NA’s top 2 teams suffer shock exit from Rainbow Six Copenhagen Major

Day eight of the Rainbow Six Copenhagen Major on Tuesday, May 2, ended with the shock exits of two of the tournament’s fan-favorite rosters, DarkZero Esports and M80.

The ongoing playoff stage of the Major has a Swiss format which means each of the 16 teams needed three wins to go through to the weekend’s finals or three losses to be eliminated. Coming into Tuesday’s games, DarkZero had lost to Soniqs and Ninjas in Pyjamas, while M80 had lost to Wolves and NiP putting them both on the edge of elimination. 

M80’s game started first with them facing Europe’s MNM Gaming in a best-of-three contest. With M80 being both the top-seeded roster from North America and recently signing both the Swedish Rainbow Six Berlin Major MVP, William “Spoit” Löfstedt, and the Charlotte Major runner-up, David “iconic” Ifidon, they were the clear favorites. MNM had also lost to Saudi Arabia’s Team Falcons during the play-ins, a team M80 had knocked out of the Major the day prior, meaning North American fans largely felt confident about a win.

Starting on M80’s map pick, Skyscraper, MNM Gaming began strong with four round wins in a row before M80 clawed it back. Most rounds were coming down to standout individual plays, and as the map went all the way to the final decider round, an outstanding one-vs-two clutch by Spoit made the difference to end the map in M80’s favor.

M80 went close to winning map two, Club House, early as they reached match point at 6-4 before losing three rounds in a row. In another round 15 decider, this time it was MNM’s Turkish player Fatih “Solotov” Türker making the difference as a triple kill on Valkyrie kept them in the game.

Related: 5 key storylines to watch during the Rainbow Six Copenhagen Major

Finally, M80 was sent home before overtime on Oregon as another one-vs-two came out, this time by MNM’s Luke “Tyrant” Casey. From a round away from a 0-2 loss, to winning the series and sending one of the tournament’s top teams home, MNM Gaming made quite a comeback.

Straight following this saw DarkZero play their best-of-three match against Team Liquid, a mammoth of a matchup.

DarkZero includes NA’s most successful player, Troy “Canadian” Jaroslawski, and recently signed the captain of the 2022 world champions, Matthew “Achieved” Solomon. The team also won the Rainbow Six Charlotte Major in May 2022.

Liquid meanwhile includes arguably the two greatest fragging players in Rainbow Six history, André “nesk” Oliveira and Luccas “Paluh” Molina, and finished runners-up at the last Rainbow Six Major in November 2022. 

Despite all the pre-game hype, Paluh dominated the game, proving why he’s been called the game’s best mechanical player. He netted 23 kills to just eight deaths, including three triple kills in map two’s eight rounds alone, as the game ended 7-4, 7-1.

In comparison to Paluh’s 1.21 kills-per-round figure, DarkZero’s highest figure was just 0.79, as they simply couldn’t keep up with Paluh. 

While both M80 and DarkZero made roster changes in March and so have had relatively little time as a full team, both sides will still see this as a major disappointment. For DZ, in particular, the roster has failed to reach the top eight at a tournament since they won the Charlotte Major a year ago, despite reaching nine tier-one finals in a row prior to that title win. 

For M80, the core roster secured three top-eight finishes in the last year and was the only North American team in the top eight at August’s Berlin Major. Now both teams will be looking at what can be done to reach these heights once again before November’s Six Major on home soil in the U.S. 

M80 and DarkZero’s exit means NA is left with just their third and fourth-seeded representatives in the tournament. Soniqs is already through to the quarter-finals, and Spacestation Gaming is set to face Japan’s SCARZ in a must-win match on Wednesday, May 3, at 6am CT.

Joining M80 and DZ out of the tournament during the playoffs are MENA’s Team Falcons, and LATAM’s REVEN ECLUB, who exited on Monday, as well as Korea’s Dplus, who went out just before M80’s game on Tuesday. 

This leaves four Brazilian League, four European League, two NA League, and one Japan League team left in the Rainbow Six tournament.