Heading into Week Six of Stage Two, things are starting to become apparent. The competitors have separated themselves from the weakest teams, and that means team changes are bountiful. The biggest of the team changes was on display in the first match of the night.
100 Thieves (2-6) v.s. H2K (6-2)
100T came into the match looking like a brand new team. After a tumultuous week, 100T had to enter this week with a whole new roster. Royalty and Nelson (in a weird set of circumstances) were the two to remain on the roster; now they are joined by Remy and Aches, two solid veterans that Nadeshot is hoping will make his team a competitor.
Things looked like they were trending in the right way. On the first map, Hardpoint on Evac, 100T would manage to blow out H2K, 250-189. The match was all 100T, and they were led by the two newcomers. Aches finished on top with a 36-28 Kill/Death ratio, and Remy went 32-27. It was a solid match and had 100T fans optimistic about the future. Nobody on H2K could pull positive, and they were quickly down 1-0.
After the Hardpoint, things looked like they have the past few weeks. 100T got beat 3-0 on SnD, Capture the Flag, and Uplink. Aches and Remy would go 4-14 in SnD, the team got beat 11-2 in Uplink, and they lost in the first minute of OT on CTF. H2K moved to 7-3 and kept pace with the top teams. 100T will play
100T will play Thursday against eLevate (4-4). H2K will play against Rise Nation (6-2) tomorrow night.
 Dream Team (6-2) v.s. Team eLevate (4-4)
This match was one everyone was looking forward to. eLv started the season 0-3, and would rebound to 4-3 before losing its last match. They come into this match as one of the hottest teams in CWL. dT has been underestimated in many of its matches coming into this week, and they are still fighting for respect despite the great start.
The first map, Hardpoint on Evac, began with a ban of the Man O’ War, that would affect all AR users as they’d have to rely on the M8 more.
Once the game got started, it would be all eLv, all the time. Starting off the first hardpoint, Nagafen would open the game up with a 5-0 and gain a lightening strike. It was 42-1 quickly, and it would be an uphill battle for dT. They would find a way to fight back and take a 64-62 lead after the third hardpoint; that was basically because of Killa going on a quick five streak. The glass hardpoint would go for dT thanks to Killa once again; he’d follow up his five streak with an eight streak, and Dream Team held a 93-86 lead after the first rotation.
Moving onto the second rotation, eLv wouldn’t surrender the lead again. They’d gain a 200-158 lead heading into the third rotation. The biggest reason was that dT was losing the slaying battle. Nagafen would go on another big kill streak and gain full streaks to close it out, 250-168. Nagafen and Killa played big in the slaying role for their respective teams. Killa finished 39-30 but was countered by Nagafen going 37-22 and gaining 2:31 in the hardpoint.
SnD was almost as embarrassing as could be for dT. They had five kills in the first four rounds, not unsurprisingly they’d start down 0-4. eLv didn’t let up. They’d win it 6-0 and hold dT to only seven kills. Felony would go on a seven streak and finish 10-2. It was a match that was over in less than four minutes. Killa went 0-6, and it was just an all out annihilation of dT for eLevate.
eLv was able to open Uplink on Infection up with two minutes of map control that led to a 4-0 lead. However, dT battled back and pushed its way through the eLv lines to gain four points in rapid succession. In the final minute eLv added on another point and took mid-map control to get the 6-4 halftime lead.
The second half was slow as could be to start. Killa had the opportunity to tie things up as he camo’d into the eLv base. However, he missed his melee kill and eLv pushed them back. A minute later, dT would gain mid-map control and somehow battle through two spawns from eLv to get a pair of dunks and take an 8-6 lead. Quickly down the map eLv countered with another big dunk. Things were tied, and they’d end up going to overtime.
Dream Team would take a quick run after a set of spawns and get a bounce over the wall to score in only 48 seconds.
Quickly in the second overtime, eLv had a legitimate shot to win, and should have.
