The ALCS Championships, Apex Legends’s most prestigious LAN event of the year, kicked off on July 7. The 40-team event is being held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Up for grabs is a massive $2,000,000 prize pot, the biggest ever in the tournament’s history. As always, let’s look at who the favourites and dark horses are.
Favourites For The ALCS
TSM
TSM is as synonymous with Apex Legends as Ferrari is with Formula One. The undisputed kings once upon a time, they achieved a series of underwhelming returns at the Split 2 playoffs in Sweden, where they finished sixth.
If you are to go by recent scrims, TSM are match-ready to pick some meta legends. While at training, they decided to experiment with a lineup of Valkyrie, Seer, and Mad Maggie. Then, TSM debuted this unlikely composition on the Sportsbook day of the ALGS Championship. Although they experienced just moderate returns initially, the trio returned to deliver some crucial wins.
Expect them to be backed, and expect them to continue delivering the return on investments. For now, TSM looks like an unstoppable force. They have also benefited from Valkyrie’s offensive utility, with her tactical moves giving them more heft to hit opponents from behind cover.
Team Liquid
Liquid were always a good team, but it’s only now that they’ve added a consistency factor to make them a better team. This has come about ever since they added young Zachary “Gildersons” Dennis to their roster in March. After the signing, they finished in the top ten in every competition.
Gildersons rounds out the team perfectly and provides the raw fragging power they desperately lacked. Liquid can count on their stars that they’re in a relatively easy group, which means they should be able to comfortably sail past the first round. Expect Gildersons to make a big impression on the last day.
Dark Horses For The ALCS
Alliance
This hasn’t been the summer of European teams. The region’s best performer - Team Empire - hasn’t been able to participate due to visa issues with USA immigration. Other EU teams have either been very poor or have massively underperformed. On the face of this, Alliance appears to be the region’s best hope for the championships.
Their roster is as experienced as they come, and all their players have blended superbly together. Fielding a traditional composition of Valkyrie, Gibraltar, and Caustic allows them to play safe, and eliminate all risks early on. All around solid gameplay and strong leadership from John “Hakis” Håkansson has been a massive contributing factor to their success.
DarkZero Esports
They are at the centre of everyone’s attention. The defending champions from Stockholm have suffered a bit of a dip, but are merely channeling the hurt to try and get back on a bull run, like the one where they managed to win a championship without star player Noyan “Genburten” Ozkose.
Over the past month or so, they’ve slowly revved up like a V8 engine and are primed to repeat their previous performance. Before the huge win, Genburten’s ability to lay down damage and take over fights was thought to be the biggest part of DarkZero's success.
