The Rainbow Six North American Pro League Season 11 results this week have caused quite the shakeup. This week’s results came at the cost of upsets and key battles for placements. With the race on for the top two and the implication only a few teams could escape the bottom five mess, the prophecy has come true. Let’s look at the context of the results and see what that means heading into the final playday of this half of the season.

The Top Two

After last week’s Pro League results, the league was in a three-horse race for first place. Spacestation Gaming, TSM and DarkZero Esports all were in the position to have a shot at the top two. However, Spacestation Gaming and TSM had to battle it out on playday six. In the hype match of the day, TSM took control over SSG and won the match 7-4 on Coastline.

As for DarkZero, they destroyed Evil Geniuses 7-2 and Luminosity Gaming 7-1. For DarkZero, they seem to follow in a similar path to Europe’s Rogue. They too had struggled at the start of the season, but now look strong. This builds anticipation to the already hype final playday between TSM and Dark Zero. The battle for first place is upon us in playday 7, and it’s a match not to be missed.

7-0 denied! But does @Luminosity have enough steam to get 5 more rounds in a row? #R6PL pic.twitter.com/QzMC5Moohk — ESL Rainbow Six (@ESLRainbowSix) January 23, 2020

Tier Two Teams

With Spacestation Gaming’s defeat at the hands of TSM and their upset draw against eUnited on Monday means they fall down a step. Spacestation Gaming now sits on a 3-1-2 scoresheet. Although, they are not the only ones with that scoreline. As stated last week, Team Reciprocity is out of the difficult spot, and will continute to be, and join SSG in the top four.

Team Reciprocity took two clean wins this week, with a 7-1 win over Luminosity Gaming. REC then had an unfortunate default win over Temp Storm due to internet issues. Because of this, Team Reciprocity launch from the compacted bottom standings to fourth place.

Team Reciprocity seems to be coming online now that their tough start to the season is out of the way. Their star players are back to being stars, and the teamwork is coming through. It’s a shame about the Tempo Storm situation because watching Team Reciprocity on their new form is interesting.

And here's the UMP ACE from @FoxA_R6 to close things out! 🔥🔥🔥 #R6PL pic.twitter.com/90mDnlrmiW — ESL Rainbow Six (@ESLRainbowSix) January 21, 2020

With these results, the clear top half of the league is forming. The top four also contains the four NA teams attending the Six Invitational 2020. Compared to EU, or better yet LATAM, the Six Invitational invited teams from those regions are spread out throughout the standings. Is there a clear skill gap between teams in North American Pro League? It’s one to ponder as the league develops.

The Third Tier

In the fifth and sixth place position, Luminosity Gaming and eUnited both have a 1-2-3 record. With eUnited getting an unexpected draw against SSG and LG getting crushed in this week’s playdays, they both find themselves in the same spot.

eUnited is one of the newest teams in the league. Seeing them put out decent games is a sign they are developing. Several weeks ago, they had a very close match against DarkZero Esports. This week they drew against SSG and EG. Maybe if they beat EG in their slump that may have given them an extra boost. Overall, its good progress for a new team in an apparant top–heavy league.