Upsets Abound en Route to Paris, But Why?
If you created a power rankings list at the beginning of this split, there’s a 99% chance it’s completely wrong. Numerous top teams, including Falcons, Geekay, Gentle Mates, and Virtus Pro, have had their splits rocked by numerous upset losses and early exits.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest upsets we’ve had in just the first half of the Paris Major Split, and some theories about why the RLCS has been so volatile this spring.
Team Falcons
Calling Team Falcons a juggernaut would be an understatement. As an organization, they’ve won 19 RLCS regionals, 2 Saudi eLeague titles, and an RLCS Major.
They’ve also participated in 12 RLCS LANs and 2 EWCs, and have 5 Grand Final appearances to show for them. With them parting ways with longtime Falcons player Trk511 in favor of the Moroccan Rookie of the Year Dralii at the beginning of the season, fans expected more of the same.
Dralii’s elite mechanical ability would surely bolster the one-two twin punch of Rw9 and Kiileerrz, or so everyone thought. It was actually Trk’s new roster over at Twisted Minds that won the first MENA regional of the season, however, and it was clear that it was not going to be an easy race between the two MENA title fighters.
Things quickly returned to normalcy, however. Falcons bested Twisted Minds in the Grand Finals of MENA Open #2, and then again in the semifinals of MENA Open #3 before dispatching of R8 Esports to claim back-to-back victories and the #1 seed from the Middle East heading into Boston.
The first clue that Falcons was faltering wasn’t Twisted’s regional win, though; it was actually a loss suffered to FURIA in the Group Stage of the Boston Major. This is not a series that old Falcons would ever lose. While FURIA had a solid grouping of players under their banner, it was no secret that they just weren’t as dynamic as before. Their last four LAN appearances saw them fail to even reach a top 8. So when FURIA bested them early on in Boston, there were some alarm bells ringing before Falcons recovered and beat Geekay to top their group.
Falcons then lost to Vitality, easily dispatched of Shopify Rebellion, and then lost in a game 7 banger to the eventual champions in Gentle Mates. A respectable top 4 finish, no need to panic, right?
Split 2 had arrived, and Falcons were immediately greeted by seeing Twisted Minds on their side of the bracket early on in Open #4. Not only did Twisted win, but they also crushed Falcons, sending them down to the lower bracket. Nothing too difficult to recover from, this is a roster full of capable players.
Falcons quickly bounced back and made it to the playoffs, and then to Championship Saturday. With back-to-back 4-0 sweeps to start their playoff run, it looked like the talons were out and Falcons were about to run the table and win the whole thing. All well and good until they ran smack into a blue brick wall. Not the one you’re thinking of, though.
R8 Esports: Abdullah, Ghaazi, and M7md. Far and away the third-best team in the region. Abdullah and Ghaazi were from MENA’s LCQ squad last season, and over the offseason, they decided to add on the Kuwaitian prospect M7md. This is a chance that someone with his experience doesn’t get very often, especially in MENA. And in just his 10th RLCS Main Event, he would not be denied by a hungry Team Falcons, who were looking to run right through them and get revenge on their bitter rivals in Twisted Minds.
R8 Esports shocked the world and stopped the Falcons mid-flight. And it wasn’t even a series they had to eke out. They won in convincing fashion, 4-1, and completely usurped Team Stallions’ upset over Twisted Minds just one series before.
For the first time EVER, one of Trk511 or the twins had missed an RLCS Regional Grand Final. R8 took it one step further and won the whole thing, doing what they came just short of the regional prior.
They weren’t done either. In MENA Open #5, just on Saturday night, they did it AGAIN. Eliminating Team Falcons in 7 to make the Grand Finals and all but guaranteeing a spot in Paris.
As we approach the final regional of the season, there’s a very high chance that Team Falcons won’t be playing at the Paris Major. R8 Esports leads the pack with 30 points. Twisted sits just behind them with 26. Team Stallions is in third with 18, and Team Falcons is in fourth with 16. Falcons would need to outplace Twisted by 10 points in order to tie them, which seems unlikely. So what could have caused this sudden fall from grace?
The Why: There are few different possible explanations on why Falcons have fallen this far in one split. For one thing, issues out in the real world have made it harder to play on MENA servers, which makes it hard to consistently practice.
With that being said, all other players in the region have to deal with these same setbacks. With Dralii and M0nkey M00n moving over to MENA, it was most people’s assumptions that there would be two superteams. Per resident statistician dRekt, “While those two joining MENA in theory built 2 super rosters set to dominate, it's very clear that neither team is gelling well, definitely not as well as their rosters and players from previous seasons for them.”
He does note that MENA’s case “is a combination of both FLCN/TWIS falling down and the players below finally starting to catch up as they've been inching their way up for a while now.”
