The Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) Playoffs are returning this summer, and a million dollars await champions in London as the competitive Apex Legends tournament circuit nears its conclusion. With the addition of Evac Towers, pro players are eager to showcase their skills in one of the most exciting FPS games of recent years.
The Apex Legends Global Series Playoffs
After an exhilarating three stages of competitive play, the eight final teams in the Apex Legends Global Series will descend on London on July 20 for what promises to be an incredible finale.
The ALGS Split 2 Playoffs will be the first competitive use of Evac Towers, and all signs indicate that pro players intend to unleash even more outrageous strategies using the mobile repositioning balloons.
“There’s high stakes, and then there’s high stakes — and then there’s these high stakes,” laughs OpTic’s Mark ‘Dropped’ Thees, during an international Apex Legends scrim. A clever play presents itself, with his teammate Jaigar ‘Insane’ Uniyal initiating a chase and misdirection. Uniyal throws his tracker just beyond a corner, forcing the enemy team to move forward to engage. But as they do, Thees places his own tracker right behind them, trapping and isolating the enemy team’s members for a clean pick.
Dropped is keen to show how Evac Towers, Apex’s new battle-changing gadget, may affect competitive play. “This is where these things really shine: you can set up some plays like this that are actually really difficult to contest by dropping [a] Hexa.” Clearly, they can also be used to facilitate clean plays. We’ll have to wait to see how teams crash and burn if their Evac Tower strategies go awry in the final circles, but Thees and his teammate Abraham ‘AbrahamLLG’ Lee appear to find success almost every time.
Teams are already exploiting Evac Towers in international scrims. Franco ‘Besatti’ Besatti, starting left defender for Esports Club, finds that they’re shifting the meta away from rotational protectors like Valkyrie and into three-man dives. “The most effective comp we’ve seen is Wraith-Pathfinder-Seer,” he says, “and the reason for this comp is the Seer doesn’t slide any more [after the upcoming patch].”
As six players dig in around the first zone, typically one Pathfinder will stay at the back, building up a Season 5 Power Pick before rotating around halfway through the second zone and placing a new gas cloud. Seer, a popular Legend known for his scanning abilities, will scour for Tower locations before placing a Beacon, forcing the remaining three to fall back to the bench. It sounds like the process could be cumbersome, but Pathfinder’s extreme speed and Seer’s scan range more than make up for the risk.
Apex Legends’ London locale promises a fresh spin on strategies. In fact, professional players have already started phasing out Valkyrie, a Legend known for her rotational abilities. “Valkyrie can’t push an Evac [because] they’ve nerfed the push speed,” explains Abed ‘Abed’ Yusop, reigning winner of the 2019 Madden Bowl and current holder of the ALGS championship belt.
“They were nerfing Seer for how strong he was with finding Elementals very quickly, but what that meant is that pushing an Evac with a Valkyrie is a whole second slower than it was before.” The introduction of Evac Towers promises to deliver exciting and unpredictable plays, with high-stakes matches to follow at the ALGS Playoffs. Expect to see plenty of teams crash and burn if their Evac Tower strategies go awry in the final circles.
In other news, the upcoming LAN competition is confirmed as occurring on the July 20 patch, which should help to eliminate any semblance of an advantage held by teams in the online ladder. The July update includes a significant nerf to Seer, along with the promotion of the R99, currently the best SMG in the game, to the Crafter. Failure to adapt even slightly could swing the meta against London’s attending squads.
In addition to the Seer nerf, several other adjustments will force point-of-use swaps in London. The R99 switch to the Crafter will influence team’s weapon pools, while some players may elect to forego the rather volatile Raider. The game’s two latest Legends, Apex Racing and Apex Legends War
