ALGS team’s big brain Evac Tower quickly sends them plummeting back to the lobby

For teams in the Apex Legends Global Series, figuring out how to gain any slight advantage can be the difference between a big match finish and a lackluster game. But one ALGS team will probably want to take this Evac Tower strategy back to the drawing board.

Ganbare otousan, a free agent Korean team that will play at the Split Two Playoffs after finishing 12th in the Split One Playoffs earlier this year, have been participating in LAN scrims with several other international squads practicing for the upcoming London tournament. The team thought they recently had a brilliant idea for a Valkyrie rotation, too—until their strategy quickly spelled their own downfall.

Realizing they were in a spot where their only option to make it into the next circle was a Valkyrie ultimate, ganbare otousan quickly deployed an Evac Tower in front of them and then launched a Skyward Dive attempting to use the Evac Tower as cover.

Unfortunately, they didn’t quite have all that spacing worked out as the team hit the top of the balloon during the first phase of the Valk ult, limiting how far they could travel and quickly being eliminated after landing.

Related: ‘Yeah, we need to pivot’: Ex-Respawn dev explains how PUBG’s release transformed Titanfall 3’s development into Apex Legends

Executing a Skyward Dive ultimate in pro play these days is a risky proposition at best. Compared to the original version of Valkyrie’s ultimate, she now travels upward more slowly and cannot spin during the ultimate’s first phase, making her easy pickings in later circles when several other teams spot a chance to shoot a Valk team out of the sky.

The solution of using the Evac Tower as a little bit of cover could have been brilliant, considering it can be a visual nuisance for enemies and provides a sizable bit of cover in the sky at the very top of the ultimate, when Valkyrie and her teammates are at their slowest and most vulnerable. But since the team hit the balloon and limited just how far they could travel, their only option was to land in a clump of rocks at the bottom of a hill, making them easy pickings for the teams all around them.

Sometimes, your best-laid plans just don’t turn out in a game like Apex. And when that happens, it’s best to just laugh it off.