Global Pro League Week Four Takeaways

The final week of the regular season of the Global Pro League is in the books, and there’s much more CWL action to come. This weekend, we saw North American teams OpTic Gaming and Enigma6 clash with European squads Red Reserve and Elevate. Both NA teams moved on to the Season One Playoffs while the EU teams struggled. Below are our takeaways from the weekend.

OpTic is still the best in the world

OpTic opened the weekend as the highest-ranked team worldwide and demonstrated this by being the only team in all of Stage One to go 6-0 in their group. Although their competition played well against them, OpTic only saw one game 5 the entire weekend. Finishing the group with a 78 percent map win rate, 8 percent more than any other team, OpTic went 18-5 overall. 

After their first series of the weekend against Red Reserve, OpTic player Ian “Crimsix” Porter said on Twitter, “Don’t expect a lot of SND wins in these pool play events, still trying out some new stuff ;).”

With so much on the line, OpTic was confident enough in their gameplay to try out new strategies before heading into Playoffs. All signs point to OpTic being a heavy favorite in the Stage One Playoffs later this month.

Crimsix’s tweet regarding SnD

Enigma6 shows up

After a great performance this weekend, E6 may have silenced the concerns surrounding their current roster.

Earlier in the season after E6 had already qualified for the GPL, it was announced that Mike “MRuiz” Ruiz would be retiring from competitive CoD. Rumors circulated that E6 was attempting to bring on Preston “Priest” Greiner as MRuiz’s replacement. However, with a strong showing by the team this weekend and with Priest joining Cloud9, we may see this E6 squad stay together.

Only losing to OpTic in both of their matchups, Enigma6 ended the weekend with a series score of 4-2, and a 59 percent map win rate. They were dominant against their EU opponents and only lost one Uplink the entire weekend, occurring in their last match against OpTic.

Chris Puckett interviewing MRuiz

Elevate performs when needed most

Like Cloud9 and Millennium, Elevate had a rough start to their weekend as they headed into Sunday with a 0-4 series count. Although in the end they would finish just 1-5 with an overall 35 percent map win rate, Elevate played teams close and showed up when it mattered.

During their last match of the weekend, Elevate squared off against Red Reserve: the winner placing 3rd and the loser heading to relegation. In a back and forth series that went to Game 5, Elevate won when it mattered most, out placing Red by one map win.

On Monday, a day after securing their 3rd place finish, it was announced that Rhys “Rated” Price would be leaving the organization. Elevate will now need to find a new 4th before heading to MLG Anaheim in June.

Red Reserve cannot perform in respawn game modes

Red Reserve was plagued all weekend by pitiful performances in Hardpoint and to a greater extent in Uplink. However, their Search and Destroy stats weren’t much better.

After an impressive 5-6th place finish at CWL Dallas, many believed Red could place second in the group. However, with a 36 percent Hardpoint win rate, coupled with a 17 percent win rate in Uplink,  Red struggled to make it to a Game 5 SnD where they could attempt to close a series. Their first and only win this weekend came from a 3-2 win over Elevate on Friday.

Red Reserve at the MLG Arena

We now head into Relegation before Season Two of the GPL. We could see roster changes for Red; if they could pick up another talented slayer to help David “Urban” Marsh in the Respawn game modes, they could easily qualify for Season Two.

Jack Waters is an avid Call of Duty Esports fan and wants to hear from YOU! Find him on Twitter.

Images: Crimsix’ Twitter, Jack Waters

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