And it’s true. Now that we’re 5 opens in, it’s clear that both Falcons and Twisted Minds don’t gel as well as we had once thought. Combine that with M7md getting his shot at the top of the region with R8 and stronger players playing in the top 6 and above, and MENA has more parity than it ever has before.
Gentle Mates
Gentle Mates would be the team least likely to suffer from an upset. After all, they just won the Major at the end of February. But it was an early Swiss upset loss to GHT that put them on track in a bracket on the same side as Team Vitality, Man City, and Karmine Corp.
While the Boston Major champs were able to finish out Day 3 with three straight wins to advance to the Main Event after an early stumble, they were immediately matched up against Man City with Seikoo, who looked to be on the warpath following their trade with Geekay Esports.
While it was definitely going to be a tough, contested match, City didn’t seem at all phased by the firepower they were staring down from across the Mannfield grass. Man City quickly dispatched of Mates to advance to the Upper Semis.
As if things couldn’t get worse for the boys in pink, Gameward had a reverse sweep bid going into the decider in their lower bracket clash, but Gentle Mates were able to fend them off with a 6-0 thrashing on Champions Field.
Unfortunately for the Gentle Mates, however, when you’re a team struggling to find your footing in an event, two good things can’t happen in a row.
It turns out that Karmine Corp had also been upset, falling to Spanish squad Synergy in their Upper Qualification match. This pitted the two French organizations against each other, with the winner staying alive to play on Saturday, and the loser being forced to watch the rest of the tourney from the couch.
KC landed a punch first, and it went back and forth until KC got the knockout blow in game 5. With that loss, Gentle Mates became the first Major winner to miss the playoffs in the very next regional.
It’s a bad result, sure, but the Mates are all but locked for the World Championship. They also went 3-0 in Swiss earlier today, beating out Karmine Corp in game 5.
The Why: No need to sound any alarms if you’re an M8 Ultra. It seems like with how teams are seeded into the Swiss Stage now, one big team is bound to get a tough bracket. Other upsets, such as the Synergy win over Karmine Corp, don’t help with tough draws either.
According to our stats expert dRekt, the newfound parity were seeing in Europe is primarily “a factor of the roster moves made at the top, with dralii and M0nkey M00n leaving EU to go to MENA. KC was far and away the best team in the region the last several years with almost no one that could compete with them on a regular basis.”
He notes that while Juicy is still “very much a great player,” he is “not as good as Dralii nor working as well with Atow/Vatira.” In seasons past, everyone else in EU has been swapping players to try and catch up to KC, after the Dralii trade, it feels a bit more like KC fell down to them instead.
Geekay Esports
Geekay Esports made a bold move to replace Seikoo with Danish up-and-comer TempoH, and were desperate to drown out the noise from the French faithful and prove the removal of the former World Champion to be worth it.
Their early exit last weekend all but fueled the fire being fanned their way after the trade window closed. Their first loss in Open #4 was somewhat respectable. They lost to Kaydop Corp (Alpha54, Radosin, MtzR) off the back of a couple of Alpha54 1,000 score games.
Their lowers match loss, however, was just plain brutal. Kalogeras (Mat, Vadyy, Osaft) are all solid players in their own right, but if you want a shot at the European throne, these are guys you need to dispatch of, and relatively quickly at that.
Geekay couldn’t muster anything offensively in the first couple of games and it proved to be their downfall, as they were then tasked with reverse sweeping their way to stay alive. With TempoH scoring late in game 4, it seemed like the series would at least go the distance, but Kalogeras had other plans, scoring at the buzzer to force overtime, and then scoring the golden goal shortly thereafter.
With this exit, as well as Man City’s big run, it seems pretty much guaranteed that Geekay will be unable to make it to Paris, and by proxy, Worlds. Some solid showings in games this past weekend mean there are some signs of life for the G-Men, as their only real stumble from the opening days of Open #5 was their 0-3 loss to Team Vitality. Wins against Magnifico, the former Inner Sircle roster, NOVO Esports, and MES all looked convincing.
The Why: The best explanation is probably just that the team made a bad move. Was it even necessary to make a move at all? That’s probably the first question we should be asking. There were tons of shaky moments earlier on from the Blue and Yellow, but the players had really calmed down and looked like a contender in Boston, especially after they nearly toppled Karmine Corp.
Kicking Seikoo wasn’t necessarily a bad move. Despite what a lot of his most vehement supports may tell you, he was not far and away the best player on the team. The Frenchman had plenty of uncharacteristic whiffs and misplays throughout split #1. But he wasn’t far and away the worst player on the field for Geekay either. Jack’s offensive output was far below that of Seikoo and Joyo despite averaging nearly 3 shots per game, and his defense also ranked in the bottom half of the region.
Stat-watching aside, the real issue here is that all three players had those aforementioned bad misses throughout the entire tenure of the team, and these bad misses have continued to the present day even after his removal. There’s a fundamental lack of trust with this team and that’s ultimately what their true issue has been and will continue to be if they can’t get a mental coach or a team meeting to turn their ship back around towards Paris.
