Six Invitational 2023: Team BDS details

Champions of 3 of the last 4 tournaments they played; the team arrives with a big favorite at SI’23

Six Major Jönköping Champions, Image: Ubisoft/@Kirill_vision

Entrance to Rainbow Six

The organization arrived in 2019 at Rainbow Six but had a great history until it started playing international tournaments. The team didn’t start in any tournament! Yes, Team BDS started outside the Challenger League, finally needing to qualify to play Tier 2 in Europe.

Player Shaiiko playing at DreamHack Montreal 2019, Image: DreamHack

The first relevant Team BDS tournament as a team was Dreamhack Montreal in 2019, and there they showed that they were different. The line-up in this competition was formed by Morgan “rxwd” Pacy, Adrien “RaFaLe” Rutik, Dimitri “Panix” de Longeaux, and the duo that continues to this day in the organization, Olivier “Renshiro” Vandroux, and Stéphane “Shaiiko” Lebleu. In the group stage, they eliminated the world champions of G2, and to stay in 3rd place, they beat DarkZero and Evil Geniuses.

History at Six Invitational

BDS is heading to the Six Invitational in 2020 via the European qualifier, but now the lineup has Bryan “Elemzje” Tebessi joining in place of Panix. The team takes second place in the group with Reciprocity (NA), Wildcard (APAC), and the defending G2 champions (EU). In the playoffs, the team fell to the Lower Bracket in the first game, survives for a while but ends up losing to Ninjas in Pajamas and saying goodbye to the championship in 4th place.

For the SI’21, rxwd were out, and Loïc “BriD” Chongthep was in. An almost perfect group stage, with 8 wins and only 1 loss, where the team equaled the G2 record of 7 consecutive wins, but the games were in the MD1 format. In the playoffs, the team was not able to play so well, losing to NiP. In the lower, Furia won but soon fell to TSM.

Pre Six Invitational 2021, Image: Ubisoft/@Kirill_vision

As of 2022, the team’s worst Six Invitational. The lineup did not change but suffered from problems, and had coach BiOs playing in place of RaFaLe in 2 of the 4 games, and the team finished the competition in last place in the group with only 1 victory. The organization started out of all competitions, rose to the Pro League in the first season of Challenger, and played 3 Six Invitationals, but without success in playing a final.

Stats from Six Invitational story

General Stats:
23 Games: 61% Wins (14/9)
510 Rounds: 53% Wins (268/242)
45 Maps: 56% Wins (25/20)

Against Teams (2+ Games):
2 Games vs. Reciprocity: 100% Wins | 4/1 (W/L) Maps | 28/20 (W/L) Rounds
2 Games vs. Team Empire: 50% Wins | 3/1 Maps | 31/22 Rounds
2 Games vs. Team BDS: 50% Wins | 2/1 Maps | 15/16 Rounds

Against each Region:
vs APAC: 5 Games | 100% Games Wins (5/0) | 89% Map Wins (8/1) | 63% Rounds Wins (59/35)
vs NA: 6 Games | 33% Games Wins (2/4) | 40% Map Wins (6/9) | 45% Rounds Wins (80/97)
vs LATAM: 9 Games | 67% Games Wins (6/3) | 59% Map Wins (10/7) | 55% Rounds Wins (106/87)
vs EU: 3 Games | 33% Games Wins (1/2) | 25% Map Wins (1/3) | 50% Rounds Wins (23/23)

Present

The team had an interesting start this season, qualifying for the Six Major Charlotte with 6 wins and 3 losses, with the last round being a beautiful 7-1 against G2. At the Six Major Charlotte, the team fell into the group with Astralis (NA), Wolves (EU), and Chiefs (APAC). They ended up ranking 2nd because of the balance of rounds and thus faced Oxygen (NA) in the quarterfinals. However, the team was eliminated by the Americans 2-0.

In Stage 2, the team’s situation was worse as they were out of the Major in 6th place, with 4 wins and 5 losses. But everything started to settle down when the team went to play in the alternative tournament in Arabia: Gamers8. This tournament helped regain the lineup’s confidence as they beat Falcons and TSM (NA) to make it to the playoffs. There, they eliminated Team Liquid (LATAM) and took home the trophy with a win against Falcons. What was most impressive was that BDS didn’t drop a map and had 4 OT wins and 5 clean wins.

BDS celebration after the Gamers8 title, Image: Twitter/Team BDS

Since the last stage, the lineup has changed. RaFaLe was replaced by Théo “LikEfac” Mariano. This change had an immediate impact, the first of which was the return to the Six Major. With 7 wins and only 2 losses, the team managed to rank in 2nd place.

But before playing the Six Major Jönköping, the team was invited to play in the Japan Invitational 2022 tournament. Like in Arabia, the team got a clean title, with 3 wins, while not dropping a map.

In the Six Major Jönköping, the team was in a “death group” with W7M and SSG. BDS almost didn’t get the classification: with only 1 victory more than SSG, BDS would face W7M, who were undefeated until the moment, and SSG would face Fury. BDS, unfortunately, lost, and SSG needed a 7-2 victory to advance to the playoffs. But Fury helped Team BDS out and put up 5 rounds, guaranteeing BDS’ spot in the playoffs. After this magic, the team eliminated Wolves and Soniqs and had a great game against Team Liquid in the finals, to then win their first international title in Rainbow Six. The organization that started out playing qualifiers arrives at the invitational, winning 3 of the last 4 tournaments played (Six Major Jönköping, Gamers8, Japan Invitational).

The Six Invitational starts on February 7th in Canada, with broadcast on official Twitch and YouTube channels.