R6 Pro League Finals Team Profile, Wildcard Gaming
With the Rainbow Six: Siege Season 10 Pro League Finals quickly approaching, we had the opportunity to sit down with both Kyle “Diesel” Renton and Ethan “Ethan” Picard of Wildcard Gaming to talk about what lies ahead and the challenges they expect to face at their first ever international event as a team.
Previously, the Wildcard Gaming roster (prev. Orgless/Athletico) found themselves falling at the final hurdle during qualifiers for international events, despite showing consistent strength online. But October 20th of 2019 marks the day they buried that curse and qualified for their first ever international event, the Pro League Season 10 Finals. Although having finished second in the online stages of the Australasian Pro League, and only progressing thanks to some key results from other teams, they still managed to qualify.
Nonetheless, the team persevered and defeated not only a strong Thai side in Xavier Esports, but also defeated one of the tournament favourites, CYCLOPS Athlete Gaming. With that being said, Wildcard did go on to narrowly lose their seeding match against Aerowolf, but regardless of that loss, they have qualified for their first international event to date.
Wildcard’s Active Roster:
Wildcard’s Support Staff:
A unique part of this roster is the fact they have been a team for an extremely long time, and despite some rough patches, they’ve stayed together. Ethan, Derpeh and EmoRin have been together as a core three since their days competing under the Athletico Esports banner back in June of 2018, although EmoRin and Derpeh had been competing together under Athletico Esports since January of 2018; with EmoRin starting with the Athletico organisation back in October of 2017.
Following the roster’s time with Athletico Esports, Ethan, Derpeh and EmoRin decided to move on and continue under a self branded “Orgless” banner in January of 2019, where they then acquired Diesel a month later. Although NeophyteR is the newest addition to the roster, having finished his stint with FNATIC in March of 2019 and joining Orgless in May of 2019, he is no stranger to this roster. Not to mention that NeophyteR once competed alongside Derpeh and EmoRin from May of 2017 to March of 2018 under the Athletico Esports banner.
It’s also important to note that syliX, one of the coaches for the team, has also been a longstanding member of this roster since May of 2017, serving as both a player and coach, whilst Fluxx has been sole coach of the roster since November of 2017.
Roster movements aside, the core of this group is unfortunately all too familiar with second place in the region. As of recently, the team has finished second at the Six Masters and second in the Six Major Raleigh Asia-Pacific Qualifier, which ultimately meant they missed out on the Major. Although they did claim the Oceanic Cup over FNATIC and have now qualified for the Pro League Finals in Tokoname, Japan.
We kicked off our interview with Ethan and Diesel by asking Ethan, captain of Wildcard Gaming, what the team’s approach is coming into the Pro League Finals. Ethan went on to state “our approach to this event is to be open minded and take things as they come. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we couldn’t get a boot-camp in beforehand but we’ve still been studying NaVi as much as we can.”
“Ultimately this will be a learning experience for all of us,” finished Ethan.
Ethan then touched on the subject of whether he thinks the team are dark horses coming into the event. “I think that any team that isn’t from one of the main three regions is considered a dark horse. We are happy to be the underdogs and will be using this event to learn and gain experience.”
When talking about the team environment, Ethan kept it plain and simple by stating “the team environment is still the same. We know that esports is a 24/7 thing. The moment you get complacent, you fall quickly.”
We then spoke about the competitive atmosphere in Oceania and what Ethan’s thoughts are towards it. “Oceania still has some catching up to do, but it has come a long way since I joined this roster, which was Athletico back then. I think that not being able to scrim teams outside of Asia-Pacific is what holds our region back the most,” answered Ethan.
Moving on to our discussion with Diesel, we spoke about the team's preparation coming into the Pro League Finals, focusing on what they’ve done to prepare. “We’ve been limited to scrimming in the Asia-Pacific region due to ping differences. Sadly we were not able to organise a boot-camp on such short notice,” said Diesel.
“This will be our first time playing against any sort of international competition outside of APAC, so it will be a learning experience for us all. Other than scrimming, we’ve been trying to VOD NaVi as much as possible,” finished Diesel.
Diesel then talked about what needs to be done for the team to achieve greatness at the Pro League Finals “Making our first international event has been a huge feat for our team, so coming into this event we’re going to give it our best shot. Although, like I’ve said, we will be treating it as a learning experience to improve and keep moving forward,” started Diesel.
“Obviously being able to get passed a team like NaVi in our first quarterfinal would be incredible, but for us the goal is to compete well and take it all in. Whatever happens, happens,” concluded Diesel.
Whilst on the topic of their competition, we talked about how he believes Wildcard Gaming matches up against the other competition at the event. “We’re at a disadvantage in terms of experience against international teams, playing different metas, and the other regions’ higher level of play,” kicked off Diesel.
“We’re trying to do things the right way in order for us to continually improve, but being geographically distanced, and having a limited practice pool of more experienced teams to learn from is a huge challenge. Unfortunately, we’ve just gotta deal with it,” finished Diesel.
Closing out the interview, Diesel spoke on his thoughts of the competitive atmosphere here in Oceania for Rainbow Six: Siege.
“The Australasian and Asia-Pacific regions have gradually been improving over the course of the last few seasons. However, we’ve still got a long way to go to be considered an all-round, well-balanced region that can contest against the other three consistently,” concluded Diesel.
Wildcard Gaming will be kicking off their debut match on the international stage against a strong Natus Vincere (NaVi) side, which will be a cut-throat single elimination match, this weekend.
R6 Pro League Schedule:
- Darkzero vs FaZe / 12:15pm (AEDT) / Nov 9th
- NiP vs Reciprocity / 3:30pm (AEDT) / Nov 9th
- NaVi vs Wildcard / 6:45pm (AEDT) / Nov 9th
- Giants vs Aerowolf / 10:00pm (AEDT) / Nov 9th
You can stay connected with Wildcard Gaming by following them on Twitter.
Credits:
- Written by Ben Scott
- Edited by Adam Taylor
- Photos by Sarah Cooper / ESL
.svg){kind=small}
