NA Regional Event 3 Day 1 Highlights: Carnage And Chaos

With plenty of points on the line, and spots at the LA major up for grabs, North America’s third regional event for the Winter split has started off with a bang on day 1!

Randoms Thrive On Debut

The ’Randoms’ are certainly randoms to the scene no more. They’re young, they’re mechanical, and they played without fear today, in one of the more impressive team debuts from recent times.

Faced with the mammoth task of debuting against NRG, the young prodigies rose to the challenge, showing experience beyond their years to combine incredible defence (with only 3 goals conceded in 4 games), with pristine offence, as they took down NA’s best, 3-1.

Despite being swept by V1, and losing a tightly contested heart breaker to Shopify Rebellion, they were still able to scrape a second place in groups.

And in playoffs, they produced their best performance yet, dismantling Rogue, who were fighting for their spot at the major, in a clinical 3-0 sweep, locking in a top 8 finish on debut, and proving their worth as a talented, rising lineup that will certainly be in contention throughout the Spring split.

Version1: Hungry For LA

Heading into the event in 6th, V1 knew they needed a big performance to clinch their spot at the LA major. And with everything to play for, V1 certainly rose to the occasion in a dominant performance, despite a difficult group.

The two headed offence of Comm and Beastmode synced up perfectly throughout the day, whilst Torment’s consistency in defence and experience helped guide the team to a 9-0 sweep of the group stage.

The run was never going to be easy, coming up against leaders of the pack NRG, the major contending Shopify Rebellion, and the rising, unpredictable Randoms, but V1 were quick to prove why they deserve their spot in LA, and will fight in tomorrow’s upper bracket to amplify their chances, which are looking better than ever.

Complexity Back Into Fall Split Form

It would be fair to say that Winter hasn’t gone as Complexity would have liked. In the first event they scraped their way into an uninspiring top 8 finish, before being demolished in groups in the second event, all but ruining their major chances.

But the Complexity we saw today is one much alike the one that impressed so much in SAM, Fall split, and made top 8 in Stockholm. They were prolific in the group stages, with convincing sweeps over Torrent and XSET, two dangerous, top 8 contending rosters, before clutching back to back overtimes to take the win over SSG 3-1.

With other results going their way, Complexity, surprisingly, is still in with a chance at the major. But that’s only the case if they’re able to take down V1 tomorrow in what will promise to be a series fought right to the end, as the SAM super stars will be looking to rebound and prove their worth once more.

Oxygen Rise, SSG In Trouble

Oxygen may not have had a great group stage, with a 3-2 loss to Soniqs after being shut out in the last two games, before being conquered by G2 in a close 3-0, where they struggled to find the consistency when it mattered most.

But after SSG fell in groups, Oxygen found themselves in a huge matchup in the first round of playoffs. If they lost, they could kiss goodbye to their major hopes. But Oxygen weren’t ready to go home just yet, gritting their teeth in a hard fought series to take the matchup in game 5, keeping themselves alive and securing their 4th straight top 8 finish.

Heading into the event, SSG seemed comfortably positioned for a spot in LA, which has now been completely thrown out the window. SSG will now have to sit back in nervous anticipation to see how the weekend plays out, with a top 2 performance from Version1 and top 3 from Oxygen meaning they lose out on a spot in LA, which would be devastating after what has been a largely positive Winter split, but is a definite possibility.