Now that three games have been played by many teams, the number of those who are still unbeaten has become significantly smaller. Teams like Coinflip in division 1 or Oil Rig in division 2 had to suffer their first defeat and, as so many others, will now try to recover and get back to their winning ways. For this #RIGGED, the focus will be on the teams that have yet to lose a series and are sitting at the top of their respective tables. The only exception will be division 4, where parity rules and only the highly-rigged team of Treehouse Gaming has not lost anything so far, despite making Frogenji a reality in their last series.
Team Below Average vs. Throw The Advantage
Team Below Average have so far outperformed their own name by a pretty large margin. They are a perfect 2-0 as they have yet to play their round 3 match against Don Our Fedoras and are looking strong. This mostly Portuguese team of high Masters and even Grandmasters are however only getting started. Because of vacations they did not get to practice and play together a lot so far, so only time will tell what they'll be able to do when shotcaller Caps and his team develop some serious synergy! They'll be put to the test this week by Throw The Advantage who are best known of course for throwing the advantage, but so far they have not done that at all! To the contrary, they dismantled Greybeard Gangsters in week 2, letting Tenderloin go ham on his ranged assasin Auriel (Top damage btw). They will try to abuse this strategy as much as they can in the future, because as captain Larkin pointed out: "We don't want to win Lounge, we just want to play Auriel! And if you pick Junkrat, you win." Well, unless they at some point inevitably throw the advantage.
The Forever Alones vs. Feed & Greed
There's nothing you can say about The Forever Alones that has not been said already, so let's just look at their performance this season and it has been nothing short of great. Granted, they've lost a map to Team Shitters in week 2, but as soon as they release both of their secret weapons in Undead, who is known for his boundless love of Overwatch heroes and good mod work, and Cephiro, resident Saltlord and former division 4 player, TFA appear to be unbeatable. But who knows, maybe they'll be beaten by team Feed & Greed! After an appearance in last seasons Heroes Lounge Cup and some roster shuffling, they have been promoted from division 3 and show no signs of slowing down in division 2 now. In their first two series of the season, they looked pretty dominant at times, so despite the roster consisting mostly of elderly men who have aged well, they could upset TFA and end their bid for a perfect season early.
In division 3, we have two of the three unbeaten teams go head-to-head in BrownHorseGang and Hordlinge. This is not only a match worth your attention, but also a prime opportunity for me to shamelessly plug my own team for once, but first things first. The BrownHorseGang, consisting of German, Greek and Dutch players, have looked very strong in their first three series, showing equally strong play and strong drafts. They have a tendency to start slow however, losing the first map twice, something they have in common with team Hordlinge and it really makes you wonder if it's possible for both teams to lose the first game. Other than that, the unpronouncable Hordlinge, formerly known as even more unpronouncable Alt und Adipös, are still adjusting to life without AceLafleur, who is having his hands full with taking care of little Varian. Luckily, former Warcraft 3 pro Eve has shown to be a fitting replacement at the tank position so far.
As stated earlier, division 4 has only one unbeaten team left, so we'll be looking at two teams that are also fighting for a top spot. Czech Mates unsurprisingly are a bunch of Czech mates with the addition of one Slovakian player. They like to be aggressive and it shows in their drafts as well as their results, even though their captain Rebellius would like to add some macro to their brawly playstyle. If there's one team with an even bigger desire to teamfight, it might very well be TEAM SALT. In the two games of their second round series against Waffle Tier Warriors, they managed to get a total of 49(!) kills. They had to learn about the limitations of this way to play the game at the hands of division 4 powerhouse Treehouse Gaming, who only allowed TEAM SALT three kills in two games, something that TEAM SALT will want to redeem themselves for. Their ultimate goal is to meet their friends of LE GAG in the Heroes Lounge Cup after all.
Talking about LE GAG, last season surely taught us all that division 5 is not always what it appears to be at first, as some teams seem to exceed division 5 expectations. Two of them are Sköna Lirare and DUET R (with the third being Earthworm Defence Force, who have been rightfully featured last week). Sköna Lirare have shown three things so far: a love for Kel'Thuzad, a love for Sonya and a love for absolutely dominating their opponents. If you look at their results so far, you're not only asking yourself what they are doing in division 5, but also who is ever supposed to beat them there. Well fear not, this is what is DUET R is made for. While they needed two more games to keep their perfect record, you can look at it as two more games of practice, because if you've watched their games against BrutalFissure Esports or Owl Exterminators, you could see DUET R's high individual skill that only needs some time to translate into successful teamplay.
Do you think we missed the most crucial matchup of the week or ignored a certain team for too long? Feel free to let us know by writing a kind DM to juliandoom on Discord and we'll consider fixing the issue immediately!
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