Pro Apex Legends, NickMercs & Albralelie Drama in Oversight
NickMercs Tripods 3-0 Albralelie LANimals in Cenote during Oversight
- Albralelie and LANimals contested Tripods three times during Oversights Preseason Qualifiers and lost all three engagements.
- Clips of both players' reactions flooded Twitter and Reddit in the following days.
- Albralelie has said that due to his performance on the controller in the tournament, he’d be swapping back to mouse and keyboard to better enable his team to succeed.
The 2023 Apex Legends Global Series Split 2 Playoffs are still over a month away, but fans of the Apex Professional scene are still being entertained in the meantime. During the Oversight - Season 1 Split 3: Preseason Qualifiers, two big names clashed and caused some popcorn bucket-worthy drama. How did NickMercs and Albralelie end up the stars of Apex Twitter and the Competitive Reddit?
How It Started: Albralelie
It all started with Albralelie and the LANimals deciding where they should contest during Day One of the Preseason Qualifiers. They choose Cenote on Storm Point, a POI that NickMercs and Tripods have been dropping to since the early days of the ALGS Pro League.
According to Albralelie, NickMercs and the Tripods are one of the weakest teams in the lobbies. Despite that claim, their first contests against the Tripods ended up going in the Tripods favor. Down 0-2 on their clashes, Albralelie doubled down talking to his Twitch chat.
“Of course, we’re going to challenge a s*** team that is only good at off-spawning for a POI when we are POI-less team. Like, of course, we are going chall[enge] one of the weakest teams in the Pro League, bro. Nick plays Apex maybe three days a month. Of course, I’m going to challenge.”
How It Went Down: NickMercs
After being contested three times and winning each engagement, NickMercs had something to say on his own stream. “Alb and Lou both, and Naughty, all three of them have been playing competitive Apex for a very long time, you know. And listen, I have respect for them man, but when they come dropping on our fucking head in a tournament I gotta speak my peace.”
NickMercs and the Tripods won each contest with ease, allowing LANimals to take only a single kill off of them.
To add a bit of insult to injury, one of Tripods players, Deeds, even had to swap from controller to mouse and keyboard mid-fight because his controller was not responding. It’s not a great look for the LANimals, who took 14th place in the ALGS 2023 Split 2 Pro League to get beat so easily by the Tripods who took 22nd overall.
The Aftermath
While some of the clips from both streams seemed pretty heated, the two players took it all in stride. Their comments on social media following the event show that moments like this can cause emotions and tempers to flare under the weight of competition, but it’s important not to let them linger. Great rivalries can be born out of stories like this.
Another victim @TSM_Albralelie. 3-0. That boy @yaboydeeds on the keys too 💀😭 not too bad for playin’ Apex 3 times a month. Appreciate the KP 🤝 oh and lookin’ pretty good on the rolla too man, keep it up. pic.twitter.com/KqDiPat1Kf
— Nickmercs (@NICKMERCS) May 23, 2023
The pods take us 3-0 today. Back on the keys tho for the future, said i'd swap if we did bad in oversight today and it doesnt get much worse than we did lol. GG's
— Albralelie (@TSM_Albralelie) May 23, 2023
Albralelie’s performance did have some other consequences, as the pro Apex Player recently made the decision to swap from mouse and keyboard to controller. Depending on how well they did would determine if he stuck with it long-term or not.
Suffice it to say, dropping three straight losses to the Tripods has convinced him to remain on mouse and keyboard.
