Team Empire has emerged victorious at the Six Major Raleigh after taking down G2 Esports in a rematch of the Six Invitational 2019. Team Empire took the series 3-1, with close victories on Border and Clubhouse, a strong win on Coastline and a close loss on Kafe. With this victory, they have earned themselves US$200,000 and a major trophy in their cabinet. Although, there are greater achievements to consider.
Team Empire take home the trophy from the Six Major Raleigh. (Image via ESL)
By defeating G2 Esports, Team Empire have finally shut down the reigning world champions. They are the first team to defeat G2 Esports on LAN for over 13 months. Furthermore, Empire’s results here, in the European Pro League and their victory at the Season 9 finals show that the G2 era has come to an end. Instead, Team Empire has ushered in a new era of Rainbow Six esports.
Team Empire’s journey through the Six Major Raleigh was met with a fierce challenge in the finals. The first three maps of the series were close for both sides. Team Empire won both Border and Clubhouse with a 7-5 result. As for Kafe, G2 Esports’ map choice, the result was 8-6 to G2 Esports. Coastline was the final map of the series, and this map was looking hard at the start. Team Empire took an early timeout after G2 Esports took the first two rounds. Team Empire then lost the following round; however, that was the final loss they took. Team Empire regained momentum and pushed the tournament to its satisfying conclusion.
For Team Empire, there could be no better opponent for them to defeat. As Ghassan “Milosh” Finge explained during the show, Team Empire said back at the Milan finals in May that they were not the real champions until they defeated G2 at LAN. Given that these two teams met in the finals, it feels like this series was destined to be.
Although to make their dream come true, they had to adapt and overcome throughout the tournament. Team Empire did trip up throughout this event. First up, TSM gave them their first loss of the tournament in their opening game. TSM defeated Team Empire on Kafe, one of Team Empire’s weaker maps 7-5. The European giants then woke up and proceeded to win the next two maps in their group stage series.
The next difficulty Team Empire faced was later in the quarter-finals. FaZe Clan destroyed Team Empire 7-1 on Clubhouse, one of Team Empire’s better maps. This failed to shake Team Empire, as they then went on to win the series 2-1.
Following on, Team Secret then went on to take a game off Team Empire in the semi-finals. Team Secret emerged victorious in the second map of the series on Coastline, Team Empire’s map pick. Comparing this map to G2 Esports’ and Team Empire’s coastline battle the difference is night and day. This is a sign of Team Empire’s ability to improve, adapt and overcome their issues all tournament.
Team Empire is the new face of Rainbow Six Esports. This Russian squad first qualified for the European Pro League at the end of 2018 with their auto-promotion. They entered the European Pro League with a blaze of glory. They made it to the Six Invitational 2019 through the European qualifier and finished second versus G2 Esports in the grand finale back in February. They then went on to qualify for the Season 9 Pro League Finals in the first season in the league. With that achievement, they then went onto win the Pro League Finals, dominate the early half of Season 10 Pro League and are now a major champion. With their current trajectory, Team Empire should continue their path of success until the end of the year.
Their first big challenge should be to continue their grand performance in EU Pro league come to its return. Furthermore, their biggest storyline is to see whether they can make round their storyline off with a victory at the Six Invitational 2020, and thus become World Champions after an already great 2019.
