Blink and you miss it: Renegades just slapped down ORDER for the second time in a clean-sweep resulting in a lossless tourney clutch for ESL Season 12 Oceania region.
The pandemic has arguably been very good (result-wise) for Renegades who have now won seven tournaments in a row within the past five months, collectively winning roughly $70,000 as the region has proven to be a bit of an easy take for the Australian team.
With region locks implemented due to COVID-19, Renegades has been fighting against the arguably stale competition: they’re currently ranked #46 in the world, yet their competition is lower ranked than they are (Chiefs are GS #78, while ORDER is GS # 60). Meaning that the past few tournaments have been almost guaranteed paychecks.
Granted, not much can be done about that; tournament organizers can’t necessarily import equally matched teams to make the matches more exciting, and Renegades have little reason to push into a different region to invoke the ire of stronger rosters. Much the same is occurring in Asia with Counter-Strike, with TYLOO consistently making bank.
This is becoming rampant across all of esports, from Overwatch League to Counter-Strike, DOTA to Rainbow 6: Siege.
7 in a row.@ESLCS PRO LEAGUE SEASON 12 CHAMPIONS!!!#RNGFAM #RNGWIN pic.twitter.com/n75135gyHh
— Renegades (@Renegades) October 6, 2020
Titles are more popular in some regions than others, and thus there are always regions that simply have an arguably lower ceiling for teams to compete within. The pandemic is instilling this and making it more visible, but it has been widespread within regional majors and open tournaments as long as esports has been around.
It isn’t all smooth-sailing for Renegades at the moment, however: fans are eager to see them compete against larger names from NA and Europe to see precisely how they actually match up, and rankings are difficult to come by for the team as their competition is insanely limited. This is reflected in the possible earnings for the Oceania region, along with Asia.
This could result in Renegades consequentially becoming a weaker team in the end-result as they struggle to find adequate competition to learn from and improvise with, becoming stagnant while teams from larger regions (namely North America) continue to grow in tactics and agility.
In the past seven tournament finals, Renegades has struggled precisely once; Avant cut a close shave on the Renegades on June 7 in a Bo5 that went the distance, ending in a (3-2) for Renegades. They’ve played ORDER in three finals, AVANT in three finals, and Rooster in one.
Whether or not this will bite Renegades on the rear in the future isn’t easily discerned at the moment, but the lack of competition for the team that has looked clean on a consistent basis is beginning to wear.