After a confident win on the first day of Challenger League IGL Mr.B issued an open challenge: Come and get us. I’m paraphrasing but the sentiment was easy to understand. RealityTV believed they were head and shoulders above the rest of NACL and wanted to prove it. With the last 2 playdays ahead of us, it looks likely that Mr.B’s challenge will go unanswered. Given their prime position going into playoffs, this team has the potential to become the greatest team in Challenger League history.
But before getting into the grandstanding and the wax lyrical hype going into playoffs lets talk about how we got here. RealityTV came into Stage 2 of Challenger League as a last minute mashup for MrB and co. to just try and keep the league spot. Expectations were low but RTV shocked everyone with solid play, impressive improvements, and standout scouting. Gaveni, Packer, and Woos shined on this roster. They had the chance to reach 1st place for Stage 2, but choked in the last match against Gaimin Gladiators.
Coming into Stage 3 Trist and Woos were out and subsequently replaced by Gity and Tristan. These moves were seen as straight upgrades and expectations were high for RTV for Stage 3. Mr.B issues his challenge Playday 1 and we’re off to the races. Playday 2 RTV slam Luminosity 7-3 on Border, what should have been arguably the hardest match of the season was over in a flash. While the Attacks looked a little rough at first, RTV course corrected and closed out the game easily enough. This was followed up by a 7-2 against Aqualix on the same map. Playday 4 was the roughest match from RTV to date against 1Shot. On paper 1Shot is another of the top CL teams so this makes sense, except 1Shot hadn’t shown their best form this Stage. A 7-5 loss to Favelas on home territory of Chalet was rough for the 1Shot roster and those shakes were still there against RTV. In a very defender sided Skyscraper RTV managed to take it in overtime. However this match did make the concerns around RealityTV’s attacks more concrete. The team was unstoppable on Defense but struggled a lot on Attack. It’s a good thing they always ran up such a lead by starting on the defensive side every match…
The second half of the stage shows very few changes, 7-3 against Vipers on Theme Park. Once again, 2 dropped rounds on Attack before taking the win. Bye on Playday 6 and a 7-3 against Favelas on Kafe the next day. I would argue this match was the most dangerous RTV had, since they had already beat LG and 1s, the only “real” threat at this point is arrogance or a team with nothing to lose. Guess which category Favelas falls into. Still, it was yet another win for RTV on another new map, showing a very deep map pool in a league where Bo1s are the norm and most teams hold their map pool close to the chest, opting to stick to the most basic of maps like Clubhouse and Bank.
This Favelas win is particularly important for a few reasons, the first being that it was a win by committee. This was the first match Gaveni didn’t pop the fuck off and run people’s pockets for 3/4s of the match, and yet RTV was able to run their gameplan and win out. That level of consistency is a good measure of quality because many teams, especially at the T2 level, can fall flat if their star player doesn’t perform. Second, RTV’s attacks looked solid. They weren’t falling into the same problems they had been in previous matches. The team was slow, but not to the point of running out of time. Clear improvement in the team shows that they aren’t complacent just because of their flawless record. That’s a good indicator the team will stay dangerous in the long term.
The third reason this match matters so much is that it was a standout game by Tristan. Sure, he didn’t hard carry Gaveni style but he had clear, consistent, and tangible impact throughout the game. 100% KOST doesn’t come easy. Tristan had a rough start to the stage and while he had been proven to be relatively clutch, he wasn’t necessarily putting up the numbers you’d want for a player in the role he plays. RTV had proven in Stage 2 that they could handle players underperforming and still get the job done relatively well, so seeing Tristan prove his value in this match silenced many doubts about his place on this roster.
RTV has 2 matches left, one against Arial Arise and the other against Unemployment. But the most dangerous matches are behind the team. Given Arial Arise’s performance they’re still a threat, but shouldn’t be able to compete and Unemployment is…Well, Unemployment has been keeping last place warm. From a map pool perspective as well as a team perspective RTV should be winning both matches, but it’s on them to finish the season clean. Karnageb has played spoiler to this team before so caution is called for.
Where does this leave us? RealityTV has had a banger of a season so far and looks to maintain that form to the end. 6 out of their 7 matches have been 7-3 or less, the only exception being the overtime match against 1Shot. Gaveni is +46 in K/D differential. +46!!! The team has consistently been winning clutch situations in the 2v4s and 2v5s to the point where I question if they put themselves in those situations just to fool around. If they play to the level they have been, Arial Arise and Unemployment should fall and that’ll put RTV at 1st place for Stage 3 of NACL with a flawless record. They’re already locked in for playoffs and given the form of teams like Aqualix and 1Shot, LG and AA are the only threats RTV have. Even then, RTV’s map pool has been shown to be deep, which actually matters in Bo3s like the playoffs. But the most notable aspect of this run is the narrative.
Should RealityTV go flawless as Mr.B claimed they will, it makes for one of the most interesting storylines in the history of Challenger League. This is a team that was built last second going into Stage 2, coming into Stage 3 they got more deadly as Packer and Gaveni were backed up by smart pickups in Tristan and Gity. There’s no former Pro League talent here, Gity might be a veteran by CL standards but he’s never played in Tier 1. They have no true veteran talent to guide these players to this success. This is a new generation of players forcing their way into the scene and demanding recognition. This team has the potential to do something even Parabellum or the 92 Dream Team couldn’t. These are legendary squads that did solid work not just in Challenger League but also in Pro League and international events.
By going flawless in Stage 3 RealityTV will have had the best regular split in all of Challenger League. Should this be followed up by winning playoffs there’s no question that Reality TV will be the best Challenger League team in history. No other team has gone undefeated in this round robin format, not even in Pro League. The best Challenger League record goes to PogChamp with their 11-3 record. (It was Best of 2 but considered separate Bo1s. It was weird) You’ll note that as great as Parabellum and 92 Dream Team are, they didn’t actually have the greatest regular season records. These teams scraped by into playoffs before sweeping the opposition. 92 Dream Team was more impressive for the things they did outside of CL and Parabellum barely got into playoffs of Stage 3, getting by thanks to a +1 round differential. They might have won Stage 2 & 3 back to back, but it wasn’t as dominant as this RTV run has the potential to be. RealityTV winning playoffs after a flawless season by definition has to be more impressive than the CL runs that these other teams have had.
Even compared to Pro League this run is impressive. The closest to have ever gone flawless in a round robin format ever was OrbitGG in Season 2 of Pro League. PRO LEAGUE! We’re talking about players like KiXSTAr and Canadian, but even they stumbled at the last hurdle going 6-1. Should RTV complete the sweep, a feat like that every single player on RTV is looking good. It establishes everyone on the team as hot commodities going into the off season. Should they win playoffs…Well won’t that make for interesting qualifiers for the Major.