The roster’s Split One Playoff experience had an unpredictable start. In game three, they were hit by a brutal game crash in the final fight, which led Gnaske and company to dramatically rush back to their PCs to secure their win. Aggression, impeccable strategy, and a hawk-like aim rewarded the team with 20 kills and first place, resulting in an astonishing 32-point game.
“The third game, where we dropped a banger 32 points, I was feeling hot. I wanted to fight,” Naghz explained with a fire in his eyes. The game was absolutely a driving factor for the team and ignited their passion.
Unbeknownst to the ALGS crowd, o7 also role-swapped after game three to build on each other’s strengths. “Game four, I switched to Caustic. But, I wanted to play Bloodhound. I still wanted to play really aggressively. So, Amphyy suggested that we swap characters,” Naghz said. “Going into game five, we actually swapped roles. I went into the fragger position. We felt like it suits our team better. Amphyy’s a bit more passive, I’m a bit more aggressive.”
The change clearly benefited the team, as they went on to have another impressive game six, achieving second place with the highest kills in the lobby. Lower placements in other games didn’t affect their overall score, with their more dominant games still enough to place them at the top of the leaderboard.
For Naghz, playing with o7 is a welcome departure from his 2023 playstyle. On his former team JLingz, he was forced into a zone-orientated strategy. “During Split Two, I was still playing a fragger role, but we were landing at High Point,” he explained. “This meant our loot was really bad, and we were just instantly rotating to zone. So, every time we went, we had bad shields. It was really hard to frag out because we didn’t have the right loot.” In contrast, Naghz is now playing on a team that thrives on aggression, pushing plays, and relishing risks. The current meta and recent Evo changes also suit his playstyle, helping to push him to new heights. He proclaimed the new Evo system to be “much more healthy” than before.
From their performance on day one, many will question how the team has not yet been signed. However, Naghz explained that finding an organization to represent is not a priority. As a free-agent team, they have been offered “a lot of opportunities with different organizations,” but they “couldn’t get the right things sorted out.” So, they collectively decided to remain free agents until the right opportunity came forward for them. “We all believe in ourselves. We know how good we are,” Naghz proclaimed. “It’s just going to get better and better. We’ll probably get an org after this. Who knows? As long as we perform, that stuff is just going to come. It’s natural.”
Despite DarkZero and TSM having dominated competitive Apex Legends for the entirety of 2023, Naghz, like many pros and fans, is tired of the titan versus titan narrative. Overall, he hopes that someone else wins, whether it is o7 or not.
Viewers can watch whether o7 can take the title on the playapex Twitch channel or official ALGS B-Stream, as they progress through groups and aim to reach Sunday’s grand final.
