The new Rainbow Six Siege operation called Deep Freeze is almost here, and a couple of tweaks to secondary gadgets have competitive players dreading the meta at SI.
Coaches like Louis “Helbee” Bureau, managers like Seth “supr” Hoffman, and players like Mitch “Dream” Malson all seem to be at some level of apprehensive about the new season. They’re correct to be concerned.
Attacking in R6 is already difficult. For some time, utilizing the secondary Frag Grenades combined with the pinging function was the only way to dislodge defenders from power positions. Removing the ability to cook grenades means these defenders can get out of the way of the grenade and fall back to other power positions, as opposed to being killed outright by a Frag Grenade thrown at the destructible floor below them.
The new operator, Tubarão, comes with four uses for his main gadget, the Zoto Canister, which seems to be a powerful tool to stall defenders. On LAN, DMRs are extremely powerful guns, and Tubarão comes with one of those, too.
Put plainly, with all the changes to the maps in the pool, these updates can completely swing the game to the side of the defenders. It won’t be surprising if we see 2-4 halves for attackers being celebrated as huge wins. Professional teams are the best in the world at utilizing all of the tools R6 can give you, and even they think they’re going to have trouble navigating all of the powerful utility the defenders bring to the table.
R6 players already speak in hushed tones about the awful Melusi-inspired “20-second meta” from 2020-2021, and this new one has the chance to be much more skewed toward the defenders. Siege is a tactical game, sure, but this is sitting behind a main gadget that seems to be overpowered and one keystroke away at any time.
