With Week 4 in the books we have much to discuss. Day one kicked off with wins for Evil Geniuses, Team Allegiance, Counter Logic Gaming and Enigma6. Making the middle of the table look very interesting with the 3rd place really up for grabs. The highlight of the day was Team EnVyUs taking CLG to 5 games ending with a 2-point difference on Eden in one of the tensest games of slayer ever broadcast.
Day two was one of the most interesting days of the league so far with some interesting results. Allegiance took a big win against renegades and EnVyUs took a very close match against Evil Geniuses. Excitingly Team Liquid picked up their first win of the league at the expense of Optic Gaming. But the big business this week was Enigma6s landmark victory over CLG.
Bearing in mind that CLG have not lost a series since the final of the Aspen X Games in January, losing 4-3 to bitter rivals Evil Geniuses. So for E6 to come out today and take the series convincingly 3-1 really was an upset. So what happened?
Well it’s no secret that E6 have a strong roster with young guns bubu dubu and Huke showing up in full force with their direct no-fear style of play they really where too much for anyone to handle. The real difference however for E6 was the performance of Shooter who has been criticised so far this season for not living up to the standard we know he can set. Over the course of the series Shooter just kept improving winning almost every 1v1 and going toe to toe with the CLG boys with conviction. Cratos of course put in his ever consistent shift putting his focus mostly towards the objectives and sitting back, allowing Huke to go full beast mode as he ran around the map picking up kill after kill. Cratos may not be bathed in limelight but his performance was utterly essential for this week’s victory.
But what happened with CLG? Well they started slow with an disfavoured game of Strongholds on Empire, a combination in which they have struggled before. They took the first 32 points and looked strong but once they lost their rhythm they could not find it again as their spawn time un-synced and E6 ran rampant. CLG pulled it back to 1-1 with a convincing win in Slayer but lost the crucial match. It was fated to be CTF on Fathom, the very game that CLG took from E6 last week under controversial circumstances with Frosty disconnecting mid game triggering a restart which swung the balance of play. CLG look a shadow of themselves in the final match which followed the same pattern as the first match almost exactly with the score even finishing on 100-32. It was very uncharacteristic of CLG with none of their players putting in a strong performance. To get their views on the match check out the Podcast next week where you can hear from special guest Paul “Snakebite” Duarte who will give you the inside view.
We finish off with the play of the week, coming from an unlikely source. With Ryanoob unable to play this week Team Allegiance brought in Rammyy as a sub. Rammyy currently plays for “French Toast Mafia” who hold the number 1 seed in the open circuit and played an exceptional match week, putting him top of the K/D ratio chart for the entire league! Of course this is easier to achieve given he has only played 2 matches. His performance in both games was fantastic and his shotgun play was unreal, but the highlight of the whole match week was his last minute of gameplay on Allegiance’s final game of the week. Where he picks up a Running Riot! Topped off with a triple kill, some unbelievable stuff!
Looking forward to next week I think the match to look out for will be the rematch between Team EnVyUS and Counter Logic Gaming. They pushed them hard this week, and E6 pushed them harder, could this be the beginning of the end for CLG? If EnVyUs can take a win next week, then the league really is open for anyone to take the title! Find out next week on Thursday and Friday 5Pm (PT) or head over to halo.gg.
Happy Gaming
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