NiP Win Six Invitational 2021

It’s taken the Ninjas in Pyjamas over a year to finally complete their rise to the top. At SI2020, they already made the Grand Finals, but now they’ve finally taken the trophy home.

Actually, they hadn’t even been their region’s top performers over the last year. At Brazil’s November Major and during the 2020 Finals of Brasileirão, they narrowly made the Top 3. Just a month ago, they finished Stage 1 in fifth place behind FaZe, Liquid, MIBR, and FURIA. This was not a good sign going into the Six Invitational, but on LAN, things were completely different.

THIRD PLACE IN GROUP B

Following victories over Giants, Mkers, Oxygen, and SSG, they secured a Top 4 finish in their Group. This helped them to an Upper Bracket slot, which they managed to utilize to perfection. Going up against BDS Esport, they secured their first win. A 2-1 finish helped them past the Frenchmen. Afterwards, they had to contend with their domestic rivals of FaZe Clan. Earlier on, FaZe had made first place in the Brazilian league, but apparently this didn’t matter anymore on offline soil. With two quick map victories, the Ninjas in Pyjamas continued on and arrived at the Upper Bracket Finals, where the next Brazilian squad was lying in wait.

MIBR forced them onto a third map was well. However, the team folded on a 7-8 scoreline and made way for the Ninjas to enter the Grand Finals. This was a hugely important step, as they received a map advantage for coming through the Upper Bracket.

As it turned out, they desperately needed this. Team Liquid emerged from the Lower Bracket after beating TSM and MIBR – while doing so much more decisively than the Ninjas had done prior. After an effortless 7-2 win, NiP had to watch has Liquid recorded a similarly strong victory on Chalet. Even worse, the team then mounted a close 8-6 finish on Clubhouse. Suddenly, the Ninjas in Pyjamas stood with their backs against them wall. On Consulate, however, they finally managed to stomp the Liquid players and steal the trophy for themselves.

THE OVERTIME MIRACLE

It speaks volumes for the tournament that so many teams arrived in overtime and that these overtime rounds often had to decide entire matches as well. But it also speaks volumes for NiP that they were able to decide so many of these encounters for themselves in the end. So much perseverance, so much resilience… only few rosters can boast that much raw power. At the end, these traits were probably what gave them the edge over their opponents in the Grand Finals.

So after a narrow loss to Spacestation Gaming at SI2020, they have eventually secured the trophy a year later. For the first time ever, a Brazilian team has been awarded this honor. So this tournament isn’t just a milestone in the campaign of NiP, but also in the history of competitive Rainbow Six: Siege.

This tournament will stay in living memory for long – not just because the Six Invitational 2021 will likely remain the only offline event during the Covid pandemic. While Ubisoft had announced plans for the August Major, it remains to be seen whether they will actually go through all this trouble again. The World Cup that was announced in 2020 will also be rescheduled for 2022. So the Ninjas in Pyjamas are bound to remain the uncontested international top roster for many months to come.