Gaming
esports
How to watch Rainbow Six Siege Esports
An guide to how and why you should be watching Ubisoft Montreal’s Rainbow Six Siege.
In many ways, Rainbow Six Siege — known by fans as Siege — is a lot like Counter-Strike. They’re both team-based competitive first-person shooters. And in terms of esports, their world-stage modes revolve around bombs and defusal, albeit inversed. In Siege, bombs are already planted, the counter-terrorists are on the attack, and terrorists must stop them from using a defuser to disarm the bombs.
While CS is a lot more straightforward in its mechanics, Siege has a more complex meta care of deeper game systems. Destructibility for creating new lines of sight and enhancing verticality. Asymmetrical primary weapons that not only function best at particular ranges but offer crucial audio intel for the operators using them. And hero shooter-lite operators, each with semi-unique equipment items and fully distinctive special equipment or abilities.
Why you should watch Rainbow Six Siege
Because of their similarities, CS is an easy gateway esport for Siege. If you understand what’s going on in CS, you’re ready to watch Siege. What makes Siege compelling and so much more than just a CS clone is those aforementioned deeper mechanics that facilitate complex strategies.
If you're not familiar with CS, Siege is a game of strats and counter-strats. Like League of Legends or Dota 2, each operator is designed with a present or future counter-pick in mind and has a handful of other friendly operators they synergise with. Unlike a MOBA, tanking damage and a long time-to-kill isn’t a thing in Siege.
Despite their unique tricks, a well-placed headshot from any weapon is the one-shot solution to any enemy problem. This means that games can and often do descend into intense gunfights, where reaction time and accuracy under pressure make for exciting clutch moments.
Even without a proper understanding of the core mechanics and strategies, these kinds of rounds can be appreciated by all. That said, brains often trump bullets in Siege, albeit with the large-font caveat that world-class teams have to be willing to defer to plan B, C, D – or throw all plans to the wind – and make gut calls when strat A falls apart.
How to pick a team
Ubisoft Montreal has cleverly themed its content drops in terms of regions to boost interest in Siege in those particular locales once the relevant bit of DLC drops. This has led to not just public popularity but competitive viability of teams in Japan (like Nora-Rengo) and Latin America (such as Ninjas in Pyjamas or FaZe Clan).
Broadly speaking, this means there’s a team to match the region you're from, if you want to keep your barracking patriotic. That said, if you favour winners over patriotism, your most consistent, safest bet is G2 Esports. They beat Evil Geniuses in a thrilling overtime match at last year’s Six Invitational (playing then under the PENTA banner) and then completely outclassed EG again at the inaugural Paris Major. At this point they're the All Blacks of Siege.
If you’re more a fan of underdogs, it’s hard to look past Fnatic. Not only did the Oceanic team upset Room Factory and Team Liquid at the 2018 Six Invitational to ultimately place sixth in the world, they upset global silver medallists Evil Geniuses at the recent Pro League Season 8 Finals two rounds to zip.
This upset elevated coach Jayden “Dizzle” Saunders to god-meme status care of some clutch plays when he subbed in last minute for IGL Etienne “Magnet” Rousseau.
The easiest way to tell which team’s winning
On the competitive stage, the winner of a map is the first team to win seven rounds with a two round lead. If team A wins five rounds and team B wins seven, team B has won the map. But if both teams reach six rounds apiece the map goes into overtime as teams race to win eight rounds — there's no need to win by two in OT.
Siege has both attacking and defending phases, with different operators available for each. This asymmetry means there's a round switch at the halfway point of each match. Once a team has spent six rounds attacking they'll have to defend for six rounds — or until one team has won seven total rounds. The winner of two out of a possible three maps takes the match.
This format expands to best-of-five maps for the finals. Siege’s viewer UI does a great job of feeding top-level info, such as how many rounds a team has won and which of their operators are alive. There’s even granular UI inclusions like utility tracking in terms of remaining unique equipment or secondary gear on a per-operator basis.
All of this helps to tally which team is ahead at any point. That said, early, mid-round or endgame advantages are gained when teams take out key operators. For attackers, hard breachers (Thermite, Hibana, Maverick) are essential for opening entry points through reinforced walls and hatches. For defenders, bombsite anchors (Echo and Smoke) can be critical for slowing an attack or denying a plant. When these kinds of operators are fragged before they’ve done their job, the scales tip the other way.
Up the top you can see who is still alive, the round score and time left.
© Ubisoft
Ultimately, though, defenders are playing the clock. The longer the attacking team takes to implement its strategy, the more likely it is the defenders will win. Still, Siege’s high lethality means a 1v5 situation, though stacked, isn’t necessarily round over for the five-player team. The more competent that solo surviving player is in terms of gunfights, the better the odds of a thrilling ace clutch scenario.
How to know when you should pay attention
Like any lengthy esports tournament, it’s easy to treat Siege as second-screen viewing. The thing is, when bullets start flying in Siege, multi-frags tend to happen. This is because one of the prevailing tactics is refragging: wherein teams trade kills. This competitive meta has evolved nowadays to the point where that initial fragger anticipates a refrag attempt from a particular vantage point, which can lead to speedy multi-kills, sometimes even as wallbangs — shots from enemies through walls that are difficult to anticipate, but flashy in execution.
You can safely look away during the preparation phase, but if the commentators mention a defender is setting up for a peek, it’s worth checking for early frags. Really, though, the dying 20 seconds of a match should have your full attention, particularly if there are multiple survivors on both teams. There's no reason for either team to 'save the AWP' or hide to stay alive, as there is in CS, so it’s all but guaranteed things are about to get loud at this point because the attacking team has to rally for a last-ditch push.
5 on 3, FaZe have just 23 seconds to get into the bomb site against Fnatic
© Ubisoft
A handful of highlights to get you started
High-stakes matches breed edge-of-seat plays. For a stellar full match replay, revisit the PENTA vs Evil Geniuses grand final at the 2018 Six Invitational. The shining map of that match-up is Coastline, which PENTA hadn’t reportedly practiced on before the world-stage event.
For total domination, watch the Paris Major 2018 rematch between G2 Esports and Evil Geniuses, or for an upset, Fnatic vs Evil Geniuses at the Pro League Season 8 Finals. Outside of this, check out the self-promoted clips of the big names in Siege.
EG's Troy “Canadian” Jaroslawski and his masterful Pulse plays. G2's Niclas “Pengu” Mouritzen and his coolheaded clutches (like this one). Or the ice-cold Blitz play of NiP's Júlio “julio” Giacomelli.
How to watch the next big tournament
Season 10 of the Rainbow Six Australia/New Zealand Pro League is starting up again, as teams duke it out to qualify for the APAC Finals. The competition is fierce, featuring its fair share of upsets, and you can tune in from October 16 on https://www.twitch.tv/rainbow6.
The APAC Finals see the best teams from A/NZ duke it out with the best from Japan, SEA and South Korea, and the winners there will head to the Season 10 Finals against the rest of the world in November.
Ubisoft Montreal has stated it’ll continue to grow the way it broadcasts Siege tournaments, including the introduction of a Dota-like ‘noob stream’. Understanding the basics of Siege isn’t difficult, but appreciating the depth of skill and strategy at play simply involves watching more and more matches. But that’s not a problem when it's as exciting as it is.
