After losing to Korean side Lunatic-Hai twice in groups, many from the West were fearing that this game could be an early exit for one of the best teams, Rogue. They looked far more prepared and sharp against Afreeca Freecs Blue however and beat them 3-1, silencing those who suspected a Korean shut-out.

Rogue had been given their seed in the playoffs after losing twice to Lunatic-Hai, and for their sins had been placed against another top Korean team, Afreeca Freecs Blue. Their confidence was a little rattled after winning only one map out of four again Korean teams and both teams faced early elimination from the tournament despite being excellent sides. For AF.Blue, the chance to showcase Korean dominance in the APAC Premier was right in their reach, propelling them on a road to the finals.

Watchpoint: Gibraltar

The modus operandi for Afreeca Freecs Blue had been to go all in, all the time. Tank Adam had seen more time on Winston than Reinhardt over the groups, but he picked up the shield and allowed star player ArHaN that role as they pushed with a triple tank and recry on Genji to create a healthy setup that had dive potential. Rogue played their Mei composition awfully into it, pushing underneath without their Reaper and leaving their supports totally open to the divers. They couldn’t find position in hangar until halfway through, but destroyed AF.Blue after they wasted a Graviton and Primal Rage - disaster for both teams though as winz and TviQ committed both of their ultimates onto nobody, not realising they had already won the fight with akm’s stellar McCree aim.

Without any ultimates to counter, a Nanoboosted recry feasted on the entirety of Rogue as they held on shuttle, slashing his Dragon Blade across five players in a tight area, easily in range of his regenerating dash. Rogue had to pull out both support ults to enter back into the hangar but were able to get their position back, as AF.Blue hadn’t pushed the cart. Another Nanoboosted Genji swept in and destroyed Rogue, pushing them out with two and a half minutes to crack the final checkpoint.

Both ArHaN and TviQ switched off to Reaper, as recry swapped to McCree as well. akm showed his brilliance on McCree, slaying droves of Freecs as they tried to get around the bend. As he dropped down from stairs to the payload, mopping up two tanks, recry snook up into his position and popped a Deadeye. Rogue couldn’t shut him down in time and he found three, giving AF.Blue a great opportunity in overtime to get through the final stretch. Only TviQ and KnOxXx were alive to hold, but recry whiffed every shot and couldn’t deal with KnOxXx right up in his face, leaving TviQ on Reaper to clear the cart and successfully defend.

Image credit: Rogue

AF.Blue opted for a Mei comp with McCree and Roadhog, but both recry and J1n had been underwhelming so far on those heroes. Rogue tried to get early room by throwing a Tracer and Reaper into them, but TviQ was dealt with quickly by the high ground defense. Their aggression knocked AF.Blue away and the Europeans were able to capitalise, driving them backwards within the first 30 seconds to within a few metres of the checkpoint. A slight overextension from winz away from his supports let Afreeca Freecs back in though and they set up on the back balcony. A triple kill Deadeye ruined the next push, and with one minute left Rogue put all of their hopes into TviQ on Genji and akm on McCree. The combination finally let them cut short a Deadeye and gave them the firepower to take checkpoint one.

Excellent synergy from uNKOE on Ana and his dps players let TviQ and akm tear through the hangar. A Dragon Blade found three and the counter Blade from ArHaN was useless as he threw himself in to die and spawn on Reaper. Rogue looked to be playing far better on their comfort picks, and had just under three minutes to push halfway down the final stretch.

Rogue set up a slight ultimate advantage and AF.Blue recognised it, diving forward into the European side to try and force the fight as far away from the endpoint as possible. They wiped into Rogue and were slaughtered on the respawn as Reinforce pushed his team into the first map win.

Hollywood

After winning on Afreeca Freecs’ map pick, Rogue went to their own. They started on defense with a Mei composition, but had to invest a lot of ultimates to hold on again a Nanoboosted Genji with Sound Barrier. In the following fight J1n took a speedboost with his own barrier and popped a Graviton into four players, slaying three himself with a huge amount of charge. The first checkpoint had been cracked - or had it? Despite capturing the point, Rogue had a hyper-aggressive defense, pushing back into the point to fight the payload right from the beginning. AF.Blue looked stuck with only three small chokepoints to go through and had to use every ultimate just to get through the doors. Rogue had wasted a ton of time and still had a chance to defend with their spawns.

With one minute left, AF.Blue still had all of the streets phase to go. A Nanoboosted Reaper and an Earthshatter cleared the way finally for the Koreans, giving them 90 seconds to take the attack in the warehouse. Again Rogue chose their McCree/Genji combo to defend, but couldn’t hold off the ball of Korean death as it swarmed in and took the map in overtime. Despite an overall good defence, it was really only held in one area at the beginning of streets. Rogue had to complete the attack for a chance to win.

This time on attack TviQ showed the mercurial nature of Hanzo by finding an instant pick onto ArHaN’s Mei and then assassinating another three players. Rogue took the point purely on the back of his arrows and smashed AF.Blue when they tried their own forward defense. They cruised through the streets without being stopped whatsoever and hit a Graviton to keep themselves steamrolling into the final stretch. TviQ swapped to Reaper, taking a Nanoboost and combining with the rest of his team to obliterate the Koreans with four minutes and twelve seconds left. An almost record time for Rogue gave them all the time in the world to crack the first point and give them the map win.

