NICKMERCS’ Invitation to Apex Legends Global Series Pro League Raises Questions
Cover-Credits:
Nicholas “NICKMERCS” Kolcheff and his teammates from ‘Tripods’ have been invited to the Apex Legends Global Series Pro League next year and it has led to some concerns from the competitive community. Players have raised issues with how qualification for the Pro League was determined. Tripods had competed in the Challengers Circuit, which serves as the qualifiers for the Pro League, and secured a 10th place finish in the North America Last Chance Qualifier.
The Last Chance Qualifier’s format has its fair share of problems
The Last Chance Qualifier saw FURIA and E8 qualify. With just two slots available, all teams played aggressively and they played for kills instead of placement. The strategy led to utter chaos with most teams getting eliminated during the early rounds while others like E8 managed to secure points consistently. The format ended up rewarding performance during just one event instead of overall consistent performances throughout the season.
Amidst all of the confusion, along with the lack of a clear format for the Pro League, NICKMERCS announced that his team has qualified for the event despite placing 10th in the Last Chance Qualifier.
Teams that worked hard throughout the competitive season are fuming at the fact that only one event’s placements ended up mattering and that too in an all-or-nothing format. Most other competitive circuits in other titles usually take circuit points into consideration and reward consistent performances.
EA has been silent about the pro League’s format. All we know so far is that teams that are not getting direct invites may have to go through pre-season qualifiers to make it to the event.
DarkZero’s fate is also unknown at the moment. The team managed to win both the Stockholm LAN and the world championship this year. It competed from the APAC South region and it is moving to North America to compete from the USA. It is unclear if the team will receive a direct invite or if it will have to compete in the qualifiers since it changed regions as it will no longer be eligible to compete from APAC South.
