The main stage competition of the Rainbow Six Siege Invitational 2020 starts on February 14. Opening Ceremony will begin at 11:30 EST and run all the way until February 16.
There have already been shocking upsets to keep the viewers coming back. The reigning Raleigh Major champions Team Empire was eliminated by APAC favorite Fnatic. Fnatic also pushed back-to-back Six Invitational champions G2 Esports down to the loser bracket in the playoffs. Where Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) did not surrender a map to G2 eliminating them from contention.
With the two biggest EU teams eliminated before the main stage, BDS Esports is the final hope for EU. Including BDS, there are three NA teams Team Solo Mid (TSM), Spacestation Gaming (SSG) and DarkZero Esports, as well as APAC’s Fnatic and LATAM’s NiP.
North America will have a team in the final game of a Major championship game for the first time since the Paris Major in 2018, which was Evil Geniuses. An NA team has not won a major since 2017, Siege has been dominated by EU teams for the better part of 2 years.
Six teams will play a total of six matches to determine who the Six Invitational 2020 Champion will be.
Six teams. Six matches. One championship title. #SixInvitational
Upper bracket:@TSM vs. @SpacestationGG
Lower bracket:
@NiPGaming vs. @DarkZeroGG
@BDS_esport vs. @FNATIC pic.twitter.com/9CfElvz0UK— ESL Rainbow Six (@ESLRainbowSix) February 13, 2020
New champions will reign
The question is who will raise Sledge’s Hammer? SSG has yet to drop a map all tournament, coming out first in their group and running to the finals of the winners bracket. Their opponent TSM has only one loss this tournament and it came by the hands of SSG back on February 8 during the second round of groups. These two teams have battled it out in NA PL and will now face each other on the biggest stage of the year.
The G2 eliminator’s NiP will have to deal with another NA team in DarkZero down in the loser bracket. This is the last chance for both of these teams. NiP is coming off an impressive victory while DarkZero was not able to claim a single map off of Spacestation Gaming in the second round of the winners bracket. These two teams play very different play styles. DarkZero is known to be a very strat and structured team while NiP is about as free-flowing as they come. The winner of this match will move on the face the winner of BDS versus Fnatic.
These two teams both have something major to prove. APAC is often considered the weakest region in Siege Esports and Fnatic having already eliminated Team Empire and forcing G2 to the loser bracket are here to show the rest of the world what APAC is capable of. BDS, on the other hand, is a fresh out of Challenger League team with a man on a mission, Stephane “Shaiiko” Lebleu. Shaiiko received an almost two-year ban a while ago and has led BDS this far into the tournament.
The main stage will not only be built to host these amazing games, but Siege has some great news in store for their fans. If this invite follows the same script of last year there will be a Year 5 roadmap laid out, along with full details on Operation Void Edge which is Season 1 of Year 5. Included in this announcement there will be panels of many outstanding community leaders and Ubisoft personnel discussing everything revolving around Siege.
