OpTic Gaming was one of three North American teams invited to ESWC’s annual Call of Duty Championship in Paris, France. They were able to win it for the second consecutive year.
The tournament was made up of three American teams (Rise Nation, FaZe Clan, OpTic Gaming), four English teams (Millenium, Team Infused, Exertus, Spylce), and a lone French team (Team Vitality).
The three-day event began on Friday, and it was met with another LAN problem that has plagued the PS4 this year. With the game controller running via BlueTooth (and still no fix from Sony), it conflicted with the smartphones and other game controllers in the arena. Friday was slowed to a halt and eventually had to be pushed back as ESWC worked to fix things.
ESWC collaborated with the fans in attendance and were able to reach an agreement to have the first several rows pushed back, limiting wireless interference enough to make things playable. The players decided, out of respect for fans, to continue playing even if that wasn’t enough.
Despite all of the early holdups, the playoffs began, and we saw most of the favorites advance to the playoffs.
On Day One of the playoffs, OG and Millenium won 3-1 over Infused and Vitality, respectively. Rise and Splyce were able to pull 3-0 shutouts off over their counterparts, Exertus, and FaZe.
On Championship Sunday, the semi-finals, OG and Splyce would win and advance to the Grand Final. OG’s dominant performance would finish with a 3-0 victory over Millenium and Splyce was able to escape narrowly with a 3-2 win in Game Five against Rise. OpTic had lost to Millenium on Day One in the pre-matches, so they were able to get revenge before playing for the championship.
In the Third Place match, Rise opened up with a close match in Hardpoint on Stronghold. A 6-0 win favored Millenium on Evac Search and Destroy. They’d follow that up with a 11-9 Uplink victory on Fringe to take hold of the series, 2-1.
With their backs against the wall, stage one NA runner-ups, Rise Nation battled back in Breach Capture the Flag. A 3-1 victory forced a very tight game five. It was fan-favorite, Redwood Search and Destroy. After losing the first S&D 6-0, Rise regrouped and took home a 6-2 victory to secure third place at ESWC 2016.
OpTic knew they’d have a massive target on their back. Since returning to the top of the CoD World and winning the Call of Duty World League stage one championship, they’ve been nearly unbeatable on Black Ops Three. However, they were able to dominate in the championship match.
Sporting the traditional “Sunday White’s,” OG came out and beat Splyce 3-0. A 250-150 win on Hardpoint started it off. A 6-4 win on Redwood search and 10-4 Breach Uplink secured them a championship for the second consecutive year at the ESWC championship.
OpTic’s Crimsix won his fourth straight championship, and second with OG.
OpTic added to the trophy collection this season as they’ve won Stage One regular season and championship, and now they’ve got ESWC on the books as they look to rebound from lag issues two weeks ago during CWL competition.
World League competition will resume tomorrow after the bye week.
