TSM clutches up while Team Liquilelie stumbles in ALGS #3, and pros react to Season 7
This is The Final Circle, a newsletter for everyone in the competitive Apex community
The United States may be stuck in an electoral quagmire for the next few days, but thing are moving quickly in the world of Apex. Season 7 drops at 11 PM Eastern Standard Time tonight (Wednesday, November 3rd).
King’s Canyon is gone for now. There’s a new map, Olympus; a new character, Horizon; and the new Trident hover car to whip around.
The R-99 is back in the normal loot pool (and I’m already running low on light ammo), while the Prowler, that burst-damage beast, is going into the care package. Apex is out on Steam, which should broaden the game’s appeal and expand its playerbase.
NRG’s Ace, one of the game’s most popular streamers before he left for Valorant (and still the game’s 7th highest earner in prize money) is returning for this season, at least for a bit. And TSM is back on top in North America after a commanding win in last weekend’s ALGS Autumn Circuit #3.
The competition was close in the EU, where only four points separated the top three teams. North won with 66 points, while Nessy and Alliance finished at 63 and 62 points respectively. NA, on the other hand, was determined by a more comfortable margin.
The rebooted TSM, with Reps swapping out Wattson for Gibby, finished at 70 points, while NRG took 2nd at 60 points; aggressive powerhouse Complexity finished in 3rd with 55. The complete results are here at Liquipedia, with thanks as always to the tireless and formidable Kanø.
Team Liquid + Albralelie, who looked fearsome in scrims and smaller tourneys over the last week, had a bad day and finished in 17th.
Despite that performance, it seems almost inevitable that North American Apex is headed toward a TSM vs. Team Liquilelie rivalry. Last week’s Kraber clip started it. This weekend, TSM focus-fired Albralelie in the Grand Finals with a perfect “321” when he strayed too far from his team, while Hal has reportedly grumbled on stream about Albralelie’s short ‘retirement’. In a scene with fluid pro rosters, this intra-TSM conflict between two of the scene’s most beloved players (and its #1 and #2 highest earners) has the feeling of a civil war. If Team Liquilelie stays consistent, that simmering pot of drama might come to a boil at the Autumn Circuit Playoffs.
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Respawn is hiring someone to help fix the ALGS
Respawn is looking for a Competitive Quality Designer, someone who will “focus on the quality level and integrity of Apex Legends competitive gaming.” The potential employee will make sure that “the technology supporting the ALGS is well maintained, stable, secure and ready for competition.”
This sounds like a tough job, but it’s an encouraging sign that Respawn hopes to make progress on the technical issues that have plagued the ALGS since March.
Jamerson’s response to The Final Circle’s Series E coverage
After I mentioned the caster Jamerson’s on-air defense of Esports Arena Series E last week, he saw the post and elaborated on his views in a comment on Reddit:
A big shout-out to him for his work adding prize pools to Series E. In other Esports Arena news, Tsquared, Jamersons’s counterpart in Series E, has started ‘Final Circle’, a new weekly competitive Apex talk show. I wish I could muster such high production values. He’s got highlight reels and graphics and I’m sitting here screenshotting tweets like it’s 2014.
On an unrelated note, if you like The Final Circle, subscribe! I deliver independent, unbiased coverage of the Apex scene—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I’ll be back next week to go over initial reactions to Season 7 and a discussion of funding opportunities for unsigned teams. Until then!
Dude I love this content. I’m so happy I found someone who has dedicated their time for current events in the world of APEX. It’s a quick yet effective read on getting up to speed on recent events, especially when I can’t catch it all.
I have a question though, is their a reliable source to find the schedule of upcoming apex tourneys? Liquidpedia is a good website but i can’t seem to easily seem upcoming events.
Even if it was pre-planned and not just "retiring" and "un-retiring" on a whim, I think the final result of how Albralelie left TSM and ended up with Liquid was relatively clean. There wasn't a big bust up where he retired in the middle of a tournament. Or made a switch right before a big tourney screwing TSM over. While it's clear he doesn't fancy Hal, he didn't throw him a blatant middle finger. There could have been a number of much worse ways to go about it and I think at the end of the day, the best result occurred and was done in a mostly professional manner.
FYI - The Albralelie kraber clip isn't working for me. I get a 'clip missing' error from Twitch.