[SCS Day 2] Orangutan or Enigma to be South Asia’s first rep to VCT APAC, here is your recap of Day 2 of the Skyesports Championship Series (SCS)

Orangutan or Enigma to be South Asia’s first rep to VCT APAC, here is your recap of Day 2 of the Skyesports Championship Series (SCS): After the exciting events of Day 1 of the Skyesports Championship Series (SCS), we had both our upper bracket semifinal matches today. The top seeds from the two groups of SCS stage two – Orangutan Gaming (OG) and Enigma Gaming (EG) faced off against the winners from yesterday –  Global Esports (GE) and Velocity Gaming (VLT), you can read our coverage of those matches here. After these matchups, at least one of the top two teams from last season is already out of the tournament.

Before we got into the action though, Skyesports had a Streamer Showdown featuring several popular personalities from the Indian esports community such as Lord Bathura, Pinkcess, Hydraflick, and the like.

The Skyesports Streamer Showdown, initially supposed to be a BO3, ended up being a BO1 due to issues with delays. Lord Bathura’s team ended up winning 13-8.

After this, we finally got into the first SCS series for the day, which was VLT vs Enigma.

SCS Day 2 Match 1: Velocity Gaming vs Enigma Gaming

The first map we saw was Fracture, VLT’s pick. After them beating Revenant yesterday on the same map, one might place the odds in VLT’s favor but EG, starting off on defense, proved it was anyone’s game, concluding the half with a score of 6-6.

Rawfiul on the Chamber and Excali on the Neon both played extremely well and did a great deal to keep the scores even. Antidote though was EG’s hero on the attack with his Kayo utility coming in handy as they made their way onto sites. Enigma ended up winning 5 rounds in a row to close the map out at 13-8. While Deathmaker did do his best along with the rest of VLT, Rawfiul was the better Chamber today on Fracture.

The next map, Ascent, was Enigma’s pick. Velocity went in for a rather spicy team comp, consisting of Hellff on Fade and MW1 on Reyna. This was a map that was a bloodbath, with both teams trading rounds back and forth. Enigma’s RvK pulled off a 1v4 successfully to win round 5. However, VLT took the lead in this half and ended it on a score of 7-5. The second half was just as tense, with it seeming like VLT were on the cusp of victory, at 11-10, however, Enigma ended up winning 3 rounds in a row to take the map and the series.

With this, VLT is now in the lower bracket, having to face off against Full Power Gaming tomorrow in an elimination matchup, while EG moves on to the upper bracket final.

SCS Day 2 Match 2: Orangutan Gaming vs Global Esports

The second upper bracket semi-final series was between Orangutan Gaming and GE. The former especially has taken the SA and SEA esports scenes by storm with their male and female rosters both. The pickup of Vibhor just before the start of the SCS as well as their multi-national roster definitely make them a team to watch out for. Their star duelist ShooterR, however, was unable to be in Chennai for the offline event, though his team carried his jersey with them and draped it on his chair.

The first map was Breeze, chosen by OG with them starting on the attack. GE decided to take a leaf from Paper Rex’s book and put both Lightningfast and SkRossi on Reyna and Jett respectively, perhaps hoping for the same kind of explosive gameplay one can see from Jingg and Forsaken. ShooterR, while having no second duelist to back him up nevertheless proved he didn’t need any, as he tore through GE’s defense.

OG ended the first half 6-6. Global did manage to win the pistol round in half two, but after that, Orangutan won five rounds in a row to take it to 11-8. Vibhor on Viper especially shone on defense, with him using his utility to perfection and in general, hampering GE a great deal. GE did manage to nudge in two more rounds but OG eventually closed out the map 13-10. This was just the start though, of a brutal, extended series.

The second map was GE’s pick, Ascent. This is a map where they had around an 80 percent win rate since the roster was formed, and in the SCS, had only lost once to Enigma, that too after extended overtimes. They went in for a triple initiator/no duelist pick, instead opting to let SkRossi play Chamber.

Global started off on attack and plowed through OG, letting them win a meager 3 rounds in the half. Apart from the pistol round, OG only won one more – Round 6 – because of Persia’s 4k. After the side switch though, ShooterR and Tesseract both popped off and from 11-3, brought the score to 12-10. Global finally closed it out at 13-10, bringing up the decider map – Haven.

The third map, Haven, started off with OG on the defense. Initially, they started strong, winning three rounds in a row but then they seemed to struggle a bit, with their players being caught by GE’s coordinated attacks and often, on retakes, being at a massive disadvantage. Global ended the half with a slight advantage at 7-5, but during the second half, Persia and Tesseract both massively stepped up for Orangutan. In consecutive rounds, Vibhor and Ghost also got 4ks and helped OG get closer to victory.

However, Global definitely stepped up to the plate and at 11-11, it seemed likely that Overtime was a possibility. Orangutan however got two rounds in a row and won the map and the series.

Only one of the previous best two teams can qualify now

Orangutan and Enigma will now face off in the upper bracket finals and the winner of this match-up will be South Asia’s first representative in VCT APAC. Meanwhile, VLT will play against FPG and GE will face off against Revenant on Day 3. The losers of these matchups will be eliminated from SCS, so these matches are definitely important ones to catch.

Day 2 of SCS was definitely exciting, especially with South Asia’s previous representatives in APAC – VLT and GE – both being pushed into the lower bracket in huge upsets for fans. The casters for the two SCS matches were also top-notch, with Legday putting in a guest appearance alongside Kremer. Who will be South Asia’s two representatives for the APAC Challengers series? We’ll know in the upcoming days, so keep watching.

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