EUL Stage 2 Preview

The second phase of the Rainbow Six European League will commence on Monday. We’ll then have the pleasure of watching continuous R6 action for an entire month. At the end of the regular season, the four best teams will be sent to a Mini Major once again.

SECRET EXPEL KS AND EXP0

Just a few days before the GSA Finals, Secret came with the shocker announcement: They have thrown Niklas “KS” Massierer and Daniel “exp0” Massierer out the door! They quickly followed this up with their first new addition. Ville “SHA77E” Palola can look back on a great career, which has culminated in the victory at the Six Invitational 2018. In recent months, though, he hasn’t really lived up to this top form. His performance in EUL Stage 1 left a lot to be desired. So it remains to be seen whether he is really the right fit for Secret.

What’s definitely going to help them is the addition of Peter “pacbull” Bull. The Brit got famous as the in-game-leader of DIVIZON. After the team had made a great third place in the regular season of GSA (higher than Rogue, even!), his leading capabilities are more than welcome in the Secret roster. The team really doesn’t lack individual talent. In Kevin “Prano” Pranowitz, they have the third highest rated player of Stage 1 on board. Fynn “Drvn” Lorenzen was also not too shabby and placed himself comfortably in the Top 15 of players. Right now, the biggest problem for Team Secret is time. With less than two weeks of preparation, they have to face G2 Esports in their opening match. This will be the biggest challenge of pacbull’s career.

CHAOS UNDERGO SEVERE RESHUFFLE

At Chaos, two players have been let go as well. These are Ville “SHA77E” Palola, who has quickly found his new home, and Rasmus “REDGROOVE” Larsson. Both of them have underperformed in the last stage, but Chaos’ newest additions don’t really inspire a lot of hope either. Rickard “Secretly” Olofsson had already been a part of the team a few months back. After less than 60 days, he was removed from the roster again. But now, for some reason, he is back in the team. With Arif “Next1” Keskin, a former German teammate of Pascal “cryn” Alouane joins the group. But it remains to be seen whether the player is really ready for the highest level of European R6 competition.

HAVE THE TOP TEAMS CHANGED ANYTHING?

In short: no, not really. BDS, G2 Esports, and Rogue have all kept their five man lineups. After Mees “eaglemees” van der Arend had worked wonders for BDS at the Major, the coach has now been permanently signed to the team. Given their historic victory over G2, this should hardly come as a surprise. Between the four Major attendees, only Virtus.pro have actually replaced a player.

Pavel “Amision” Chebatkov is out, Andrey “m1loN” Mironov is now on board. The new player has just turned 18 a few days ago and can’t really boast any experience at the top level so far. But VP will have signed the player for a reason. Individually, he can definitely impress. But that talent now needs to be channeled in a way that helps the team put rounds on the board.

The fact that only the lower-ranking teams have really made severe changes leads us to wonder: Can the top teams of Stage 1 just keep up the exact same level as before? In principle, there’s nothing holding them back  – provided that Natus Vincere, Vitality, and the likes haven’t dug deep into the VODs and haven’t found some weaknesses to exploit against these superteams.