Good Week, Bad Week: PUBG PCS4 Americas Grand Final Week 1 recap

Week 1 of the PCS4 Americas Grand Final commenced on Thursday, delivering two eventful evenings of PUBG esports action. 16 teams fought to claim the most number of match victories over the two-day series that awarded first place with $20,000 USD.

The PCS4 Americas Grand Final generated many interesting moments as sixteen of the region’s best teams clashed during Week 1.

Coming into the opening week, our largest looming question surrounded the new ‘Most Chickens’ format. Positions are determined first by the number of wins and then kills as a tiebreaker.

Teams entered this series with a slightly new objective — win the match at all costs. Rather than play for the maximum amount of points between placement and kills, this format encourages squads to go all-out to secure the ‘Chicken Dinner’.

It can be tough to gauge exactly how teams are settling in during the earlier stage of any event.

Amplifying that in the PCS4 Americas Grand Final is a lobby consisting of two regions that aren’t as familiar with one another. On top of that, you add in the new format that everyone is still getting used to, and it’s made it tough to take away any ‘big picture’ assumptions.

That said, we can tell which teams hit the ground running, and which teams stumbled out of the gate in Week 1.

Good Week: Soniqs, Dignitas, Oath, Dodge

The opening week of the Grand Final was kind to North America’s superpower, Soniqs. Claiming a match victory on both days, the squad regularly posted high kill counts in their matches across Thursday and Friday.

Those kills would prove to be the difference-maker for the Soniqs, separating them from their opponents with the same number of wins.

Leaving an impression under their new banner, Dignitas proved to be the Soniqs toughest challenge through Week 1. A pair of second-place finishes had the potential to deflate the team’s morale on Day 1.

However, Dignitas showcased their strong team mentality and bounced back with wins on both days to position themselves towards the top of the leaderboard.

Snagging back-to-back wins on Erangel to close out Day Two, Oath Gaming came extremely close to crash-landing into the ‘Bad Week’ portion of this post. Their play as the week came to a close reflected the Oath Gaming we expected coming into this series.

Oath would have needed to pull off a Chicken Dinner hat-trick to leapfrog the lobby and secure first. While they didn’t, their two wins were enough to right the ship and establish some momentum heading into Week 2.

Dodge was able to string together a few impressive matches and claimed the final Chicken Dinner of the week. Their second win of Week 1 sent them above Oath Gaming into third overall.

Bad Week: Veritas, 22 Esports, TSM

Struggling to find their first Chicken Dinner of the Grand Final, Team Veritas found themselves locked in a territory battle against 22 Esports.

Early engagements are always frowned upon, but it’s even more difficult when a match victory rests heavily on the number of players a team has standing.

Reinforcing every superstition surrounding the “Group Stage curse”, TSM could not buy themselves a Chicken Dinner during Week 1.

They dominated groups and entered the Grand Final with lofty expectations as one of the strongest teams in this lobby. Unfortunately, the team was unable to secure a match victory and found themselves outside of the top eight after 12 matches.

The PCS4 Americas Grand Final returns for Week 2 on Thursday, June 17.