PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Americas RMR Preview
Intoduction
The first region to kick in the RMR tournament will be Americas, this time joining both NA and SA in one qualifier. Only 6 best teams will get the spot in the major, 1 for Legends stage and 5 for Challenger Stage. There are a few surprises here from the open qualifier but for the most part it's all the teams that you would expect to see and we should see minimum upsets happen at least in the final results, there might of course be some minor losses in the opening bo1 matches
Autolose teams
Not to be disrespectful to anyone or something like that, after all every team here deserved their chance just for being able to qualify through the OQ stage, but let's be honest - some teams just have 0 chance of going to the Major.
Out of the obvious ones this have to be Sao Caetano and Leviatan. Even if they get a win or two in the bo1 stage they should never end up in top6 with such competition and just the fact that they are here should be a good enough of a result for them.
There are also many questions to 00NATION, Isurus and Party Astronauts. Isurus have an interesting roster but just like with previously mentioned SA teams, they don't have enough firepower or experience to beat the grands like Liquid or EG and end up in top6, although they should definitely get a few wins. 00NATION are in a very weird position after their massive losing streak in tier3 EU tournaments, struggling against much weaker teams and getting absolutely shit on by teams that they should have no problem with on paper. In this RMR there are a lot of opponents that shouldn't be a problem for 00NATION but there are also serious teams, and if they haven't fixed whatever was the issues in Europe there is a high chance we won't see them in the Major. Finally, Party Astronauts don't seem to have what it takes to be a professional CSGO team. They are more of a mix of friends and Major isn't really for people like that, let's just look at what they have done recently. After a decent performance in RMR qualifiers where they even got to beat EG, they went 0-5 in EPL S15 with only winning 1 map in the whole group stage, and ended up in 7-8th place in ESL Challenger after losing to teams such as ATK and MIBR. Party Astronauts could score somewhere near the middle but they can't get it to top6
Who's gonna cause all the chaos?
Perhaps not exactly the candidates to go to the Major, but teams who can upset here and there and make some "favorites" struggle really hard. If we see same as what we've seen before, this could be Case, TeamOne and Bad News Bears.
TeamOne are actually one of the few underdogs with potential to make it through, their current roster looks very promising and despite a lot of embarassing losses in NA tournaments they have good potential. Maluk3, trk and pesadelo trio have enough firepower to just win rounds on pure aim and since the group stage matches are all bo1 except for decider bo3s, this is a perfect opportunity for TeamOne to show what they are capable of
Bad News Bears also look amazing ever since they added 2 Pakistani players to the team and their performance went through the roof after that move. Once again, in a bo1 stage there is a great opportunity for them to get a few upsets, especially against teams like Complexity or EG as those are not the most stable out of all the "favorites"
Case are not as strong compared to the other 2 mentioned teams, but just look at their roster, it's hard to believe that they won't achieve something. RCF and honda are crazy young talents, yepz and f4stzin are solid as well and steel has crazy amount of experience to keep these guys in touch with reality and guide them where it's needed.
Who's gonna disband in case of failure?
Now, of course we probably won't see an actual disband, but if these teams don't make it to the Major it will be a disaster and there will be high chance of some roster changes in one way or another. These teams are Liquid, FURIA, Evil Geniuses and Complexity. Not even much to add about this. Liquid and FURIA in particular should have almost a lock in the Major and it's highly probable that one of them will end up in Legends stage as well. As for EG and Complexity, they should also make it just because of how bad the competition here really is, and although both have a lot of issues it won't be significant enough to not qualify
The rest of the teams that weren't mentioned are not even worth to be mentioned. For teams like MIBR or Imperial there are no real expectations unless you are from Brazil, one of them could make it if lucky enough but realistically they are not ready for the Major yet. If anything, MIBR probably wouldn't have qualified here at all if they were in NA qualifiers with everyone else instead of getting free spot from SA.
9z aren't any better too and they could even be put in autolose team list, however out of all the "nonames" here they are the ones with the biggest potential even though they should absolutely never make it through for obvious reasons
Bets on first round of matches
Somewhat classic already, in every preview article for tournaments we put the starter bets, and this time is no exception. Due to the nature of the teams and the level of competition, as well as the bo1 format, we decided to release it early enough before all the odds drop to unbettable levels so here we go:
1% FURIA -8.5 @ 1.877
Not really expecting much from a bo1 hence only a 1% bet, however almost x2 on one of the biggest favorites against literally tier99 team to not lose 8 rounds seems pretty alright
1% Party Astronauts -3.5 @ 1.9
Pretty much same as FURIA bet except this time it's even better as the margin is 12 rounds now, Party Astronauts will most likely flop later on in the tournament but Isurus is the least of their problems
2% Case -2.5 @ 1.869
As mentioned in the preview, Case's roster looks ridiculously promising and although Bad News Bears are pretty good as well with MoMo and Pluto, an opening match is the best time for Case to shine
1% Sao Caetano +6.5 @ 1.787
1% Sao Caetano ML @ 5.82
Nothing to do with logic just want to see FalleN suffer
3% Evil Geniuses ML @ 1.724
1% Evil Geniuses -2.5 @ 2.05
Perhaps too much to bet on an opening bo1 on a team like EG against paiN who can in fact be a serious trouble for them, but we have high hopes for NA team here and paiN's recent results couldn't have been worse so this might just be the best juice of the first round (likewise it could be the dumbest loss)
3% TeamOne +5.5 @ 1.833
1% TeamOne ML @ 4.12
Sick odds on bo1 and as we mentioned earlier TeamOne are one of the teams who could surprise, and at least 11 rounds shouldn't be a problem