Esports|Rainbow Six Siege|Spacestation Gaming — The 3-2 Comeback at Place Bell

On February 16, 2020, Place Bell in Laval hosted the Grand Final of the Six Invitational 2020, Ubisoft’s publisher-run world championship for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. Spacestation Gaming arrived from the upper bracket to face Ninjas in Pyjamas, the Brazilian lineup that had survived the lower bracket and defeated Team SoloMid earlier that day. This was a best-of-five final with an unusual starting condition: Spacestation’s undefeated upper-bracket run gave it one unplayed map win before the teams sat down. The scorecard therefore opened 1–0, but NiP erased that advantage by taking Villa 7–3 and Border 7–2, moving within one map of the title. Rainbow Six Siege is a five-versus-five tactical shooter in which attackers breach a defended building and, in this Bomb-mode ruleset, try to plant and protect a defuser while defenders delay or eliminate them. Each map is divided into rounds, the teams exchange attack and defense after six rounds, and reaching seven round wins normally secures the map; a 6–6 score leads to overtime. The players were Canadian, Bosco, Rampy, ThinkingNade, and Fultz for Spacestation, opposite Psycho, Kamikaze, julio, Muzi, and pino for NiP. Their final ran on the Windows PC edition during Operation Shifting Tides’ Y4S4.3 live-client window, the patch Ubisoft deployed to PC on January 28. NiP led Clubhouse 4–0 and later 5–3, but Spacestation won four consecutive rounds to take the map 7–5 and level the series at 2–2. Bank became the decider: Spacestation led 4–2 at the side change, extended the gap to 6–3, and closed the next round for a 7–3 map victory and a 3–2 championship result. The win gave Spacestation Gaming its first Six Invitational title and ended what Ubisoft described as a three-year wait for another North American international trophy. For captain Troy “Canadian” Jaroslawski, it was a second lift of the championship’s sledgehammer trophy; for this roster, the decisive place-moment was the last defensive round on Bank inside Place Bell. Ubisoft’s event guide and retrospective verify the date, live Place Bell stage, organizer, stakes, and champion: https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/2ESedtDPyPOIstJRImQfZt/six-invitational-2020-kicks-off-february-7 and https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/2PeLPqruOLtMnnSs4HcREd/rainbow-six-siege-highlights-from-the-six-invitational-2020 . Independent match reporting confirms the bracket advantage and 7–3, 7–2, 7–5, and 7–3 played-map scores: https://www.player.one/spacestation-gaming-wins-2020-six-invitational-amazing-comeback-133057 . Ubisoft’s patch record is https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-updates/3nC1sOyNkEt3Kw8MfHUvvj/y4s43-patch-notes . Cover image: “Place Bell - Fall 2019” by Bryantriplex, photographed November 18, 2019; own work, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source and license: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Place_Bell_-_Fall_2019.jpg