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Week One of NAL Stage 3: How the Tournament is Shaping Up

With the first week of the Stage 3 NAL tournament completed, the favorites TSM and SSG have been overtaken... Fragster | 13. September 2021

With the first week of the Stage 3 NAL tournament completed, the favorites TSM and SSG have been overtaken by Oxygen Esports and Susquehanna Soniqs, who have stormed into the lead of the tournament with 2 victories each. TSM will be looking to rethink their gameplan after losing to Oxygen Esports and dropping closer to the bottom of the rankings, a long way to fall after finishing second in Stage 2 of the NAL.

Currently at the top of the rankings just behind the joint tournament leaders is BeastCoast, who have had a good start to their Stage 3 NAL journey, while teams like Astralis and SSG will be hoping to springboard off their reasonable performances, each with one win and one loss.

Though Astralis is technically a newcomer to the NAL while all the other teams are established players, it is more of a name change than a meaningful entry of new people into the sport. This is because Astralis recently bought Disrupt Gaming, who prior to the acquisition (covered here) were a fairly established team within the NAL.

So far, there have been no changes from the previous Disrupt Gaming team to the new Astralis roster, so while their face is new, the core team remains the same from the Stage 2 NAL, but with a new branded shirt.

Winners & Losers

This early on in the tournament, everything is still all to play for, and a team’s wins or losses may not mean as much as they seem on first glance. For example, TSM currently sits near the bottom of the rankings with one loss, no wins, and draws. While this can be damaging to team moral, their loss was to Oxygen Esports – the current frontrunners and one of the more prominent teams heading into the tournament.

Because of this, TSM should expect to pick up more wins and rise through the rankings as the weeks go on and they play more of the lower-ranked teams in the tournament. Despite this, both SSG and TSM have gotten off to an objectively bad start. The top two teams in Stage 2 of the NAL, SSG and TSM can’t really afford to lose to rivals Susquehanna Soniqs and Oxygen Esports if they want to achieve a first place.

Though now a frontrunner, Oxygen Esports were not necessarily at the top of the list of favorites for Stage 3 of the NAL, having finished outside the top four in the previous stage.

While Susquehanna Soniqs made a relatively small jump from third to second between stages 2 and 3 of the NAL, Oxygen Esports have blasted up the leaderboard from sixth in Stage 2 to a current position of first. Whether they can maintain their current form is yet to be seen, but it is definitely a great start for the New England-based team.

Currently, teams Mirage and XSET seem to be struggling, each with 2 losses not only against tournament favorites such as Oxygen Esports, but also against BeastCoast, who finished last in NAL Stage 2. Given these early losses against non-favorites, it is likely these teams will float around the middle-to-bottom end of the table for most of the tournament, unless one can begin some kind of epic comeback.

What to Watch Out For

With week 2 of the Stage 3 NAL games kicking off on Monday September 14th, the most important thing to look out for is DarkZero Esports. One of the favorites coming into Stage 3 after finishing fourth in stage 2, DarkZero are yet to play a game, and will face their first battle on Monday against Mirage, and again the following day on September 15th against TSM.

With the experienced and decorated Troy “Canadian” Jaroslawski, previously with SSG prior to his retirement, DarkZero will soon find out if the addition of Canadian propels them into the higher rankings or brings down their team synergy.

Astralis is also a team with an interesting set of games in the second week of Stage 3 NAL. Currently in fifth with a win and a draw, Astralis will face Oxygen Esports – the current frontrunners, on September 14th, and SSG – the winners of Stage 2, the following day on September 15th. With their position in the middle of the rankings, these next two playdays could prove crucial for either pushing Astralis into the top four, or sending them down into the lower depths of NAL Stage 3’s tournament rankings.