Zenith Esports: The history of a 22 kills win in Weekly Survival!
A masterclass!
Before SUPER ruleset got created, the points system during tournaments used to heavily reward placement over kills, and it was often more important to finish in the top 3 instead of hunting kills down.
The Weekly Survival played during PGI.S is a step back for many observers as the format follows the same idea: it doesn’t reward risks taken, but instead gives a lot of weight to final positioning, which is often related to a lucky shifts and leads to very passive gameplay from teams in order to preserve their resources for late game.
However, we have seen yesterday a one of a kind game from Zenith Esports: a 22 kills chicken dinner in a game where they couldn’t afford the slightest breathe, where their managed to get through a very cluttered path to qualify and where they defied all odds.
The game
Despite a south plane path, Zenith decides to play their main loot spot: Lipovka, Mansion, Prison. It’s already 3 minutes and 40 seconds into the game when they finally start looting and they are already in a rough spot: the first circle is far west, and even if the team is used to it, they’ll be off tempo for a while.
10 minutes into the game: the team takes blue zone damage, arriving in the play zone at the same time the 2nd circle pops.
The shift is favorable, the teams uses its dynamic to catch up with the pace of the game and settle on the edge of the circle, controlling the north side.
The trigger
The 3rd circle is the trigger. It’s a hard shift away. Yet, the team doesn’t panic and steadily manage to gather information to execute what could be a game winning call. The team has identified its opportunity: in a very short time window, they manage to rotate along the coast right behind AF, and end up taking the position they aimed for in the first place as well as two kills on the Korean team.
Thanks to land ratio rule, the 4th circle is exactly as they could expect, and they’re now in a favorable position to think about a potential victory.
Their game plan is the following: they’ll have to protect their position before they can bridge to the right side of the road, a well-known ending position.
The team has a really clear understanding of the situation, and manage not only to zone AAA away, coming from south, but also to wipe most MCG squad who came from north, thanks to a very disciplined and timely manner team fight.
Entering late game, they clear reminiscent player from MCG before what will be their last rotation to the right side of the road. After a short healing session, they can finally walk toward the victory after consecutives teams fights where they are absolutely dominating:
- SQ: Accurates grenades and patience allows them to claim a clear 4–0 over the american team,
- T1: With AAA’s help, they protect their position from T1’s push, knocking down players while they were driving,
- AAA: Being forced to push, they wipe within 15 seconds the helpless team who gave up too much space,
They finally gathered the last members from both META and GEX controlling half of the last circle.
In a game where confidence and decision making allowed them to properly solve every situation, Zenith proved that agressive and well coordinated team play can be the solution during Weekly Survival.
Maxime “Znooper” GONY
Resources: twire.gg and their team’s rotations analyser which allows me to provide a clear break down of the game.