Virtus Pro
REDACTED was an amazing story in the first split, and it was just the story that North America needed to get the Hopium back and flowing smoothly through the entire region. When they got signed and got to Boston, however, those glimmers of hope soon faded.
They got rocked by Team Falcons and Geekay, and their best and most mechanical player from the online portion of the split had gone quiet. They did take a consolation win over FURIA to close out their run, but still bowed out a lot earlier than was expected of them.
Their issues continued on through to their return to online play, as they squeaked into the Main Event through the 2-2 round of Swiss. The next weekend they were quickly eliminated before playoffs, losing to Dignitas and Shopify Rebellion.
In Open #5, it seemed like they wouldn’t even make it to the Main Event at all. On Day 2, they were swept into the lower bracket by American prospect DappDapp and NTX Esports.
They woke up just in time for Day 3, where they went through as quickly as possible, going 3-0 with a win over SSG in the process.
This time around, missing playoffs wasn’t even a conversation, as the Polar Bears took down NRG in five games and ultimately finished Open #5 in 5-6th place.
The Why: DRekt is convinced that a lot of the other issues in North America, Oceania, and APAC are due to complacency, but not Virtus Pro. “[It] doesn't quite feel like complacency, but maybe a confidence issue? They were the talk of the entire community the first split. Made 2 finals, each time getting easily defeated by NRG each time, despite beating NRG multiple times prior, then go to the Major and fail to make it out of groups.
And that feels like the most accurate assumption to operate under. You can likely just chalk VP’s struggles down to pressure. They were playing their best ball when they were unsigned. 2Piece and Wahvey are two very capable players, but were never able to really shine whilst under contract. That holds up when you look at their tenures at TSM, Deleted, or Shopify Rebellion. Suddenly, when they form at the beginning of the 2026 season under Redacted, they’re unsigned and making fools out of top NA defenses.
So when that began to disappear once they were donning their Virtus Pro orange on LAN or at home, it became pretty clear. That once overwhelming pressure seems to be fading though, and at the perfect time for Virtus Pro to show the world their true selves for good.
TSM
Not seeing Sphinx in the APAC Open Champions graphic last Sunday morning was probably one of the most jarring things ever experienced by a seasoned RLCS fan. While he was once this bright new patch weaved in the history of APAC, and someone that could take the region to new heights, he’s now the top guy of the region. Could we be so bold as to dub him the new generation ReaLize?
I mean, the results speak for themselves. Before his upset loss to Northstar Gaming, he had won the last 9 APAC Regionals. This was the first APAC RLCS tournament that he missed the Grand Finals since February of 2024.
While people might be quick to chalk the reason for the streak ending up to Kash’s presence in the region, it’s important to note that his squad wasn’t even the team that knocked TSM out. Plus, he’s been in APAC for the past 3 events now and only found complete success in attempt #3. This region is a lot deeper than people make it out to be, especially with the new two-thirds rule.
The Why: This very slight regression definitely seems to be the consequence of some complacency. It’s genuinely hard for players and teams to stay at the top for so long before they let their shoes off the pedals, or their fingers off the boost bindings. Now that TSM is at a genuine deficit in the standings, they have a fire lit under them again.
Wildcard
Wildcard looked poised to have another dominant season in Oceania after their Top 6 finish in France at the end of last season. However, with OCE losing a spot, it was actually PWR stealing their bid for the Boston Major.
PWR’s newfound stranglehold on the region continued in Open #4 after they boat-raced Wildcard in the Grand Finals. It wasn’t until this past open, Open #5, that Wildcard was finally able to eliminate Superlachie and company, but their big win was immediately superseded by a Grand Final loss to Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs (Caleb, Kaka, Hntr).
The Why: In all honestly, Wildcard’s “struggles” are merely surface level. They aren’t actually playing that poorly, it’s just that OCE’s spot reduction has really magnified all of their losses. Even the smallest slip up can and has cost them a shot at making LAN. They’ve only lost four series in five events! That’s good by a lot of standards, by most standards even.
It really boils down to the bottleneck that OCE is currently dealing with in the LAN spot category, caused in part by their struggles on LAN in seasons past.
DRekt’s take on the struggles of the likes of Wildcard, TSM, and even a team like NRG? All results of complacency (or as a certain former RL podcaster put it, “full-tummy syndrome").
DRekt puts it this way. “I feel like could be complacency from years of dominance. Cata/Sphinx, NRG and Wildcard have all dominated their regions for years at this point with each basically making every single final in their region the last 3 seasons.” The question remains, now that they’ve been put in their place a bit, can they light a fire under themselves and get right back on that horse?
Now that we’re halfway through Split #2, we’re really deep in do-or-die territory. Can these teams turn it around in time for the season finale?
