After a scarily dominant performance from REUNITED just beforehand, the second match of Group B saw Rogue face off against Cloud9. Both teams have been familiar at times with being on top of their region and both have settled into a comfortable position in the top three in recent weeks. While the analyst desk had Cloud9 as favourites in this fixture, it was always going to be a fiercely fought battle and had the potential to go either way.

If you’re looking to get more familiar with the teams and understand their storylines, take a look at the viewer’s guide written yesterday for this tournament. The four teams in each group played in a GSL-style format, running a mini double-elimination bracket. Teams with two losses would be eliminated, while those with two wins would qualify to the knockout bracket.

Round 1: Rogue vs. Cloud9

As was the case with all round one games in the tournament, Rogue and Cloud9 began on King’s Row. In a repeat of the previous European attack on this map, TviQ burst out with Hanzo and found the first pick after a few tentative pokes, but Cloud9 engaged with their freshly built ultimates and pushed back. Rogue continued to poke and build up their ultimates before engaging and wiped the floor with Surefour and co. to take checkpoint one in two minutes.

TviQ and winz pushed forward into the streets with their ultimates on Hanzo and Roadhog respectively to continue the momentum and take another three kills. They managed to push the cart to the second checkpoint where Cloud9 had established another defense with ultimates live and get held up. KnOxXx’s speed boost and sound barrier into a flank picked off two quick kills before a transcendence could catch them, splitting up Cloud9 and securing the second checkpoint in four minutes.

A quick push that followed with an array of ultimates burned and a spree of headshots from uNKOE hit got the payload almost to the end, but a clutch transcendence from Adam kept the dregs of his team alive and bought time for spawners. They were able to hold off Rogue and neutralised all of their ultimates, leaving the European team in a sticky position. TviQ switched over to Genji as the team prepared to dry push without ultimates and immediately they all fed into a huge graviton surge. Still without much to take an advantageous fight, Rogue dived in on the back of a Zenyatta ultimate and focused fire effectively to wipe Cloud9, swatting down spawners to secure a final time of 7:53.

Cloud9 in their first game. Photo Credit: ESL

Cloud9 and Rogue both ran a classic composition on the second half of the map, but C9 began with a much higher tempo. They speed boosted straight into hotel, causing a messy fight but getting stuck inside and pinned into a small chokepoint. They looked to be stuck until Surefour appeared as if by magic in the centre of the point and began to pile damage into the Rogue side, cleaning up two with only 17hp. The rest of his team took position on the point and forced the Europeans out where they held in their trademark aggressive manner.

Rogue took a couple of engagements where they speed boosted into arch and pressured Cloud9 out completely, but risked over-extending each time. They eventually strayed too far after KnOxXx popped off a questionable sound barrier and wiped; they then gave the second checkpoint to Cloud9 after contesting again without being set up properly. Rogue rallied themselves with three minutes remaining in the final bends and kept poking, but couldn’t stop DeBett muscling through and pushing forward along with his team. It took a transcendence from uNKOE on the final checkpoint to stop the payload going the final few metres, and all Rogue had to do was hold for another minute and a half.

In a heart-break moment for them, Cloud9 speed boosted forward with Surefour and DeBett on McCree and Reinhardt. Surefour went for a flash onto the opposing Reinhardt and, as Reinforce jumped and lifted his shield to block the stun, DeBett earthshattered, catching four Rogue members and slamming them down to take the final checkpoint on King’s Row with only a minute to spare, winning map one.

Rogue picked Dorado as the second map in an attempt to get back into the fixture. They began again with an aggressive defense, waiting until they got a better fight around the slope before pushing through and clearing Cloud9 whenever an opportunity arose. The inability for Cloud9 to find any breathing room made it a hard fought capture of the first checkpoint, but C9 were just able to squeak it through in overtime. Rogue established themselves on the balcony in another defense and looked strong. Reinforce showed multiple times in his initiations that he was more than capable of going head-to-head with Cloud9’s oft-lauded tanks, and the rest of his team helped hold for the entire map time, stalling KyKy’s company out at 92.83m after checkpoint one.

