Spirit Tested, Spirt Resolved: Apex in Review
Technical difficulties, deficient performance plays and tactical pauses plagued the finishers from Groups A and C last Friday.
Group A
Lunatic-Hai are sitting on the pole dominating their group and moving on to the next stage of Apex Season Three. KongDoo P was barely able to keep their position atop of Group A with a 2–3 loss to Mighty AOD. Although Mighty AOD claimed victory, they needed either a 3–0 or 3–1 victory over KDP to beat them in the current tiebreaker. In sad news, the departure of the North American team Rogue from Apex Season 3 leaves the fans with only Team EnVyUs to contest the Korean dominated series.
KDP’s lack luster performance against Mighty AOD proves that the series remains to be undecided. After dominating Rogue to secure their first victory of the series, KDP battled back to win Round #1 of their series against Mighty AOD. Their victory against Mighty AOD was short-lived as Round #2 and #3 were slightly picked up by Mighty AOD, leading to their overall victory and elimination of the series.
Group C
Conbox Spirit only had minor difficulties securing their second win of the series against MVP Space and finishing second in Group C. The mid-tier Korean team dramatically underperformed surrendering Round #1 to MVP Space proving that the tri-tank “meta” isn’t as strong as it used to be. While the tri-tank meta is being slowly phased out of professional play, teams seem to be moving towards a more choke/dps centered team composition that allows for maneuverability over sheer point defense and slow push progression.
Although Conbox Spirit had some trouble during the first round of the series, Conbox was able to battle back securing Rounds #2 and #3. No real players shined during both matches, except for “Architect” Park Min Ho of Conbox. During their series against MVP, “Architect” started out slow, not being able to contest the point. With the increase of momentum towards the end, Park Min Ho was a strong leader that stepped up and really made a difference towards the end.
In my mind, the group stages of Apex Series Three has left me with the feeling of uncertainty. Let’s hope that the fans are not disappointed anymore with the future progress of the series with Tuesday giving us another set of games to finish off the remaining Groups B and D.