Gaimin Gladiators find much needed ALGS Pro League victory

The Gaimin Gladiators revived their ALGS Pro League season with a much needed game day victory. The Gladiators had made a very lacklustre start to their campaign, and sat in 24th. Their victory has more than doubled their overall points.

Elsewhere, JLingz and Acend continued their strong runs of form finishing second and third respectivley today.

The Gaimin Gladiators had made a really poor start to the ALGS Pro League. Pressure was growing on Hardecki and co, who were very disappointed to only place 22nd in the first Pro League split.

GG were formerly a team to be feared in the EMEA region, and have been through a range of struggles since having to relocate from Russia. They did compete at the ALGS Championships last year, but with a sub. Then they had to watch from the sidelines in London having finished 22nd overall.

Confidence is really crucial in Apex Legends, especially for teams that take a lot of fights and engagements. It has happened to several teams in Apex Legends history, one bad performance leads to a downturn in confidence that spirals out of control. A notable example would be Sentinels in North America who found themselves relegated from the NA Pro League.

Speaking to the ALGS Pro League broadcast, Leogri said that they have "found a reliable template" for how they want to play, and are now "minimising risks".

The Season 16 meta has completely shifted the balance between zone and edge, with commonly used aggressive legends like Horizon and Bloodhound hardly used in this split of Pro League.

The comment from Gaimin Gladiators Leogri about minimising risk shows a really interesting calculation. Across all regions, some edge teams have struggled. The prime example is TSM, who are hugely under performing.

This change seems to have come thanks to the class changes, with more aggressive legends like Seer, Valkyrie and Bloodhound no longer able to access zone information. That role has passed to 'Controller' legends such as Wattson and Catalyst.

As a result, the playstyle of knowing zone but having very aggressive legends has almost died out. More teams are playing zone, and you can struggle to find enough fights on edge to rack up points before the zone gets too small.

Kills have been an issue for Gaimin Gladiators. They are at their best when they are racking up kills, but haven't found big kill totals easy to come by. Last time out they found just six kills across six matches.

Yet today, their adjustments yielded much better results. Gaimin Gladiators racked up 34 kills, which is an average of 5.66 kills per game. They never picked up a game win, but that isn't a concern to GG. Placement points are a secondary consideration for this roster.

A great example of the Gladiators new playstyle could be seen in game two. A zone pulling just south of where a team lands would usually be a great excuse to rotate early. However, the Gaimin Gladiators remained on the edge and worked their way in very late. They cleaned up several fights as they cleared out their chosen side of the zone.

The pacing of their macro strategy was excellent in this game. They were content to miss out on some potential kills to clean up fights. Not engaging too early, and always having a clear back which prevented third parties. This might mean less kills than the absolute maximum, but it does minimise risk while yielding points.

Additionally, this sort of playstyle will stand Gaimin Gladiators in good stead if they qualify for the Split two playoffs. As teams like Vexed have shown, playing a super aggressive edge style in Pro League is a totally different ball game to playing the same way at LAN.

With confidence renewed, the Gaimin Gladiators will need to keep posting good results if they want to push towards the top nine. They sit 12th overall.

With five gamedays now played, the overall standings are now shaking out. The EMEA region has ten LAN qualification spots. This is comprised of the best nine teams from the overall season, plus the winners of the Regional Finals. If the winner of those finals is already in the top nine, a spot gets passed down to the next best team.

Teams with an asterix have only played three gamedays, while the rest of the teams have played four times.

Perhaps the biggest surprise after the first five weeks is Aurora. They were roundly considered the best team in the region, but have only managed to accumulate 28 points. They do have a gameday in hand over the likes of FUT and JLingz, but even a maximum 25 point victory would pull them just inside the top nine at the moment.

The Regional Finals only comprises the top 20 teams from the region, so Aurora only have three more attempts to solidify their place inside the top 20. It would be incredibly frustrating if, having won the first split of the Pro League and missed LAN due to Visa issues, they failed to qualify now their Visas are secured.

Aurora have recently replaced Maliwan with Sunset, and will hope to see an improvement in their form after the Easter break.

The ALGS Pro League takes a one week break, and returns on Easter Sunday, April 9th.

For full ALGS results, check out our ALGS Score hub here.

Stay tuned to esports.gg for more ALGS coverage and esports news.