Tripods and ‘EX-SET’ qualify for Esports World Cup Apex event

The Tripods and 'EX-SET' (formerly, XSET!) took the two North American qualifying spots for the upcoming Esports World Cup.

The final lobby was a dramatic and gripping end to an otherwise bizarre, and at times shambolic, qualifier for the $2 million event. The whole tournament was restarted mid way through the opening game, teams found themselves disqualified and there was dozens of complaints about poor communication.

However, the quality of Apex on display was a very high level. Some big games failed to make it past the first round, showing the standard of competition on show.

The new look Tripods are making a habit out of final game comebacks. They made a late comeback in the ALGS Pro League qualifier, sneaking in by a single point in the final game.

Now, they have booked a spot at Riyhad with a big final game win, edging out the likes of Native Gaming and Oxygen Esports in the process.

The Tripods almost fell foul to the brutal qualification format earlier in the day. They pulled out a strong final game in the Semi Finals, to snatch a top ten spot and qualify for the finals themselves. We have never seen the Tripods at a LAN before, and they will head into next weekends Pro League with confidence knowing their spot in Riyhad is booked.

The other side to secure their qualification was 'EX-SET'. With new third Reptar, FunFPS and Nocturnal are looking to also stage their own comeback.

Split 1 was a brutal experience for this team. They missed out on LAN by a small margin, their organisation XSET departed from Apex Legends and they found out they'd also missed out on World Cup qualification after the split was long over.

Nocturnal and FunFPS have been mainstays of Apex Legends LAN events, and it was only going to be a matter of time before they got back on their feet. Reptar will be a name very familiar to ALGS fans, he was part of a very successful Complexity roster back in the early years of the ALGS.

He made the swap to controller after stepping away from competition, and has put his head down grinding and getting up to speed. He's been looking for the right opportunity to get back into competition and seems to have found it.

Crucially, qualifying for the EWC gives the likes of Tripods and EXSET a much greater chance now of finding an organisation. 'Clubs' as the event calls them, get points across all games they compete in. Expect to see both of these teams tweet the infamous contract signing GIF sooner rather than later.

Here is the top five final standings:

The top two cut off for qualification meant that a stacked North American region was always going to leave some big teams behind.

However, the brutal, and confusing, qualification format saw teams fall by the wayside. The opening round had partially full lobbies, with a top five cutoff. Less teams is less potential points, and strategies don't always copy over when lobbies have 12-13 teams.

The Semi Final was just four games, meaning a single slip up immediately threw your qualification into doubt. While the Tripods were able to recover, other teams were not so fortunate.

Cloud9 crashed out in 18th in the Semi Finals, picking up a single kill in the four games. Complexity, 'SKD Mark' (Dropped, Snip3down, Shooby) and Eternal all fell in the Group Stage despite being Pro League level teams.

They will all hope to bounce back when the ALGS Split 2 Pro League begins next weekend.

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