If Cloud9 wanted to win in two straight maps over Rogue they would have to hold the second checkpoint for the whole of the map as well. Rogue had no intention to let them and tested the defense immediately with a team composition featuring uNKOE on Ana and TviQ on Genji. They waited mere moments before Ana’s ultimate was charged and Reinforce was let loose as a shiny cat amongst the pigeons, scattering C9 players and forcing them to put all of their attention on him. Despite dying fairly quickly, he bought enough space and distraction for aKm to casually stroll up behind the entire American team and destroy them, combining with winz for a well-executed teamfight victory and checkpoint one in 2 minutes.

Cloud9 immediately dropped down from the balcony to stop the payload as Rogue capped, stopping their momentum dead in its tracks. The half-French, half-mad European roster had to regroup and come up with a method of breaking the hold, but had all the time in the world. Slowly edging forwards, they managed to poke effectively and bait a committed drop out of Cloud9, who quickly realised they’d mistimed it. Rogue immediately backed off, resetting the push and forcing both teams to take a fight on the floor; without Surefour looking down his nose and his sights, Cloud9 weren’t able to win the engagement and got swept aside by Rogue. They took the second checkpoint and the map to tie up the series.

Rogue in their first game. Photo Credit: ESL

Lijiang Tower was the decider map for the series, Cloud9's pick in the series. As a team that classically favours Control maps on the back of their tank synergy and dps abilities, they felt it was their best chance at putting the series, and Rogue, to bed.

The map began on the Garden stage, with Rogue running TviQ on Tracer and aKm on McCree. Cloud9 differed slightly, choosing to have Reaver on Reaper instead of McCree, and got torn apart by TviQ to take the first stage. C9 won the first teamfight on the second stage, Control Center, and rolled it forward to 50%. Surefour took over from TviQ and began pounding on Tracer, ripping Rogue players to pieces and throwing them off the side. The ultimate advantage began to spiral out of control, allowing Cloud9 to win fight after fight and tie the map at 1-1 with an almost mirror performance.

In the third stage, Night Market, the teams fought an extremely close teamfight in the courtyard to begin. As damage and frags were traded across the board, Rogue slipped a player onto the point and barely scraped a better position. Playing from the point with ultimates that built mere seconds before their opposition's, Rogue managed to establish a bit of position and begin the cap. Surefour replied with a spree of kills, again without reply from TviQ; aKm was brought in on anti-Tracer duty though and his flash along with deadly accurate aim was able to shut down the blinking menace. Rogue kept ticking upwards from 65% to 99% before KyKy was able to weasel a graviton surge in and catch a few players, subsequently taken down by a death blossom. The kills allowed them to take the point for the first time, but they had to recover from 99%-0%. As Rogue went to build up the last of their ultimates in a relaxed manner, DeBett rocked them and helped his team gain some ultimate percentage to hold. Rogue had five ultimates to push in with, but only needed one. aKm got a beautiful quadra-kill deadeye due to great positioning, and Rogue went up 2-1 on Lijiang Tower.

Cloud9 were praising the gods of RNG as they were sent back to Control Center, the stage they had already won on so far. They had not anticipated the speed with which Rogue would adapt though and met a modified and improved team composition to counter. aKm switched over to Tracer despite having been fantastic all series on McCree, and TviQ took over Genji duties.

It worked perfectly right from the beginning. The adaptation let aKm wild on Tracer, putting Surefour to shame with a ridiculous display of damage, kills, and harassment. His constant prodding and staggering of spawns easily let the rest of Rogue mop up in the teamfights and they stormed to victory with a 100%-0% final score. It was a complete role reversal for the Control Center stage, and the perfect ending for Rogue's upset over Cloud9.

Both European teams in Group B made it through their first round games in the group stages of ESL Atlantic Showdown, in direct contrast to Group A. This set up the Winner's Match of REUNITED vs. Rogue, and the Elimination Match of Cloud9 vs. compLexity.