With the conclusion of the regular season on Friday, the stage is set for the Season Two Championships at the X Games in Austin, Texas. What started as twelve is now eight, as we now know who will be competing for X Games Gold.
1st OpTic Gaming
2nd FaZe Clan
3rd Denial eSports
4th Team eLevate
5th TCM Gaming
6th Rise Nation
7th Team EnVyUs
8th Team Kaliber
It’s been ten long weeks of competition, roster changes, and plenty of shocks and surprises that have gotten us to this point, and as the X Games dawns, let’s take a look back at the stories and headlines that got us here.
TCM Gaming Acquires Aware Gaming’s (US) League Spot
Hours before Season Two play began, waves were made when MLG announced that TCM Gaming, a professional eSports organization based in Europe, had purchased Aware Gaming’s spot in the League. It came as a shock and surprise to many; with Huke and TeeJ, Aware had two of the most promising up-and-comers in the competitive Call of Duty scene. Four of the best players that Europe has to offer, The TCM roster of Jurd, ShAnE, GunShy (later MadCat) and Moose would prove a formidable one, as even with starting the season a week late, they were able to fight back to secure fifth place and a spot at the X Games.
Call of Duty Returning to the X Games
Two weeks after Season Two began, MLG and ESPN announced that, for the second year in a row, Call of Duty would return to the X Games in Austin June 4th-7th; joined by the joinDota Pro League. Like last year’s X Games, eight teams would be invited to compete, and these eight teams would not only have their travel covered, they’d be competing for X Games gold, $75,000, and the title of Season Two Champions.
Later on in the season, MLG also announced that instead of the standard best of five series with a Hardpoint, two Search and Destroy maps, Uplink and Capture the Flag, the series’ at the X Games would be best of seven, expanding to two Hardpoint maps and two Uplink maps in addition to the two Search and Destroy maps and the singular Capture the Flag map.
Surprises and Upsets at the Call of Duty: Championships
Some said that the 2015 Call of Duty: Championships were OpTic Gaming’s to lose. They had gone into the weekend having won three of the last four events, but a 3-1 from eventual Champions Denial eSports sent them to the losers bracket, where they would be 3-0’d by FaZe.Red, eliminating them from the tournament.
OpTic Gaming and Team Kaliber’s surprise eliminations made room for a few dark horse stories. Among them being the unlikely rise of Australian team Plantronics.Mindfreak, who finished fifth, the fourth place finish of Prophecy, essentially playing with a pickup roster, and second place finish from the young upstarts, Team Revenge.
Game-Changing Rostermania
Following the Call of Duty: Championships, several teams made roster moves in hopes of redeeming past performances and secure a chance to compete for the Season Two trophy at the X Games. Most notably, OpTic Gaming’s NaDeSHoT announced he was going to take a hiatus from competitive Call of Duty, and later that day, the team announced that Karma, from OpTic Nation, was taking his place.
Also surprising was the collapse of Team Revenge. The foursome of Remy, Nagafen, Faccento and AquA shocked the competitive community with their improbable second place run, but frustrations about being unable to play as a team during Season Two of the Pro League ultimately was the demise of the squad. Nagafen and AquA ended up being picked up by Prophecy, while Remy was picked up by Automatic Reload as a sub, and Faccento went to Team eLevate as a sub.
Roster changes worked out well for some teams; such as Team EnVyUs, who began the season with Merk, NameLeSs, ZooMaa and Saints at the bottom of the League; but once acquiring Loony, TeePee and ProoFy to join Saints, shot up the ranks and was able to secure a spot at the X Games. Other roster changes didn’t go so well; such as OpTic Nation. After Karma moved up to OpTic Gaming and TeePee went to EnVy, the squad picked up MBoZe and Ricky, and found themselves losing the ground they had gained during the first few weeks of Season Two, to eventually coming short of qualifying for the X Games.
LAN Season
May was a busy month for LAN events, kicking off across the pond in Paris, which played host to the 2015 eSports World Cup. Denial eSports, Team Revenge, and OpTic Gaming, playing with Enable in place of Karma, represented the United States at the event. OpTic Gaming would bounce back from their disappointing showing at the Call of Duty: Championships to win the event.
Gfinity’s Spring Masters series came to Call of Duty the following weekend in London, where, competing against a much larger and diverse field, OpTic Gaming hoped to make it two in a row. The weekend was privy to a few surprises, including Aware Gaming (UK) knocking out Team Kaliber, OpTic Nation knocking out Denial eSports, but at the end of the weekend, OpTic Gaming still came out on top after a close Grand Finals with Prophecy.
LAN action moved back to the United States the following weekend, as teams traveled to UMG California. The story this weekend was again, one of surprises, as teams like Prophecy and OpTic Nation, who had just come off a fantastic weekend at Gfinity, finished 13th-16th and 17th-20th respectively. One of the biggest surprises of the weekend was the surge of Enigma 6, who fought to join Pool Play after an impressive run in the open bracket. Throughout the course of the weekend, the up-and-coming team took down the likes of Team EnVyUs, OpTic Nation and Team eLevate, before being taken out by FaZe Clan, and the eventual Champions of the weekend, OpTic Gaming.
On The Horizon
The MLG Arena in Columbus, Ohio, will play host to the Season Three Relegation tournament, where sixteen teams will duke it out for one of four spots to complete in the Season Three Pro League, their share of 5,000 Pro Points, and $10,000. OpTic Nation, Prophecy, Automatic Reload and JusTus Pro, as the bottom four teams from Season Two, have an automatic invite; joining them will be the top four teams from an online qualifier on May 28th, and the final eight will come from the top eight teams according to Pro Points.
As we approach the X Games, be sure to follow OpTic Intel on Twitter, where we’ll have player profiles, and map-by-map updates!