Day 2 of the Apex Legends Global Series Championship in Sapporo, Japan, was the last chance for teams to secure their place in the winners’ bracket heading into the knockout stages this weekend.
While the likes of Team Falcons, Enter Force.36, and surprise package Citadel Gaming had all but booked their place in winners on day one, it was all on the line for the majority of teams.
Team Falcons Remain Dominant
The first round of matches saw Group B and Group C face off. Virtus.pro, Unlimit, and Gen.G Esports all performed well, but six matches with an even spread of victors ensured Team Falcons secured the top spot of the group stage with an impressive 166 points across the 18 matches of the group stage.
Sadly, Men of Culture propped up the other end of the leaderboard after their third player missed his flight connection and couldn’t get to the tournament in time. With no substitute available, the duo registered just six points on the second day of action. With their third surely arriving in Sapporo in time for tomorrow’s action, they’ve got a lot of work to do to fight through the losers bracket tomorrow.
However, the real juicy stories were in the final round of group stage action, Group A versus Group D. Supernova went, well, supernova, early doors. Konstantin “Hardecki” Kozlov announced his return to ALGS LAN competition after a short-lived retirement by inspiring a mammoth 76-point set, the biggest points total of any round in the competition so far. This saw Supernova jump a massive 23 places to take fifth spot overall.
Which Teams Fell?
However, the opposite was true for Alliance, who failed to turn up on the second day of competition. After being placed so well originally, a meager 15 points means they end the day in 15th place. That secured a place in the winners’ bracket for the former World Cup champions, but left them so low in the draft that Legacy was able to nick the North Pad drop spot for tomorrow. Alliance will fight from Jurassic, a difficult POI that could lead to more trouble.
Speaking of Legacy, the Mexican trio has performed consistently since being dropped by Team Liquid late last year. 120 points were enough for the squad to claim tenth spot in the overall leaderboard, 19 places ahead of the new, all-star Team Liquid roster that underperformed again and finished the group stages in 29th place. You wonder if the Team Liquid execs are regretting that decision now.
However, the story of the day was undoubtedly Crazy Thieves. This roster had the potential to turn things around, and boy, did they give it a go. After doing very little for the first 16 matches of the group stage (including the first four today), Crazy Thieves won back-to-back victories with huge kill tallies to end the day on 101 points. An aggressive team comp and the knowledge that this roster had to pull out all the stops to reach the winners’ bracket led to an incredible finish to the day’s action.
Unfortunately for Crazy Thieves, Ninjas in Pyjamas clinched the last spot with 103 points. Just two more kills would have seen Thieves complete the unlikeliest of comebacks. Imagine if the players had turned up for more than two matches…
If CT has momentum going into the losers bracket, a reverse sweep is easily on the cards. However, some big names join it and Liquid in the bottom 20. FaZe, Sentinels, Riddle, and Aurora are all teams to watch when Saturday’s action gets underway.
After years away from competitive Apex Legends, the recently-revamped Olympus shone over the course of Friday. While some ALGS purists will lament the lack of congested endgames, it was refreshing to see as few as three or five teams in the final circle.
Combined with legend bans removing most of the sight-obscuring abilities from the battlefield, these were some of the clearest, most exciting final fights of the tournament so far. It helped that NiP and CT were two of the final three in the final round, both vying for the last spot in the winners’ bracket.
Tomorrow, the first teams go home. Falcons look set to walk into the final, but we all know it’s never quite that simple.