Season 1 of Rainbow Six Siege Pro League Year 2 kicked off with an electrifying start. Since Continuum are the reigning Rainbow Six Invitational World Champions, they're also the heavy favorites in their first Season 1 match against Team Elevate.
However, we saw an extremely uncharacteristic start for the champs as Continuum lost four consecutive rounds right off the jump. Elevate only needed to win one more game and looked poised to close out the first map at Kafe Dostoyevsky. However, in an incredibly tenacious comeback, Continuum clawed back from a 4-0 deficit to finish Kafe with a 6-4 overtime.
During the beginning rounds, we saw Continuum lose a lot of 1v1 exchanges and also have difficulty taking care of Elevate's roamers and lose a lot of time as a result. However, the tables slowly began to turn on Round 5 when Zed stepped in front of a peeking Skys and ended up a victim of a team-kill off the jump, allowing Continuum a 5v4 advantage at the start of the round. Yet even though Continuum managed to capitalize on a mistake from Elevate, it didn't seem like the champs had a number on their contender yet – until their following round on defense.
Yung played as Mira for Continuum as the team prepared to hunker down to protect Piano Room on the top floor. Mira is a new operator, so it's definitely exciting to see how her meta in the pro league will evolve. At Kafe, we see a supreme Mira strat with black mirrors put up in both the Bathroom and Freezer, giving the team a clear line of sight into Piano, particularly if Elevate attempts to push in from windows. Not only do the black mirrors create immense pressure by the defenders lurking behind the mirrors, but the line of sight also significantly improves Continuum's intel on Elevate's positions. Communication is key and Mira's windows helped Continuum take down Elevate much more efficiently.
With two wins, Continuum seemed to have finally warmed up and started to win their 1v1 exchanges as a result. We're also seeing a new attack meta take shape as well. Following the recent Glaz buff, it looks like both teams started to formulate a new Glaz push to replace what Montagne used to bring to the table. Instead of being impenetrable, Glaz can be invisible with the benefit of a high-powered rifle.
Zed proved himself as a really proficient Glaz user for Elevate and the combination of smoke and thermal scope is enough to make the defenders think twice about peeking or engaging. It's still too early to say whether Glaz will replace Montagne's role in pro-league, but we definitely expect to see this pattern more often in Year 2 competition.
Following their first defeat by the Continuum on defense, Elevate responded to the powerful counter-Mira strat with Easily as Hibana. Easily aggressively pushed from Piano window and immediately got to work, taking down the hatch next to the piano as well as the walls around the mirrors. Through a sliver of broken wall on the freezer side, Easily managed to take down Slashug to give Elevate a crucial advantage. However, nvK and Canadian managed to retain control of the top floor, taking down both Easily and Skys. With Geo down off-screen, the advantage swings back to 4v2 for Continuum, who ultimately bounce back to a 4:4 to bring this Kafe match to overtime.
The last two rounds ended with some nail-biting exchanges that went down to the wire. Strats from both teams have been formally introduced and now it's down to who can better respond and adapt to the other team's playstyle. Ultimately, Continuum played defense and deploys the Mira strat once again. Although Elevate did manage to push and take control of Piano, Freezer and Bathroom after taking down Yung, the team found themselves in an unfortunate position that allowed Continuum to pick away players in the Freezer like fish in a barrel.
Check out the Continuum's epic comeback against Elevate below:
