Key things to watch ahead of the 160 team ALGS Open

The ALGS Open will shake up Apex Legends competition in ways we have never seen before. This event will be the first to feature 160 teams, and brings some of the Year 5 innovations to the LAN stage for the first time.

We’ve gathered some of the key things for you to look out for across the four day event so you can stay on top of the huge amount of Apex Legends on offer this weekend.

The ALGS Open and the huge amount of teams included means there is a different format to the last few LAN events. The Open features a simple double elimination bracket from the off. There is no group stage at all, meaning the stakes are high from the first game. Any missteps can see you suddenly fighting for your survival in the competition.

The huge amount of teams also means there are a lot of unknown quantities. Teams don’t know eachother as well as they would ahead of a 40 team event. There has been some scrims, but most of the focus has been on the ongoing Split 1 Pro League.

There are also a huge amount of teams playing at LAN for the first time. They don’t know how they will react to the pressure and magnitude of the opportunity available to them. If they don’t, their opponents don’t. Nervous and cagey? Nothing to lose style aggression? There are a huge amount of unknowns.

ALGS veterans may remember a system somewhat like this. Before the introduction of the ALGS Pro League, teams big and small used to compete in the same tournament. Every week, big names found themselves stumbling and falling out of the tournament in the early stages. Battle Royale gameplay is brutal, and sometimes you can find yourself in difficult situations not entirely of your own making.

That means we may well see long established top-tier teams either exit the event early or find themselves with their backs against the wall. Also keep your eyes out for any lesser known teams who adapt especially well to the LAN environment. It seems unlikely that the 20 team finals on Sunday won’t have at least a couple of teams that aren’t yet household names in the ALGS.

Legend Bans have been one of the most popular changes added to the ALGS in recent years. Both viewers and players are enjoying the much wider spread of Legends in use and teams are having to show their versatility week in week out across the Pro League.

While regional metas have emerged, although fragile, there has been a growing variance between regions. Some teams have been deliberately setting up with Legends that are not likely to be banned to maintain consistency. A smart strategy. However, with teams from all regions coming together it looks like it will be hard to anticipate what a safe pick will look like.

What will be interesting is if a LAN ban meta emerges, and how quickly does it so so. There are multiple lobbies happening at once, will their bans be similar or hugely different.

In addition, the ALGS Open will be our first chance ever to see Legend Bans in a competitive Match Point scenario. The Pro League is limited to five bans, but in theory Match Point could see double that or more. How teams adapt to this will be fascinating. Do they stay loyal to certain classes, using whatever Legend is left in that group if needed, or do certain Legends remain unusable.

The ALGS Legend Ban system does have a failsafe to ensure all classes are available to teams. If an entire class would be banned, the first banned Legend in that class returns and so forth. We don’t know if we will ever see this rule used, but if we do, the Controller Class seems the most likely target. However, other Legends can access the Ring Console through perks. Do teams prefer that versus playing a Legend like Caustic? Time will tell.

Regardless, the ALGS Open finals will be unmissable with so much to watch and learn across the competition.

Another ALGS Open LAN debut is Broken Moon, which was added to the map pool ahead of ALGS Year 5. Of course, we have seen some of this map in Pro League. However, Worlds Edge and Storm Point have shown us over the years that maps play out very differently on LAN. Teams are usually more cautious, end games more populated and things play out a little more methodically.

Broken Moon is a very different map to Storm Point, Worlds Edge and E-District. Teams have by far the least experience on this map and mechanics like zip-rails might mean teams can either rotate incredibly quickly or have the ability to be very aggressive at high speed.

Also look out for how our less experienced teams perform on Broken Moon. If you were previously a breakthrough team, you arrived at LAN up against years of Worlds Edge and Storm Point knowledge. The best teams had hundreds of LAN maps played and you were at a major disadvantage.

At the ALGS Open, the opposite is true entirely. Broken Moon could well be the level playing field at this event. If more experienced teams perform worse on this map will be an interesting statistic to follow.

The akimbo P2020’s have been hugely popular recently, even after a hotfix hit their power significantly. We have seen LAN events dominated by a single weapon before. The Akimo Mozambiques and the Mastiff have both had their time in the spotlight. We are just days away from the next Apex Legends season that will no doubt shake-up the weapon meta again.

While a weapon being popular in itself is not that noteworthy, seeing a LAN dominated by the P2020 would be a notable moment in Apex Legends history. For years, the P2020 was the joke weapon in the game. No-one used it, except in emergencies. Dying to someone using one was highly embarrassing.

Even the addition of Hammerpoints wasn’t enough to make the weapon a viable pick. A LAN in which we see Legends we have never seen on LAN before. A weapon we have never seen be popular on LAN before. More teams than ever. New maps. The ALGS Open looks set to be a completely revolutionary ALGS event in more ways

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