Call of Duty Championship Recap – EUnited Takes the Crown as OpTic Fades
It was a crazy time for Call of Duty esports this past weekend, as the Call of Duty Championship took its last bow before the start of the franchise era.
32 teams participated in an absolutely stunning display of pro-CoD gameplay that saw EUnited eventually walk away with the top prize in a nail-biting 3-2 victory over 100Thieves to claim the $800,000 top prize.
A Farewell to OpTic
While everyone was congratulating EUnited for winning the event, there were also tears shed as the community bid farewell to the original OpTic Gaming.
Now owned by Immortals, the team is likely to continue on in the franchised CWL next year, though it has yet to be confirmed if Activision will allow the team to keep the name.
If they aren’t allowed to use the name, it could very well be the end of the long-beloved org.
To mark the occasion, OpTic released their traditional white jersey to the public on Sunday, though this time it featured the names of every player who’d ever played for the squad.
Gen.G Disappoints and Other Upsets
Outside of OpTic’s possible departure, we also saw an exit of a different kind early on in the tournament as Gen.G, runners up at Miami and Anaheim, failed to record even a single win at the event and leaving on an 0-3 record in the Group Stage.
Elsewhere in the tournament, we saw Units takedown Envy, and LG manage to take down 100Thieves, both in the first round of the Knockout Stage.
While Envy would fail to recover and drop to Team Singularity (SNG) in the Loser’s Bracket 1-3, 100Thieves would fight back, taking out FaZe Clan 3-2.
The team would go on to stomp the rest of their Loser’s Bracket match-ups, dropping only two maps en route to their date in the Grand Final with EUnited.
The same luck could not be said for LG, however, as the team fell 2-3 against Team Reciprocity in Round 2 Winner’s. They would take a win off of Envy-eliminating SNG is Round 2 Loser’s, though, before eventually falling 1-3 against Enigma6 Group in Round 3.
Grand Final
The Grand Final was an absolutely stunning back and forth between EUnited and 100Thieves, with both teams continually trading maps across the series.
It was map 5, however, where EUnited finally put the Thieves in lock-up, though, claiming the championship and earning their star rookie Simp a tournament MVP award.
Simp had only graduated high school two months ago, so to already have both two MVP titles and two championships speaks volumes for how his career will shake-out long term.
Congratulations to all the teams and players, and we’ll hopefully see most of you back in the league next year when the franchise system finally kicks off.
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