Time has flown by since Flight Esports’ rocky opening week in the Second Division of UKIN saw them trailing towards the bottom of the leaderboards. Two weeks and four playdays later, we catch up with the team to see whether they can still make it to the playoffs!
After facing two tough opponents in the opening week, Flight’s trial by fire continued into their third playday as they faced Team 86, who are considered one of the favourites to win the tournament. Unfortunately, the game was not broadcast, however several close-to-team sources claimed it was an even game as Team 86 narrowly claimed an 8-7 victory on Kafe Dostoyevsky.
Flight Esports’ first dominating performance of the season came in their fourth playday as they quickly demolished Belong UK in a clean 7-0 sweep of Clubhouse. This expected victory over Belong saw them climb the standings for the first time as they ended their second week in 5th place.
After an easy fourth playday, Flight were thrown back into the deep end for their third week of the competition as they took on Socially Esports and Vexed Gaming. The former game delivered a surprising upset as Flight toppled third place Socially in a convincing 7-2 victory on Kafe Dostoyevsky. This victory saw Flight soar into third place, albeit only temporarily as they later succumbed to Vexed Gaming in another narrow 7-5 defeat on Clubhouse.
“Our performance so far has been pretty good. We should have closed out against Team 86 when we were on match point but just let it slip. Against Vexed we just had too many mistakes and didn’t secure enough kills. We feel very confident that we will make the playoffs.“ - H4wks, Flight Esports’ captain.
After three weeks and six playdays of intense competition between these 10 teams, let’s take a look at which teams remain in contention for the tournament playoffs. But first, here are the current standings for UKIN Division 2:
| Placement | Team | Wins | Losses | Points | Round Differential |
| 1 | Team 86 | 6 | 0 | 18 | +21 |
| 2 | Vexed Gaming | 6 | 0 | 18 | +16 |
| 3 | Socially Esports | 4 | 2 | 12 | +10 |
| 4 | London Esports | 4 | 2 | 12 | +8 |
| 5 | Flight Esports | 3 | 3 | 9 | +5 |
| 6 | Peak Esports | 2 | 4 | 6 | +2 |
| 7 | Lucendi Gaming | 2 | 4 | 6 | -4 |
| 8 | Mouseplayz | 2 | 4 | 6 | -4 |
| 9 | NUEL | 1 | 5 | 3 | -20 |
| 10 | Belong UK | 0 | 6 | 0 | -34 |
For those unfamiliar with the format; the top four teams after the 10-way, best of one round-robin will proceed to the tournament playoffs where they will compete for the two UKIN First Division promotion spots. For Team 86 and Vexed Gaming, their places in the playoffs are near enough guaranteed as they will only need to win one of their next three matchups before they are unsurpassable by Flight Esports, who are currently perched in 5th place.
Meanwhile, Flight's last few matchups of the season are Lucendi, Mouseplayz and the NUEL; all of which should be relatively easy matchups compared to some of their previous opponents. However, despite being the likely favourites to win all three matchups, their path to the playoffs is far from simple as their fate will rely on the performances of Socially and London; both of which will hope to win at least two of their next three games to ensure that they also remain in contention for the playoffs.
London will have the easiest journey of the three teams as they enter their first two games, against the Belong UK and NUEL teams respectively, as the clear favourite to win. While Socially will also play against Belong, they will first have to take on Team 86, whose dominant performance in the tournament so far will make them the likely victor of that series.
Fortunately for Flight Esports, neither Socially nor London can completely lock them out of contention as both teams will play each other on the final playday on the 10th of December. Assuming that Flight wins all of their coming matches and Socially succumbs to Team 86, then the latter will need to defeat London in order to avoid elimination and force a 3-way tie for the last two spaces in the playoffs.
“I don’t think we’ll reach a three-way tie. Socially has mostly only played the weaker teams and I feel like London has a decent chance of knocking them out. But even so; we feel confident in the case of a tie because we are the only team that went the full length with Team 86 and that’s helped a lot with the round differential!” - H4wks
While Hawks is less certain about a 3-way tie, these three teams will need to maximise their round differential scores over the coming playdays since the 3-way tie remains a very distinct possibility.
“It is going to be exciting for fans of all teams to see such a close finish between London, Socially and Flight. The pressure is on for these teams to pull themselves away from joint 3rd/4th place. Will it come down to the match between London and Socially next week or will Flight’s roster change serve to hinder rather than benefit them? These are the questions on everybody's lips and we are all eager to see how things go.” - Grace, UKIN2 caster.
Do Flight Esports have what it takes to soar into the playoffs or will they plummet at the hands of one of their opponents? Be sure to tune into the RainbowSix UK twitch channel tonight at 7PM GMT to see how their final fixture plays out!
