The Guard cruised to their second gameday win of the ALGS. They executed their zone gameplan to near-perfection, picking up impressive kills and placing in the top 4 across 5 of the 6 games.
As a result, The Guard have shot up to 3rd in the overall standings, and are well placed to qualify for LAN. Elsewhere, Furia appear to have rediscovered their spark. They put down their best performance of the season so far.
The North American Pro League is approaching it’s conclusion. Just three regular gamedays remain, followed by the high stakes regional finals.
Rambeau, back on Valkyrie, inspires
A highlight for The Guard has to be the performance of Rambeau. RKN told esports.gg that Rambeau and Keeon were swapping roles, to enable Rambeau to be more aggressive. This paid off in a big way, as Rambeau racked up the most kills in the entire lobby. 22 kills is one of the highest individual totals from a player in ALGS history across 6 games. This is even more impressive when you are a zone team.
Rambeau dropped 22 kills today (Photo: EA)
The experienced man from Florida is absolutely a big game player, and he thrives in the high pressure environments that ALGS provides. Rambeau’s career got a huge boost in Raleigh at the ALGS Championship, he subbed in for GMT esports and took them all the way to a 5th place finish. Since this breakout result, Rambeau has gone from strength to strength.
Incredibly consistent placement for The Guard
RKN laid out to esports.gg what has to happen for The Guard to be successful. They need to rotate well, get strong spots and rack up midgame kills. Today, they executed on every single point.
RKN led his team to victory today (Photo: The Guard)
As The Guard look towards the regional finals and the LAN playoffs, they will feel especially confident about match point format. Their playstyle is perfectly suited to the most intense games. Teams like Furia have previously struggled with match point because they can’t close out wins. The Guard put themselves in so many end game situations that a win is almost inevitable at least once per tournament.
RKN’s perfect zone call
The Guard’s best performance of the day came in game 2. The vast majority of teams called that the zone would head into Lava Siphon. The Guard took a different view, and posted up in the tunnel between Siphon and Lava City. They had an incredibly quiet game for the first few circles, as almost every other team had predicted the wrong zone.
This led them to be able to take full advantage of teams poor positioning, as reality quickly dawned on the vast majority of the lobby.
Their position allowed them to easily walk out into the final few circles, and they took full advantage of the confusion that ensued around them picking up 11 kills on their way to a game win.
Furia find their spark
Elsewhere, Furia rediscovered their form as they put down a much needed 2nd place. The trio that rewrote the Apex meta at the ALGS championship have struggled in recent weeks. As happens to many pioneering teams, they struggled to adapt and innovate. After all, why divert from such a successful strategy?
Their success came from finally mixing up their composition. They kept the same aggressive principles that saw them take second in the ALGS Championship. However, they took a legend combination out of Luminosity’s book.
Furia Pandxrz (Photo: EA)
Using Bangalore and Bloodhound, Furia reignited their aggressive playstyle. Furia averaged 6.66 kills per game across the 6 games. This is a vast improvement from the rest of their Pro League campaign. Furia averaged just 2.94 kills across their previous showings.
Furia are notoriously poor at match point, so they will be incredibly desperate to find a top 9 finish in the overall standings and not have to rely on a win in the regional finals. Their style at it’s best can be devastating and rack up lots of points, but not a lot of wins. HisWattson famously declared in Raleigh that they were happy with second place, accepting that they’d have to change style in order to win when match point is in operation.
Furia HisWattson (Photo: EA)
Furia are now sat in 17th overall, a vast improvement from the 25th place they found themselves in at the start of the day. The ALGS Championship runners up will need to keep this momentum going if they are to sneak into that crucial top 9.
The Guard lead Day 6’s top 5:
The Guard – 76Furia – 64Luminosity – 63HEC – 44TSM – 44
The ALGS Pro League returns on Sunday, as the season rapidly heads towards a tense conclusion. Stay tuned to esports.gg for the full coverage of ALGS, as well as other Apex Legends news and updates.