W7m Esports win all-Brazilian Six Invitational final
28 February 2024
The year is not even three months in yet and we have already had the pleasure of a full-blown 2024 Six Invitational, complete with $ 3 million prize pool. From Tuesday, February 13th, to Sunday, February 25th, Rainbow Six Siege developer Ubisoft gathered the best teams from around the world to compete in what has become known as the “World Cup of Rainbow Six”. The event was held in Brazil for the first time ever and it was also a Brazilian team that ended up taking home the trophy. W7m Esports steadily grew into the tournament and overcame their compatriots from FaZe Clan by 3 to 2 in the eventual all-Brazilian Grand Final.
No group winners
As usual, the Six Invitational started with a Group Stage, consisting of four groups of five teams, followed by lower-bracket and upper-bracket play-offs to reach the Grand Final. The guaranteed prize pool of $ 3 million meant that the champion would take home a million dollars, with the runners-up banking $ 450.000. The numbers three and four would earn $ 240.000 and $ 170.000 respectively.
Looking back over the 2024 Six Invitational, one of the things that stand out is the fact that neither w7m Esports nor their opponents in the final, FaZe Clan, finished first in their respective groups. In a group with Spacestation Gaming, Wolves Esports, Team Bliss and Dplus, FaZe Clan grabbed the second spot with 11 points from four matches, two points behind Spacestation Gaming. In Group C, eventual champions w7m Esports finished in second place as well, on equal points (11) with Virtus.pro. The other teams in their group were Team Liquid, Bleed Esports and M80.
Dominant playoff displays
It wasn’t until the start of the playoff stage that both w7m Esports and FaZe Clan started to look to favorites for the title. Over an upper-bracket run that included opponents like G2 Esports and Virtus.pro, FaZe Clan conceded just two maps on their way to the Grand Final. In the lower-bracket structure, w7m Esports managed a similar run by losing just two maps to reach the final clash.
What resulted was an all-Brazilian final for the first-ever Six Invitational held in Brazil, at the Ginásio do Ibirapuera in Sao Paulo. Looking at the final 3-2 score in favor of w7m Esports, you can see that the Grand Final was quite a tight affair, but it didn’t look like it was going to be at the start. Before w7m truly and well knew what hit them, they were trailing 6-1 on the final map of the series, but miraculously, they were not down and out just yet.
An incredible comeback followed during which w7m managed to win no less than seven rounds in a row, making the final score 6-8 in their favor. After winning BLAST R6 Major Copenhagen 2023 and BLAST R6 Major Atlanta 2023, their victory in Sao Paulo also makes w7m Esports the first esports organization to win every international tournament in BLAST’s circuit.