Wildcard have put two maps between them and the rest of the pack as the middle of the table teams failed to break free of one another, with SiNister, Okami, LFO, Pittsburgh, Ferox, and Elevate all sharing points in Six Masters Week 4.
Only one win separated second from fifth after Six Masters Week 4, however there’s now daylight at both ends of the table. Wildcard demolished Kanga in a 7-0, 7-2 drubbing to put themselves two maps ahead of the rest of the pack, while Kanga still haven’t found a win.
The ladder congestion wasn’t helped by the rest of the week’s results. All other matches ended in a draw, which has kept the race for playoffs wide open. In the top four, Okami had the best chance of keeping in touch with Wildcard against SiNister.
However, their series certainly didn’t get off on the right foot. They fell short on Villa 7-5, with star fragger Jayden “ItBeStyle” Franken struggling to find relevance. The entry player only managed to get 2 kills on the first map as he was pocketed by Vincent “Vincere” Daniele.
What a round! 😱 It's always moments like these…
— Ōkami (@OkamiLFO) May 20, 2020
📺 https://t.co/nAN05uaxrN#OkamiWIN🌸 pic.twitter.com/D0MMnLCV77
ItBe has usually been the shining star at the top of the scoreboard — with Villa being a deviation from the norm — but he’s been working on being valuable regardless of what his stats say.
“I’ve been working very hard on my own personal performance trying to be a valuable player for my team, even if I’m having a good game or having an average game in terms of fragging,” he told Snowball Esports.
While the Okami of old might have floundered with ItBe being on the ropes, they still managed to bring it perilously close to overtime. They found three rounds on their attacking half, but couldn’t match SiNister when it came to the defence.
This has become a recurring theme in Okami’s play throughout Six Masters. The former Mindfreak lineup has only converted one series into a 2-0 win versus Kanga in Week 1. Against LFO, Ferox, and SiNister, they eked out a draw. ItBe stated the team is working on it for future weeks as playoffs nears.
“There have been multiple games where we have gotten to match point with multiple round leads of three or more and we haven’t managed to close them out,” he said. “We are changing the way we are approaching our late round adaptations so it’s no longer is a reoccurring thing.”
They did manage to bounce back on Kafe. ItBe found his way back to the top of the scoreboard, flipping his stats on their head by dropping 10 kills and helping Okami round out the draw with a 7-5 win.
A big reason for their resurgence on SiNister’s map pick was a mentality check. They’ve brought on some extra support staff in German coach Antoni “Centus” Lagemann and analyst “Janes.” They’ve been battling to try and iron out the kinks in their play and their mentality to help Okami convert leads into wins, and turn their fortunes around.
“Centus in the very short time he’s been with us has really pulled our heads in with how we approach problems, and better than that, comes with a solution to the problem,” he said.
It’s much-needed given their run into playoffs. With Wildcard, the Knights and Elevate still on the ticket, there’s no time for Okami to take their foot off the gas. They’ve beaten the number one team recently in Pro League, which is giving them the confidence to do it again in Six Masters.
“We are feeling extremely confident as we have a lot of experience against WC and Elevate and understand their playstyle,” he said. “They will be a challenging opponent to say the least, but nonetheless we are very confident in taking the wins from both of them.”
“Knights is a good team with some good talent on the roster with an aggressive or loose kind of playstyle which we don’t think we will have much issue dealing with, but hey touch wood right?”
Jayden “ItBeStyle” Franken
They know they’ve got the mechanics to beat every team in the region — they just need the right headspace to do so. “Our biggest threat at the moment is our own mentality,” ItBe stated. “Coming into the final few games we are going to give it our all and play it round by round.”
In this week’s other action, Ferox took a map off Elevate, while LFO failed to find their first 2-0 of Six Masters against Pittsburgh Knights on Tuesday.
Six Masters returns for Week 5 on Tuesday, May 26 at 7pm AEST when SiNister takes on Kanga. You can follow all the action on the Rainbow 6 Twitch channel.
Be sure to follow Snowball Esports on Twitter for all your Six Masters content throughout the season, including tips, analysis, and interviews.
