The previous season, Team Falcons won all nine MENA Regional competitions, represented the area in all three Majors (or was meant to), and suffered just three local RLCS 2021-22 losses in total.

They were without a doubt the greatest team in the area, and the majority of the locals thought they were the only Middle Eastern squad that could compete on an equal footing with the finest teams from Europe and North America.

Team Falcons – The Quick Recap

The Falcons lost three matches in one event this season, snapping their regional winning run after one. Yes, you read it correctly: they suffered more losses in a single weekend than they did the whole previous year. KRN was the recipient of two of those defeats, defeating them in the semifinals and in the Swiss to end their winning streak.

The fact that Hisham “Nwpo” Alqadi was said to be joining KRN should serve as a wake-up call for their followers. KRN was expected to challenge and maybe dethrone Falcons from their position of dominance. Even after he was expelled, Falcons still lagged behind the neighborhood’s newcomers.

Participation for the Falcons in their home region was always going to catch up eventually, but the fact that it did so after just one season of RLCS competition was ahead of schedule. It’s thrilling because it gives people a reason to watch MENA regionals to see whether Falcons can return to a major, but it also brings to light the obvious error of not having two MENA berths at Worlds.

The Middle East is certain that they should be represented at more LAN tournaments moving ahead, believing that a region with teams that can defeat a Major finalist should not simply send one team.

Gen.G Starts With a Blast

Most experts anticipated that the teams that had players who had just arrived in the continent would struggle when they competed in North America’s first Regional since they had less time to prepare than the native teams. Those hypotheses came true for two-thirds of the visitors: FURIA placed in the top eight but continued to resemble a shell of their Fort Worth selves, and Complexity narrowly missed making the bracket.

However, when everything was said and done and there were only two teams left, one of them was Gen.G, who had a preponderance of European players and recently failed to advance through the Top 16 Swiss Qualifier.

Gen.G’s performance in the season’s first tournament came as a surprise, even though it was always anticipated that they would eventually enter the running for Major slots and regional victories this year.

Their responsibilities appeared to be clearly defined, and their playstyle appeared to be consistent, so it didn’t appear to be unsustainable or the result of a “honeymoon.” The quality victories were there as well; no one can accuse them of using a “mickey bracket” after their swift victories over Version 1 and Space Station, in which they neutralized both teams’ main players.

The UK members of Gen.G have attracted a lot of attention because they embody the idea that depending on how well or poorly they perform in each regional tournament, EU is superior to NA. Not because they were a fluke, but since the top of North America is so tough, there aren’t many possibilities that they’ll come close to or surpass a second place result in the remaining Fall competitions.

Even if they play much below their talent level in the remaining two legs of the split, it’s difficult to imagine them failing to qualify for the Major with a top-two result. In any event, Nick “Chronic” Iwanski has established himself as more than just an up-and-comer who was given the opportunity to launch his career, and both Jack “ApparentlyJack” Benton and Joseph “noly” Kidd have already demonstrated that their decision was worthwhile.

Naturally, we’ll need them in Rotterdam to defeat European opponents and demonstrate that freedom does not only apply to North America.