The third week of the EMEA Apex Pro League saw Top Dogs stage an incredible turnaround, Rebel continue to struggle, and more changes in the meta.
The best of ALGS EMEA Apex returned this weekend, with the third ALGS pro league instalment. Guild, led by Matafe were top of the standings heading into the weekend. Meanwhile, pressure was on Rebel (formerly known as FOTM) who had made a very sluggish start to the Pro League.
How Top Dogs flipped the table upside down in ALGS EMEA
The standout starts of the weekends Pro League was undoubtedly Top Dogs. The finnish team had to come through the qualifiers to reach the Pro League, and you would be forgiven for not paying them any notice thus far. Top Dogs languished in 37th, with 0 points.
However, finishing in the top 2 in four of the weekends 6 games landed them a first place finish on Saturday, and they catapulted themselves from the relegation zone, all the way into the playoff spaces and currently sit 8th.
This revival was led by ZeroNothing, who was an inspiration on Wraith, dropping 15 kills and placing second overall in the kill leaderboard. A standout team in the qualifiers, Top Dogs will be looking to maintain their momentum and secure a place in the playoffs in January.
Top Dogs might credit the turnaround to the addition of Crypto. The use of Crypto instead of Valkyrie provided Top Dogs more defensive positioning and better recon. Coupled with Caustic, they excelled in positioning, and this helped them secure one of the most consistent set of placements across the Pro League.
Will more teams in EMEA take a leaf out of the Top Dog playbook, and swap to Crypto?
ALGS EMEA teams start to move away from Valk
Following her huge impact on the meta, this weekend saw EMEA Pro League teams begin to move away from Valkyrie.
Pick Rates ALGS EMEA:
- Gibraltar - 77.1% (-0.2%)
- Valkyrie - 70% (-4.4%)
- Wraith - 63.8% (+3.5%)
- Caustic - 37.9% (+4.6%)
- Crypto - 30% (-2.5%)
- Loba - 10% (-2.4%)
- Bloodhound - 6.3% (+4.2%)
- Bangalore - 2.5% (no change)
- Octane - 1.7% (-1.3%)
- Seer - 0.8% (+0.8%)
Rebel continue to struggle
It was another incredibly weak showing from Rebel eSports, formerly known as Flavour of the Month. The ALGS Winter Circuit Playoff champions currently sit in 36th position, and risk being relegated into the qualifiers to defend their Pro League spot.
It would appear that the Rebel team are struggling to adapt to the much more placement focused Valkyrie meta. Their Winter Circuit win was down to their ability to run up huge kill totals on the way to a victory. This week, they recorded just 6 kills. They will be hoping to use the 3 week break to turn around their fortunes. As Top Dogs have shown, one good week can turn the tables completely.
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Struggling teams make roster changes ahead of Pro League Week 4
There has been a number of changes to rosters following the weekends action. Frenchman Kswinnie departed Underrated and has joined up with 69iq eSports. Both Underrated and 69iq had made disappointing starts to the ALGS EMEA Pro League.
FIGVAM also made changes, with Desertuk joining up with the Russian team for the remainder of the Pro League. DesertUK, who won the BLAST Titan Open qualifier, and also competed at the Poland LAN event, brings plenty of experience to FIGVAM.
Gambit, Guild, Myztro sit pretty at the top of the standings
Finally, it was a good week for some of the biggest teams in EU. Gambit, one of the favourites to qualify for LAN posted a very impressive victory and sit atop the standings after 3 weeks. They are closely followed by Myztro and Guild. All three teams are building a very sizeable points gap between them and 11th place, meaning they are in prime position to reach the Playoffs in January.
Standings:
When does the ALGS Pro League return?
The ALGS EMEA Pro League returns to our screens in just under 3 weeks, on November 20th. How will the addition of Ash and the Car SMG (more details here) affect the meta? Will we see any roster changes before the Pro League returns?
With half the gameweeks played out, time is getting tight for those teams outside the playoff places to make LAN, and teams in the bottom 8 will be looking over their shoulders desperately trying to avoid relegation. As always, for more Apex content, stick around at Esports.gg.
