NickMercs squad “Tripods” takes big step towards qualifying for Apex Legends LAN

NickMercs and his ALGS team, known as Tripods, have made a big step towards Apex Legends LAN. They closed out a top 22 finish in the overall Challenger Circuit Standings and have qualified for the Last Chance Qualifier.

NickMercs and his teammates, Deeds and LewdaTV are now going to be competing against relegated Pro League teams in the Last Chance Qualifier. If they make the top 10 in this weekends LCQ, they will head into the Last Chance Qualifier 2 where they will meet the 11th and below teams from the Pro League. This includes teams such as Complexity, Sentinels and XSET.

This is not LAN qualification for the upcoming Stockholm playoffs but the subsequent Apex Championship LAN.

This weekends ALGS Challenger Circuit started with a first round bye for NickMercs and team Tripods. Due to the bracket format and an awkward number of teams, only a small selection of groups played round 1. Tripods were one of the many teams that earned a free pass into Round 2.

As expected, Round 2 offered no resistance for Tripods. As they have grown more comfortable in a competitive setting they have developed a very aggressive approach to early rounds. This is a risk and reward equation. In the opening game they adopted a kills first mentality. This led to them racking up 10 kills but dying 12th. This netted them 11 points.

What is important to understand in these qualifier rounds is that the top 10 advance. There is nothing else to it, no prize money and no seedings. Historically teams need an average of 5.5 points per game make top 10. 6 to be pretty comfortable.

The NickMercs squad's 10 kills earns them 10 points without placement and easily exceeds those standards. This means while the style NickMercs team were deploying might not always earn them 1st - it does more than enough in this format.

Plus, team Tripods showed consistency too, they dropped another 10 kills in Game 2 also. Game 3 they failed to register any points, but they finished round 2 with a bang.

They worked a fantastic spot and were faced with a mishmash of what Tripods called "broken teams" (aka teams without all their players) and were comfortably able to sweep up to victory. They netted a smooth 27 points in the final game, taking 2nd overall in Round 2. Notably, just their final game would've secured them 6th and qualified them.

It was a very slow start to Round 3 for Tripods. NickMercs and his team were punished for a prolonged fight, in which NickMercs was knocked. They were instantly third partied and died in 17th with 3 kills. Team Tripods were left to watch on as TAG NA took Game 1. Despite having what felt like a poor game, Tripods were 13th after the first game - only 3 spaces off qualification. But, they needed to step it up in the next 3 games.

NickMercs and Tripods did just that. They found their style in Game 2 dropping 10 kills. Then followed a 2nd place with 12 kills in game 3. This secured qualification easily. Perhaps taking their foot off the pedal a touch, game 4 was a disappointing 3 point game. They took 3rd in Round 3.

Their success in Rounds 2 and 3 qualified them for Sunday and the quarter finals. However, Sunday presented a much bigger test, the quarter and semi-finals are where these Challenger Circuit tournaments really step up in quality.

Tripods faced teams such as 'Wingman Season' which contains Nokokopuffs, Xednim and Stunhi from the Quarter Finals onwards.

But Tripods were not phased by the step up in quality. With top vibes provided by the incredibly positive and supportive NickMercs, Tripods continued to perform strongly. They earned 4, 12, 9 and 14 points across their 4 Quarter Final games.

When it came to the Semi-Finals Tripods really upped their game. They maintained their aggressive style but they took fights cleaner, more logically and therefore avoided third parties.

This more methodical style paid dividends in Game 3. They swarmed TAG NA in their building, working an opening. NickMercs used his Valkyrie jetpacks perfectly, flying up to pinch the team as Deeds and Lewda worked their way inside.

Crucially, by not taking risky fights and trading knocks - they were very quickly reset. Perhaps Tripods were lucky that other teams did not attempt to third, but their quick reset would've made that a hard ask for any team in the lobby. Tripods went on to secure 3rd with 8 kills in that game.

Tripods won their Semi-Final group with ease. They however didn't win any of the 6 games that were played in this round. Instead, they tidied up their early round performances. Instead of either throwing down a major game, or having an average one Tripods went consistent.

NickMercs and team Tripods averaged 7.5 kills per game in their semi finals - the highest of any team in their group. This was their highest average damage in any round besides the 2nd round, where the lobbies were much easier.

NickMercs and Tripods struggled on Worlds Edge in finals - they were contested at Big Maude and this hampered their performance on this map.

After the opening 3 games, NickMercs team were 18th in finals. While they were almost guaranteed a top 22 finish in the overall leaderboard by making finals - a top 12 finish was not guaranteed. The top 12 teams get a seeding bonus at the weekend, and start in the winners bracket.

Tripods entered game 5 in 16th. Despite their poor showing up until this point, the vibes were still good in team Tripod. While they may not have the Apex Legends resumé or experience of some other teams, their team mentality is top class.

This strong mentality fueled a fantastic comeback. NickMercs and the Tripods made a inch perfect zone call. They took the 'god spot' super early and held it down all game, not giving an inch.

Team Tripods ability to transition from playing on the edge of zone and taking controlled fights to holding down a position all game is a skill that will come in useful as they progress through LCQ's towards LAN - as the lobbies get harder the risk and reward calculation of playing on edge changes.

Then by using Wraith and her abilities to avoid taking zone damage, they clutched out a tense victory. This victory came after the zone had completely closed! Right down to the wire.

This big win, and the 24 points they earned in the process bumped Tripods up to 4th and they remained there all game.

This 4th place in finals netted Tripods a significant amount of 'Challenger Circuit points' and they finished 3rd overall.

Full standings of the overall standings, and round by round results for all 4 weeks are found on Battlefy.

Team Tripods will now reunite with the top 22 Challenger Circuit teams, and meet the bottom 8 Pro League teams for the first time in LCQ 1.

Thanks to their top 10 seeding they will have 2 chances to make finals, from the winners bracket and then the losers bracket if needed. Then the top 20 teams from the LCQ1 will fight for progression into the 2nd LCQ. At this stage Tripods will be competing against major teams like Sentinels, Complexity and XSET.

The action continues this weekend. Can NickMercs complete the dream and make Apex Legends LAN? Stay tuned to esports.gg to find out.