Two UK esports organisations have qualified for the R6 Central Combine, a new tournament Rainbow Six Siege.
Wolves Esports and MNM Gaming both made it through the Europe League Qualifier to reach the Combine, which has a prize pool of €40,000.
Wolves made a solid upper bracket run, beating Team Secret, MNM Gaming and Virtus.Pro 7-5, 7-4 and 7-2 respectively, to qualify.
MNM, meanwhile, beat Heroic 7-3, lost to Wolves, then beat BDS 7-5, Irish esports org Wylde 7-5 and Virtus.Pro 7-2 in the lower bracket to make it through.
The R6 Central Combine kicks off on July 22nd 2023. MNM and Wolves are currently the only two teams that have qualified for it, with other places up for grabs in a host of qualifiers soon (more info on that further in this article).
MNM and Wolves on R6 Central Combine: ‘This is a great way for players to showcase their talent’
Lyloun, Head Coach for Wolves Esports Rainbow Six team, told Esports News UK: “We were really pleased with our performance in the R6 Combine qualifier taking first seed into the playoffs.
“The off-season is quite long this year in the Blast EU league, so tournaments like this are great for us to be able to put some of what we have been working on into practice and see if it works.
“I truly think tournaments like this are very important to build a stable sub-top/T2 scene. It helps in bringing structure to future pro players and gives them the opportunity to show their potential.”
Lyloun, Wolves Esports
MNM co-founder Daniel ‘Javelin’ Chung added: “The R6 Central Combine and Northern Rainbow Rumble are great ways for players to showcase and test their talent with the very best in Europe.
“With any tournament, we always aim to do our best for our fans.”
MNM have a storied history in Siege esports, while Wolves have had a solid impact since entering the scene just over a year ago.
MNM signed Julio as their Rainbow Six Siege coach earlier this year, and in 2022, Wolves Esports became the first org to win back to back stages in the Rainbow Six European League.
What is the R6 Central Combine? How does it work?
The R6 Central Combine is a new Rainbow Six Siege tournament for the EU Central region.
It consists of four phases, with two slots for Blast R6 EU League teams (taken by MNM and Wolves, above), six slots for national teams from the EU central regions and 18 teams that go through open qualifiers. So there are 26 teams in total.
“While both Blast R6 EU teams will directly qualify for the playoffs, the R6 Central Combine creates new space to showcase yourself as a team and as a player, if you and your team are going to join our brand new system,” Ubisoft said in an announcement on the R6 Combine website.
Aside from the official overview video above, MNM Gaming also posted a handy infographic tweet providing a snapshot of the R6 Central Combine (see below).
While MNM and Wolves made it through from the Europe League qualifier, the EU Central Europe qualifiers are for players from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia. Then there are the open qualifiers.
As mentioned, the full R6 Central Combine gets underway on July 22nd, with qualifiers prior to that at points throughout July.
The news follows the announcement of the R6 North Rainbow Rumble 2023, which will be hosted across the UK, Ireland and Nordics region and is also open to the best up-and-coming teams from across Europe.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
