Call of the Abyss VI Republic of Korea Qualifiers

The Crawling Chaos

The **COA VI Korea Qualifiers** is a competitive event to determine which team from the Republic of Korea region will advance to the Call of the Abyss VI grand finals.

## Qualififcation

The process of qualifying for COA VI began during the Preliminary Phase, known as *The Whisperer in the Snow*. During this phase, which lasted from December 29, 2022, to January 12, 2023, all teams were able to compete in Abyss Quick Matches and Abyss Rank Matches to earn Club Points.

The players' Individual Tier, Battle Results, Individual Deduction Points, and whether they participated in Ranked Matches would affect the final Club Points. The highest Hunter Points in the Club would first be multiplied by 2, then added to the sum of the four highest Survivor Points of the other members to calculate a club's points. The top 50 teams in the Club Point ranking would advance to the Playoff Phase, known as *The Binary Star*.

The Online Qualifiers phase of COA VI is known as *The Crawling Chaos*. During the *Binary Star* phase, players would continue to earn points under the same system, but with a much shorter cap on the number of matches a player could participate in. For Korea teams, the top 8 in the *Binary Star* points ranking would earn an in-game reward and the opportunity to participate in *The Crawling Chaos*.

## Format and schedule

The COA VI Korea Qualifiers are a simple elimination tournament. Two brackets made up of 3-4 rounds each will be played on the first two days, while the third day will have the final bracket of the tournament as its third one. The tournament's starting time is 18:00 UTC+9 on the first two days, then 16:00 UTC+9 on the last day.

After the end of the qualifiers, tournament officials will contact the winning teams to confirm whether or not they wish to participate in the tournament. If more than one member is not a citizen or holder of valid permanent residency in their registered region, that team will forfeit the right to advance. If a team refuses to participate or cannot do so, the next one in line will receive a chance to participate. It is unknown under what logic of the two runner-up teams would be chosen over the other in this scenario.

The schedule for the event is as follows:

 18:00 (UTC+9)
 20:00 (UTC+9)

## Summary

### Day 1

#### GO vs MF

It was a close matchup, to the point that it was almost tied. Though the GO Survivors had their share of impressive plays, such as GO\_Itte's skillful dodges with Antiquarian and GO\_Sori's short stun rescue as "Prisoner" which allowed the Survivors to pop the last cipher, the coordination and rotation skills of MF put them one step ahead, with their ability to keep each other alive earning them the victory in their last match. On the Hunters' side, both teams had some rough starts but were able to turn the match around by micromanaging and pressuring the Survivors. This couldn't be more true in the case of MF\_kkangtae, who unexpectedly turned the tide in their favor in two of their matches.

### Picks and bans

There were some slightly unconventional picks for international meta standards, such as Barmaid and Magician seeing some use. Female Dancer and Prospector were also utilized to their full extent to prolong kites. Despite having largely fallen off compared to her glory days, Mechanic also saw plenty of use. On the Hunter side, most picks could be considered conventional—if slightly unpopular internationally—with the exception of MF\_nyo's masterful use of Smiley Face.

## Official links

* Day 1 (YouTube, Korean)
* Day 2 (YouTube, Korean)
* Day 3: YouTube, Korean / YouTube, Japanese

## Trivia

* The Korean language casters for this event were 광주야생마 (Pangjoo) and 레나 (Lena). The Japanese language casters were Tsumikichia, Kenmatsu, and SZ\_SiLia.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.identityvgame.com/coa6/rule/en/
2. ↑ https://twitter.com/identity5kr