Aqua opened it up with a huge round; he would finish with 48 kills (second on his team was 19 kills, combined the other three had 52 kills), and allowed Faccento to grab the all and run up snow street. He had 20 seconds to throw it in for the win, and he hit the side of the rock. eLv would get slain out and dT managed to get a lucky win.
Managing to send it somehow to a round four CTF, dT had to come up huge and force a game five. They started out on pace. After both flags had been pulled, dT fought through two separate attempts to get a return, and they were able to maintain. Killa threw on camo and rushed via trains to get the kill and return for dT; they took the 1-0 halftime lead.
In the second round, dT would get another capture to run the score up to 2-0. But a wise pull and rush from eLv allowed them to cut the lead in half.
Faccento had a great opportunity to rush the flag back after heatwave and returning the eLv flag. Pushing up and getting two more kills, he and Aqua did a joint rush. Aqua would drop, and that left Faccento to pull. He would die shortly after sliding off of top grandmas. Sender made several key kills in dT flag protection, and they held off the eLv rush. Aqua was left alone on the leaderboards going 25-16, the rest of the team managed only 38 kills (14-12-12).Game five it was.
After nearly securing a 3-0 victory, dT found hope in the two capture modes. That would bring the first map five of the night up; Search and Destroy on Hunted.
The first round saw Faccento fall into a 1-v-2 situation with the bomb planted in his favor. As he ran around the map, dT had both guys setup on the bomb, one defusing. He wall ran through the waterfall and had to get the shots on the bomb defuser to clutch the map but only landed two shots and would fall into the water dead. dT quickly took a 1-0 lead.
dT would be carried by diabolic through the next round by Diabolic’s 5-0 start. But Aqua, who had been clutching all day, would win the third round with a two piece to get eLevate back into the match. Faccento and Nagafen closed out the fourth round with an incredible kill by Faccento against a head glitched Chino. It was a 2-2 match now, and it’s essentially a best of seven series that would tilt in eLv’s favor after another quick round.
Aqua had a sharp three-piece and followed it up with the final kill to give eLv an ace and a 4-2 lead. It had to be one of the easiest aces Aqua has ever had as he continued to be the clear MVP of the eLv team. Aqua would drop in the seventh round, after his five streak. However, eLv would finish it off in a 1-v-1 against Chino, for the third time in the match, eLv bested him. And in the fourth opportunity for Chino to win a 1-v-1, he’d lose and eLv managed to win the game 6-2, and overall won the match 3-2. Aqua finished 14-6, completing an incredible series.
Rise Nation (6-2) v.s Team EnVyUs (5-3)Â
EnVy had the opportunity to dethrone the first place team in CWL while at the same time pushing them into the conversation atop the league.
It initially looked like EnVy had a good chance at jumping ahead at the start of the series. It was John and Apathy jumping out to big starts, a 28-10 lead after the first hardpoint would be extended to 91-51 by the third point. Apathy and John were 28-17 to anchor the EnVy lead. It was 112-71 as the teams rotated back to mid.
Apathy would be 19-13 after the fifth hardpoint, which allowed Envy to lead 136-79. However, the turning point came in the sixth hardpoint, kitchen. Slasher was flanking around the helipad and had an easy two piece in front of him. That would’ve broken the Rise lines and flipped spawns, allowing EnVy to jump in with 40 seconds on the clock. He got one kill and missed four bursts as he dropped and that allowed Rise to make it a 136-129 game, they were back in it.
Slacked would get entirely streaked out on the laundry hardpoint, but Rise didn’t initially capitalize. EnVy ran the score to 172-136. Heading to glass both teams would get key plays. Slacked and Apathy traded four kill streaks for their teams and EnVy came out on top, 186-161. Back to mid for the
Back to mid for the third rotation, the game turned sideways. Loony took a five kill streak on the hill and pushed the Rise lead, for the first time in the match, to 201-194. In the kitchen point, it was all Loony again. A six kill streak coupled with Classic’s four-kill streak allowed Rise to win, 250-196.
