ALGS Midseason Playoffs at the EWC – five key things to watch

ALGS LAN action is back at the EWC, with the ALGS Midseason Playoffs about to get under way in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Teams are competing for a share of a boosted $2,000,000 prize pool and to earn crucial Championship Points. With the ALGS confirmed to be returning to Sapporo for their season ender, competition for a spot at the event will be as highly sought as ever.

With so much Esports action to consume across the weekend, we've broken down some of the key things to watch across this weekends EWC ALGS action.

The ALGS Midseason Playoffs follows a different format to standard ALGS Playoff events - with a teams divided into two groups of 20. They will play a marathon series of ten games in their groups. Seven teams per group advance to finals, with the next ten playing in a Last Chance Qualifier on Saturday for a second chance at booking a spot in finals. That means the bottom three teams per pool stage are sent straight home.

Ten games is enormously long for an Apex Legends group stage, far longer than the standard six games we are accustomed too. The impact of this will be seen across several factors, but Legend Bans in particular are impacted by the format change.

While we have seen more than ten games a couple of times since Legend Bans joined the ALGS, this has never been a guarantee. This is the first time in ALGS history that teams have had to prepare for potentially nine legends banned at once, guaranteed. This means that Legends like Lifeline and Caustic could come into play, and have been prepared for, rather than a last second addition during a Match Point scenario.

This format could also benefit some of the most experienced teams. The extra games gives teams more chance to show their quality - reducing the impact of any one game in particular.

Alliance come here as sort of defending champions, having won last years Esports World Cup event. They also arrive at the event off the back of several ALGS LAN near-misses. The European champions have fallen narrowly short in the last 3 ALGS events - but have consistently been in the mix for the title.

The EWC was Alliances big break and first LAN win. Now the EWC and the ALGS have joined forces, could this happy hunting ground provide the perfect way for them to break their ALGS curse? Alliance have been in phenomenal form all year, dominating the EMEA region comfortably winning Split 1 Pro League.

Wattson took a huge suite of buffs in the most recent Apex Legends update. While this will obviously impact how much Wattson is played, it could have wider ramifications for teams overall playstyles. The domination of Legends like Ash has made the meta very aggressive - with more teams operating an edge playstyle.

However, with Wattson becoming another viable option in the controller class more teams are swapping to a zone playstyle. That means that other controller class Legends, including Caustic, are also coming into play due to their synergy with this playstyle.

NRG's iiTzTimmy surprised the ALGS community announcing that this ALGS EWC event will be his last. This means NRG begin the tournament with essentially nothing to lose. Timmy would love nothing more than to go out with a win, and Sikezz and Gild will want to put themselves in the best possible position to find a new IGL ahead of Pro League Split 2.

Naturally when the EWC rolls around all eyes are on all Team Falcons rosters, of course including in the ALGS. The organisation are aiming to defend their Club Championship. Apex Legends is a great opportunity for them to earn maximum points with a win.

Team Falcons had a rough end to ALGS Year 4, but have been on fire in Year 5 so far. They comfortably won the ALGS Open and Hal, Zer0 and Wxltzy will be keen to put together a consistent run of LAN results.

Expectations are incredibly high, as always, on this team. Can they deliver and make it back to back ALGS LAN victories?

Stay tuned to esports.gg for full coverage of the ALGS and all things Apex Legends.