Firstly, here are the final scores by the end of the day:
- Parabellum Esports 8 - 7 Astralis
- TSM FTX 7 - 5 Oxygen Esports
- DarkZero Esports 7 - 5 Spacestation Gaming
- Soniqs 7 - 3 beastcoast
- XSET 8 - 6 Mirage
Play of the day: J9O 1v2
While it was “only” a 1v2, J9O won an unwinnable clutch as doq and Azian set up in a cross-fire situation with just seven seconds remaining:
Player of the day: Skys
Skys absolutely brought the heat last night.
He secured 12 kills to just six deaths, had his team’s only plant, and managed a key 1v1 clutch to help DarkZero to a win over Spacestation Gaming.
This comes 10 weeks after SSG dropped Skys, two weeks after a Ubisoft-conducted interview with SSG and a Twitlonger from Skys aired a lot of dirty laundry from the exit, and just one week since Skys rejoined DarkZero.
While the exit was primarily due to an internal falling out in Spacestation Gaming, this was the perfect way to prove his use and skill in the server.
Surprise of the day: Ferda
Regardless of his performance, the surprise was the debut of Ferda in the North American League as the Canadian player finally got his visa sorted and was able to join the beastcoast squad in Vegas. Bc had been playing with their coach, Mark, who stood in during weeks one and two.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the debut he would’ve wanted, as it took him until round seven to get his first professional kill against Kanzen. He was then immediately traded back by geometrics. The game ended 3-7, with two of beastcoast’s rounds coming from clutches.
Top moments of the day:
Finally, here’s a quickfire rundown of other notable moments in the NAL on Tuesday:
Parabellum’s 2v5 attack
Put down in a 2v5 position, Eskaa and BlaZ managed to get into the Villa Aviator site and kill all five opponents as they pushed to deny the plant. This was one of many very well-coordinated team plays from PBLM in the game, assisted by BlaZ’s fragging prowess.
The best shot of the day: Nuers
OxG’s Nuers pulled off a ridiculous flick headshot that seemed to have even surprised himself against TSM:
Oxygen looked more themselves vs TSM, but still short of a win
TSM kept their perfect streak going with a 7-5 win over Oxygen. This was closer than expected considering Oxygen’s shocking four-loss start to the stage, as they looked much improved and were level with TSM all the way up to 5-5.
Later tonight, Oxygen play beastcoast as one of the two winless teams will finally get a positive result. Oxygen will be hoping the improvement they showed here will be more than enough to beat beastcoast.
Melted is by far the most improved player
In Stage 2, Mirage’s Melted was the second-lowest rated player in the North American League at 0.81. The only players with a lower figure was Nyx, who was moved to a coaching position on Mirage, and three stand-in coaches, who played just a single game.
In Stage 3 so far, he is the top rated player on Mirage and the 13th-best player overall, ahead of everyone on XSET, bc, and OxG, as well as Kanzen, njr, and iconic.
Iconic’s 1v2
KoolAid guessed wrong and shot behind the vault door, allowing iconic to jump up after a plant to finish off a 1v2 clutch:
Skys 1v1 vs Spacestation
The story of the DZ vs SSG matchup was a revenge game for Skys, who had been dropped by SSG and joined DZ last week. With this in mind, Skys winning a clutch against SSG to get his team a final round win on their offensive half would have felt good.
Perfect anti-Montagne lineup fails
After a rehost Parabellum’s KoolAid used Attacker Repick to bring Montagne. This was despite the defence having Frost, Thorn, Azami, and Melusi, a very tough counter to the pick.
Nevertheless, the play worked, as Montagne got a kill by trading off his teammate. The round went from a 5v5 to over in 12 seconds.
Four C4s kills from TSM in just two rounds
While Fragmentation Grenades may have been nerfed, TSM are still the master of the vertical play that won them the SI22 title, as their C4s were on point against Oxygen.
Bad O-K conversion from SSG and DZ
The following pattern pointed out by NAL analyst Jesse Chick was broken on round seven, as SSG lost an attack to a (completely off-stream) quadruple-kill from Canadian.
Kanzen gets a breach charge kill
While trying to open up the floor, Kanzen accidentally killed a hurt Slashug. Slashug on Kapkan also didn’t get all of his utility down with a trap still in his pocket when he died.
Oxygen’s effectively out of contention, TSM, Soniqs, DZ all look Major-bound
TSM, Soniqs, and DarkZero all sit on 11 or 12 points at the top of the table, at least three points ahead of PBLM, XSET, and Mirage on eight, as well as SSG and Astralis on seven.
With more than half the stage over in NA, this is setting up a dash for fourth place. Next week the top teams could also lock in a Major and SI spot.
