Rainbow Six Siege Pro League: Final Week of NA Season IX Recap

Visitors play Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege, a video game published by Ubisoft, on October 28, 2015 at the Paris Game Week, a trade fair for video games in Paris. Paris Game week will run from October 28 until November 1, 2015. AFP PHOTO / PATRICK KOVARIK (Photo credit should read PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images)

On Monday, April 22, the ninth season of the North American Rainbow Six Siege Pro League played out its final matches. The result of the three contests was a decision being made about relegation between Excelerate Gaming and Rise Nation.

The first match of the evening was an all-important one for both Excelerate Gaming and Rise Nation. Excelerate Gaming needed a win over Evil Geniuses to ensure they wouldn’t be relegated to the Challenger League. Rise Nation needed Evil Geniuses to win the match in order to stay alive. The result of the match was Excelerate Gaming pulling off the huge upset one of the top teams in the NA zone.

The match started off in an extremely interesting way, with Evil Geniuses exuding confidence by not banning any operators. It’s a historic move for the R6 Pro League but with their position for the Pro League Final in Milan already set, Evil Geniuses was playing with house money.

The move did not pay off for Evil Geniuses, as Excelerate took the match 7-5 playing on Coastline. The win saved Excelerate Gaming from relegation and made the results of the next match on the night meaningless.

The next match could have been called a “friendly,” as both teams were already locked into their positions in the final standings. Dark Zero and Rise Nation met on Villa, with Rise Nation looking to make a good showing in its final Pro League match of Season IX. Despite a great game by Rise Nation’s vandal, Dark Zero showed why it finished as the top team in the standings and took the match 7-5.

The final match of the night – and NA Season IX – pit Team Reciprocity against Spacestation Gaming. Fans hoping for a close match to provide a thrilling end to the season might have been disappointed, as Team Reciprocity dispensed of Spacestation Gaming on Villa 7-2.

NA Season IX Final Standings

The Pro League Final in Milan, Italy on May 18-19 awaits Dark Zero and Evil Geniuses, while Rise Nation will be relegated. Team Reciprocity was tied with Evil Geniuses in the standings but Evil Geniuses gets the spot in the final because of its 7-5 win over Team Reciprocity earlier this season.

Dark Zero 26 points
Evil Geniuses 23 points
Team Reciprocity 23 points
Spacestation Gaming 17 points
Rogue 15 points
Excelerate Gaming 12 points
Rise Nation 10 points

While Season IX is now over for five of these seven teams, there are still final week matches to be played in the Latin American zone. Eight teams will play four matches on Wednesday, April 24 to further determine what the final standings in that zone will look like.

Schedule for LATAM Week 14

All times listed are Eastern and all matches can be streamed live for free on the Rainbow Six Pro League Twitch channel.

5 p.m. Black Dragons vs. INTZ e-Sports
6 p.m. Team Liquid vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas
7 p.m. paiN Gaming vs. ReD DevilS e-Sports
8 p.m. FaZe Clan vs. Immortals

The matches are at their most intense point of the season with so much riding on every elimination. If this final week of matches are any indication of what the final will be like, Milan should be impressive.

Read More