As the first split of the ALGS Pro League moves toward its conclusion, Esports Arena cemented their position at the top by winning day eight, with TSM just five points behind in second.
100 Thieves, the defending ALGS champions who are in danger of missing the playoffs, won the first game outside Harvester with good positioning and a Kraber, picking up 13 kills along the way. The stalwart TSM roster finished in second place with ten kills, and Team Liquid also had a strong game.
Cloud9 won game two from high ground, punishing XSET and Team Liquid with a Gibraltar bombardment. By then, TSM and Team Liquid had 30 points, and 100 Thieves were close behind.
Esports Arena, with rising star Evan Verhulst, clutched up in game three, but it wasn’t enough to change the overall rankings—the podium stayed the same.
The elite controller squad G2 took game four in a 14-kill win. The competition at the top narrowed as Esports Arena had another strong performance, leaving them tied with Team Liquid for third place.
Esports Arena piled on the points with their second win of the day in game five. Adding 15 kills to their tally, they shot up to first place overall with 66 points and one game to go. TSM was hot on their heels with 60 points.
The sixth and final game of the day would decide the winner. But instead of a high-octane duel, Esports Arena and TSM went out in the early game, after extremely tough rotations into the circle. Teams that hadn’t been doing too well took the spotlight instead. Bad Boys won with a great solo play in the final circle, while FURIA took second place, and the top of the standings weren’t impacted at all.
Some teams are fighting tooth and nail for spots at a $1,000,000 LAN in early 2022, while others are trying their best to avoid relegation. At the end of the season, the bottom eight teams will be forced out of Pro League and the top ten will go on to international competition in the playoffs. Time is running out for teams like defending ALGS champions 100 Thieves and Team Liquid, both outside but within conceivable striking distance of the top ten. Less successful squads like Torrent and FURIA needed good results to keep ahead of teams likely to face demotion.
TSM is the biggest organization in Apex and has already cemented a impressive legacy. Esports Arena is a roster of up-and-coming stars. But after Sunday’s performances, they have something important in common: both teams face an uncertain future as the ALGS continues.
But the drama of Sunday night’s competition was overshadowed by other developments on the pro scene. Statements by both Halo and Apex pros this week left the competitive Apex community feverishly speculating about changes to the TSM roster, the game’s most popular and successful team. TSM’s Eric “Snip3down” Wrona, widely considered one of the best Halo players of all time, made a return to competitive Halo this weekend. While he was able to play in the ALGS just a few hours later, Snip3down’s future in Apex is a big question mark: he appeared emotional at the conclusion of the day’s matches, and his teammates and peers wished him well on social media.
At the same time, William “SkittleCakes” August, a member of the talented Esports Arena squad, alleged that his team’s breakout player, Verhulst, is moving to TSM. “Verhulst gets a bunch of money, and we get fucked,” he told a viewer. The Esports Arena team had no invite to Pro League, but fought through open qualifiers to dominate the leaderboard.
Finally, Team SHEEEEEEESH, which featured two of the most popular streamers in Apex, Timmy “iiTzTimmy” An and Jack “NiceWigg” Martin, disbanded, citing personal reasons.
