For the last three seasons, the core of this roster has been working towards the top of the league but they’ve found themselves stuck in the fourth place every time., Could this be the season in which they finally breach the top three of the league or even qualify for an international event?
In the last season of the Pro League, SSG debuted with a new roster after swapping Trippen and DAAAVE for Shuttle and Rampy. This composition would last only 6 months and the team would finish the first half of Season 8 in fourth place with three wins, two draws, and two losses. After the first seven games of the season, Shuttle decided to part ways with SSG after Rogue offered him a spot in their team just before DreamHack Montreal. He summed up his thoughts in a tweet about the move: “While I thought that SSG was a great team, (I) just didn’t think they could get over the top 4 hurdle this season.”
We spoke with Lycan about the time with Shuttle in the team:
Lycan:
While Shuttle went Rogue’s way, they sent Bryan over for the second half of the season in what was effectively a trade. The last seven games of the season brought even better results than with Shuttle as SSG was able to achieve four wins, zero draws and three losses. Unfortunately, the three losses were the reason why Spacestation Gaming was not able to break into the top three of the league, and for the third season in the row, Spacestation would finish the season in the fourth place.
During this run with Bryan, the team participated in DreamHack Montreal where they had a poor performance. They would start the tournament on the right food defeating the now former SK Gaming roster 2-1, in the following game they would fall 1-2 against the French side Millenium (now LeStream), in the decider match SK Gaming would return the favor to SSG by beating them 2-1 and ending their run in the group stages.
Redeemer and Lycan also talked with us about their time playing with Bryan:
Redeemer:
Lycan:
Once the season was over, the team decided to part ways with Bryan and acquire Bosco as he had left the Obey Alliance roster a few days after the latter had been relegated to Challenger League.
When Dylan “Bosco” Bosco joined the SSG roster he talked to us and told us why he made the decision of joining this team:
Spacestation Gaming definitely showed their excitement for the addition of Bosco after announcing it in this way:
In their first run together as a squad at DreamHack Winter, Bosco had a great impact. The team was able to get out of the group stages of a DreamHack event for the first time in three attempts, and they also were able to edge out LeStream in a three map battle in which Bosco posted an impressive 1.41 SiegeGG Rating and a +17 K/D.
In the playoffs, SSG dominantly defeated Mock-it 2-0 with a scoreline of 7-2 and 7-3. And in the game that defined one of the lasts spots for the 2019 Six Invitational, Spacestation Gaming fell short in a 1-2 marathon vs PENTA. In the third place match vs Team Empire the team was defeated 1-2, and once again ended a tournament in fourth place.
A couple of weeks after the great result at DHW, Spacestation arrived to Las Vegas looking to become “Team America”, their first rival was the newly acquired Rise Nation squad, SSG would find their way towards the victory after a close first map to finish the series 2-0. In the Semifinal, Spacestation faced off against Rogue, with the new addition of VertcL, a three map marathon and which was probably the best series of the tournament, SSG were unable to close out the series in which they had a one map advantage and a match point in the second map, ending their run in the US Nationals earlier than they expected.
After the result in Jönköping and Las Vegas, the team had impressed the whole scene -- the synergy and team play that the team showed in Sweden was something that had never been seen from this roster. It was clear that the addition of one of North America’s top players in Bosco to the already talented roster and coaching staff has made this team a real threat to the titans of Evil Geniuses and Rogue just like DarkZero.
To go further, and into orbit, Spacestation Gaming will now have to fight to end this first half of the season in a solid spot while trying to achieve the only 2019 Six Invitational spot for North America remaining.
We were also able to question Lycan and Redeemer about their expectations towards Season 9 and the 2019 Invitational Qualifiers:
Redeemer:
Lycan:
The current Spacestation Gaming roster is:
Taylor “Redeemer” Mayeur Javier “ThinkingNade” Escamilla Brady “Chala” Davenport Nathanial “Rampy” Duvall Dylan “Bosco” Bosco Justin “Lycan” Woods (Coach)
You will be able to catch Spacestation Gaming in action on the official Rainbow6 Twitch and Youtube channels when the 2019 Six Invitational Qualifiers and the whole first half of the season will be played in the month of January on the following dates:
- Tuesday, January 8th vs Evil Geniuses
- Sunday, January 13th vs Cloud9
- Monday, January 14th vs DarkZero
- Monday, January 21st vs Ex-Noble
- Tuesday, January 22nd vs Rogue
- Monday, January 28th vs Rise Nation
- Tuesday, January 29th vs Excelerate Gaming