NAL Playday 6 Key Takeaways: TSM FTX struggles, beastcoast impresses with crucial win

_{Image via Ubisoft/@Kirill_Vision}

TSM FTX’s struggles have never been worse than right now 

TSM FTX’s struggles so close to winning SI are one of the stage's stories thus far. 

It would be one thing if TSM FTX was blowing leads and losing close games, but they just simply do not look like a team that lifted the hammer mere months ago. 

There are a ton of logical reasons why TSM FTX might be underperforming, but will be fine eventually. The first is the classic SI hangover – you lift the hammer and it’s tough to build up the emotion to run it up again in regional play. The second is that TSM FTX has never really been great regionally, only internationally – a trend that corresponds with underperforming in best-of-ones and excelling in best-of-threes. Third, they haven’t had as much time as others to figure out the map pool and attacker repick. 

TSM FTX will likely be fine once they get some rest and some time to dig into the numbers and film. However, the way they’ve been losing is troubling. Today, they gave up a massive 1-7 loss on Villa to Astralis. They couldn’t put it together against DarkZero and Spacestation, reasonable losses, but a maximum regulation loss to Mirage is a head-scratcher. 

For about one week, TSM FTX looked like themselves. They’ll be back soon, but with every playday, it’s becoming more and more likely that the SI champions will miss out on the May Major. 

Beastcoast gets a win that could prove crucial down the stretch

Heading into this week, beastcoast’s Major chances looked a little … strained. Matches with Spacestation, a surging Astralis roster, and a TSM FTX world championship roster that you can’t count out loomed. However, with their regulation victory over Spacestation, they’re in a very good spot, despite being on the outside looking in. 

Now, with three games remaining, beastcoast has Mirage, TSM FTX, and Astralis. A victory over Astralis would be nice, but by the time the two teams play, there’s a chance Astralis would be uncatchable by points, and favored to win to boot. 

However, the other two games are extremely winnable for a hungry roster that could bypass their colleagues in the 12-nine-point range. For now, beastcoast is outside of the top four – but that could change next week. 

XSET is on a tear that could send them to a Major; but can it last?

XSET started the stage innocuously with two 7-3 losses, to Spacestation and TSM FTX, respectively. 

Since then, they’ve kicked their season into overdrive. A 7-0 stomping of Soniqs and a 7-1 thrashing of Parabellum gave them a near-perfect 14-0 week. This week gave some similar results, they beat beastcoast 7-3 and crushed Mirage 7-2. 

XSET is on a heater – no doubt. However, they still have some big games looming on their schedule. A murderer’s row of three current top-four teams awaits: DarkZero, then Astralis, then league-leading Oxygen. 

I have a hunch we’ll learn much more about XSET’s real international chances over those three games than we have the last two weeks. While an impressive run, the real challenges await.