Apathy and Slacked both started 3-1 for their teams, and it was a quick 1-1 tie to start the match, both defensive teams winning. The defensive teams continued winning, and the series would go to 2-1, but Rise would break the theme up with an offensive win. An Octane versus Apathy 1-v-1 would happen in Round five, down 3-1, Apathy would manage to fly over top greenhouse and get the nice kill on Octane to make the series 3-2. The teams would trade wins to 4-3. In round eight, Classic fell off the map (dropping bomb back to the base) and somehow, it turned into a positive for Rise, they’d get the kills to win by surprising EnVy. The trades continued, and it was 5-4 Rise. Apathy got put into a 2-v-1 situation and popped kinetic, but Rise managed to get the kill anyway and win the match. Rise would take a 2-0 lead into Uplink.
In Uplink Rise and EnVy gave the fans one heck of a game. Back and forth, back and forth, it was just a massive battle of giving and taking. Early it was Rise that would take a 3-0 lead. However, Jkap’s 17-9 start and some timely plays would result in a 3-3 tie. It was Slasher that broke it and made it 3-1, and two more clutch plays would have the match square at the half.
In the second half, Rise would continue to start fast, leading 5-3. But Slasher would come up with more insane plays to tie the game at 5-5. With 50 seconds remaining, it was Octane who had a wall run near apartments spotted out, a leap and interception would halt the EnVy push. But Apathy would ultimately find another late push with 12 seconds left, getting the game-winning throw to make the series 2-1.
EnVyUs had an incredible run to start the CTF, scoring 30 seconds in. But after things settled down, Octane’s 8-2 start allowed Rise to tie it up 1-1. Much like the first cap, Apathy took over the barn and was firing lasers to gain control allowing EnVy to cap again. But guess what? A counter-capture came in again, in less than 30 seconds the score would be 2-2.
Starting the second half, Rise burned two specialists and an HC-XD trying to cap, but EnVy held it off. EnVy would get a cap with 2:30 remaining, taking a 3-2 lead. Apathy and EnVy kept the push going, pulling another flag out. Apathy had a huge return down trains to allow a 4-2 lead for EnVy with under two minutes remaining. John’s big plays down the stretch while carrying the flag would push the lead to three, 5-2. And that essentially ended the match. Jkap’s 22-16 and John’s 21-14 were huge, John added three captures and a return. EnVy battled back to force game five and earned a shot at a reverse sweep.
Search and Destroy on Hunted is always a fun map, it started 1-1 with EnVy winning the first round. Each round seemingly came down to a 1-v-1, and EnVy jumped ahead 2-1. EnVy got on an aggressive streak and just outslayed round, after round, they continued winning and ended up leading 5-1. Slasher’s eight streak enabled him to end the game 10-2, and EnVyUs closed out the reverse sweep.
compLexity Gaming (2-6) v.s. Cloud9 (3-5)
Playing in the first match since gaining Parasite, coL was looking to gain some much-needed momentum in CWL. They were able to start off about even with C9 but were down 98-68 after the first rotation. After the sixth hardpoint, coL took its first lead 135-120. Battling back and forth throughout the next few hardpoints, the second rotation ended for coL, 164-157. coL being aggressive and C9 stagnating on the mi hill would allow the lead for compLexity to push all the way to 214-157. The kitchen hardpoint was all coL, they won 250-159. It was a map that was dominated by efficient slaying and just pure outplaying. coL’s new era got off on the right foot.
coL couldn’t push all of the success from the first map into the second, they were quickly down 5-1. They salvaged two rounds to make it 5-3. But a two piece from Happy clutched it out and sent the series into a 1-1 tie.
Cloud9 started fast in the first half of Uplink and carried all of their momentum over. They took a 3-0 lead into the half. The lack of offense continued for coL, and the defense would lapse as the match continued. coL dropped behind 5-2 with two minutes remaining. However, coL made a late charge to make the score 5-4. With a few seconds remaining mirX took a hail mary heave that just missed. coL was behind 2-1 in the series.