ALGS Autumn Circuit #4 EU and NA Grand Finals today!
This is The Final Circle, a competitive Apex newsletter
If you can find a way to watch Twitch today, make sure to catch EU’s Grand Finals, starting at 6 PM GMT (that’s 1 PM Eastern Standard Time, half an hour from now). Esdesu, who became one of the heroes of early competitive Apex with an incredible clutch at the Preseason Invitational in Poland, has re-formed the 789 organization with her original teammate Xaniya. He’s left Luminosity to join the orgless team, and they’ve qualified to face a Grand Finals lobby with two top EU teams missing: COOLER and Third Impact. After stomping on their quarterfinals lobbies, both squads offered up a truly dismal performance in their semifinals matches, finishing well outside the top ten and failing to qualify for the Grand Finals. As other commentators have noted, COOLER is in a tough spot after signing big talent and failing to qualify for a single Autumn Circuit tournament final.
In North America, another highly-rated team failed to qualify: Team Liquilelie. After I talked a big game about a possible Albralelie vs. Hal showdown in the Playoffs at the end of the Autumn Circuit, Liquilelie has been highly inconsistent. While Liquid’s Nocturnal struggled with internet issues in the quals, they simply didn’t have a good day and got knocked out in the semifinals, not even managing to reach the ‘finals’ and getting outperformed by squads of semi-pros like Team Rice Krispies Treats (who, sadly, went on to finish outside the top ten of their finals lobby). Liquilelie will have to clutch up in the Last Chance Qualifiers to reach the Playoffs.
Other big names in NA breezed through their qualifiers. CLG, Sola Fide Aim Assist, and Sentinels took 1st, 2nd and 3rd. NA Grand Finals tonight start at 5 PM PST (that’s prime time on the east coast of the US, 8 PM Eastern Standard).
While 789’s Esdesu gets her shot to reclaim some big-time glory today, Janey, another talented female player in the Apex scene, managed to qualify, but couldn’t continue through the bracket due to scheduling conflicts.
I’ll be back later this week to finish up the debrief on Autumn Circuit #4 and for a deep dive on a topic that’s been on my mind a lot lately: how the scene needs to drastically rethink tournament formats and dispense with long, tedious qualifiers.