TviQ again pulled out the bow and arrow but wasn’t able to find an early pick. Instead his team went for a push across the point, straight into J1N and Adam who held strong. AF.Blue had not opted for the Mei this time, with ArHaN and recry on Reaper and McCree to boost the damage for his team. After poking and prodding for a couple of minutes, TviQ pulled out an arrow from near security that had ArHaN’s name on it and opened up the rest of his team to swarm the point with their ultimates and win the map.

Lijiang Tower

The Koreans were one map away from leaving APAC Premier in 5th-8th place. They hadn’t been able to pull off those superstar performances that saw fellow Korean side Lunatic-Hai defeat Rogue in the groups. J1N and recry had been mostly invisible across the series, with particularly the latter failing to match up to akm. On Control, they had an opportunity for ArHaN to shine.

AF.Blue kicked off with a partial dive composition, ArHaN taking Tracer with recry on McCree; Rogue in contrast ran a full dive, with TviQ on Genji. The first cap on Garden saw ArHaN flitting around, doing a huge range of damage to Rogue and granting his team the point. recry began to step up as well, controlling the backline perfectly against the dive composition and giving ArHaN the freedom to flank. akm switched to McCree with the point at 80% in an attempt to deal with the Tracer, but Rogue were melted on the entry and couldn’t do a thing.

Night Market saw TviQ take a Hanzo into the fight, grabbing ArHaN who had spawned on Genji and helping kill Dayfly who had switched to Zenyatta. Rogue took the first capture and established position outside, waiting for the dive comp to engage. TviQ got an instant kill onto Yesman and another onto Adam’s Winston, letting his team tick up to 70%. Further delays let Rogue get all the way into overtime before Afreeca Freecs were forced to jump onto the point and straight into the maw of the Europeans. Rogue replied immediately with their own 100%-0% to tie Lijiang Tower up 1-1.

The teams were again on a very similar page with their picks, both dps flexes moving to Reaper for the confined space of Control Center. Reinforce started the round with a dive, doing his best to suicide into AF.Blue and deny position for his team. He certainly was granted his death wish but far earlier than planned, leaving his team to be picked off. Rogue came back in with a Nanoboost on akm but it achieved little, and then all six players got caught in a Graviton Surge to set them back to the drawing board again. They all spawned together and speedboosted in with a Sound Barrier, pushing AF.Blue into a corner and sucking them into a black hole, spitting them out the other side into the spawn queue. The first recap had happened on Lijiang Tower but it was short-lived. The Koreans easily batted aside Rogue and locked out the choke to go up 2-1.

The teams returned to Night Market and again Rogue ran the Hanzo. ArHaN was prepared though and his Pharah sailed the skies and rained down rockets, protected by a bubble. Afreeca Freecs took the capture and held outside. Rogue switched to their comfortable Genji/McCree comp to try and get back into the map, but nothing they did could touch ArHaN. They allowed the Europeans one fleeting possession but swiftly crushed their dreams in overtime to win the map and start a comeback attempt.

Dorado

All throughout the tournament, the Asian play on Dorado had been subpar. In stark contrast to the rest of the map pool, all of the Asian teams looked very shaky on attack. Rogue had managed to take the map in groups against Lunatic-Hai, and looked to get a good start on offense. TviQ was really feeling the Hanzo and started picking away at the shields, but recry found a hook to take him out. TviQ switched out to run the Mei comp and pushed through the courtyard; even though recry was hitting a ton of hooks around that area the rest of his team had been slain around the fountain and his best efforts couldn’t stop the cart.

A Graviton Surge that caught five players from AF.Blue was followed up on by akm and TviQ to take over balcony, and Rogue took the cart a few metres from the powerplant doors. Rogue shoved in hard to force out ultimates from the Freecs and gave themselves an opportunity to push on equal footing. A Graviton from winz again caught multiple targets and TviQ again chewed through its victims, this time on Roadhog. Rogue gave themselves two minutes to push through the plant.

recry’s use of Deadeye on the high ground was great, showing patience and good timing to make the full use of his ultimate. His team kept winning fights but Rogue were just trying to slowly edge the payload forwards and bait out ultimates. It took until the final 20 seconds for Rogue to get a real opportunity to commit, as they had edged the cart to the final stretch and got themselves a Nano-Blossom with no opposing support ult. akm took the responsibility and delivered, spinning into the Koreans like a whirling dervish to dance his team to a completed attack.

Rogue defaulted back to the Mei composition to hold, a strategy that had worked excellently for them in the past. ArHaN picked up the monkey, giving recry Genji in their push for the backlines to turn Rogue heads. TviQ and Reinforce defended their supports well with some great play by uNKOE and they held off, retaining control of fountain despite losing some position. After a long and messy fight they took the ground back with one minute remaining - Afreeca Freecs Blue were facing elimination if they couldn’t crack the Rogue code.

A huge Graviton from J1N was utterly negated by a Sound Barrier from KnOxXx, and in their desperation AF.Blue committed everything they had. It wasn’t enough, as the European side took their first match victory over a Korean team and knocked the Freecs out of the tournament.

Rogue’s Reinforce was elated, bouncing out of his seat and shouting in delight. Rogue had secured their Semi-Finals appearance against the winner of NGA Club and All Strike Gaming.