rainbow Six” is a very situational game, and throwing a wrench in the works of your enemy’s preparation has a lot of value.
The Sweden Major is right around the corner, and it’s the next step of the road for Soniqs. As always, they’re unfazed, and are prepared to take everything in stride, one step at a time, no matter what their detractors say. “Our goal is going to be to get out of groups until we can consistently begin to get out of groups,” said Yeti. One step at a time.
Soniqs will begin their Sweden Major campaign on Nov. 8, when the group stage of the competition will commence.