OpTic Gaming Wins Finals of North American Stage 1 of the Call of Duty World League (CWL), Presented by PlayStation®4
April 04 2016 - 1:00PM
Business Wire
Australian/New Zealand and European Regional
Winners Mindfreak and Millenium Also Earn Stage 1 Pro Division
Titles
The Call of Duty® World League, Presented by
PlayStation®4 Finals of Stage 1 Pro Division concluded this
weekend with the best Pro Division teams in North America earning
their share of the more than $3 million prize pool for 2016. In
addition to the cash payout, OpTic Gaming moved closer to securing
a qualifying spot at the 2016 Call of Duty® Championship, Presented
by PlayStation®4 this fall. Eager fans in attendance at ESL Studios
in Burbank, online via livestream, and tuning-in directly through
an in-game (Black Ops III PS4) Live Event Viewer, witnessed the
thrilling conclusion to months of rigorous competition of Stage 1,
as the first step toward the year’s grand competition and piece of
the overall $3 million in the year-long prize pool of the CWL.
“The First Stage of the CWL has featured some great gameplay,
close matches, and some of the best competition that Call of Duty®
has ever seen,” said Rob Kostich, Executive Vice President and
General Manager, Call of Duty. “Call of Duty eSports has a strong
foundation dating back to Call of Duty XP back in 2011, but the CWL
has already taken it to new heights and we can’t wait to continue
that growth during the Second Stage and the Call of Duty
Championship this year.”
The top eight North American teams battled over the weekend.
After falling behind OpTic Gaming 3-0, Rise Nation fought back to
force a winner take all game 7, and thousands of Call of Duty fans
saw OpTic Gaming emerge victorious as they were crowned Stage 1
champions in the first major tournament on the road to the
highly-anticipated Call of Duty Championship this fall.
“We know what we are capable of and that we are the best team in
Call of Duty,” said Seth “Scump” Abner, Captain of OpTic Gaming.
“We haven’t always shown what we can do, so having this win under
our belt is good for the rest of our season.”
Meanwhile, established players and aspiring amateurs alike
competed as top teams from the CWL Challenge Division earned a
chance at a spot in the Pro Division for Stage 2. As part of the
Relegation tournament, the top four Challenge Division teams, Cloud
9, Team Liquid, Cloud 9 Eclipse and King Papey, faced off against
the bottom four Pro Division teams. Dream Team and H2K Gaming held
onto their Pro Division spots while Cloud 9 and King Papey won
their matches and will participate in the CWL North American Pro
Division Stage 2 and a chance to qualify for the Call of Duty
Championship.
The North American Stage 1 Finals followed the Australia/New
Zealand and European regional finals last week. All 30 CWL Pro
Division teams competed in multiple week regional seasons prior to
each set of finals. Mindfreak (ANZ) and Millenium (EU) took home
the top spot in their regions and their share of CWL prize pools
respectively.
The ANZ region featured a few different key match ups as
perennial favorite Mindfreak beat Team Immunity and Tainted Minds
on their way to being the CWL ANZ Pro Division Stage 1 Champions.
New team, Incept, beat Exile.5 in Relegation for a spot in Stage 2
as Nv, Chiefs eSports Club, and Apotheon eSports all beat their
challengers to remain in the Pro Division for Stage 2.
The EU region had multiple top teams vying for the Stage 1 prize
pool. Millenium and Splyce met in the finals with Millenium winning
the series handily 4 maps to 1. The road to the finals for each
team was very different with Splyce fighting off top ranked Team
Infused and exceL eSports in back to back 4-3 series wins to make
the finals. Millenium, who had earned the number two seed in the
tournament because of their success during the 18 match season,
only had to beat Epsilon eSports in a 4-1 series to reach the
finals, thanks to a first round bye. Similar to the ANZ region, one
team was replaced in Relegation. French team, PuLse Gaming was
beaten by UK team Exertus 4 maps to 1. Vitality, Team LDLC, and
Giants Gaming all beat their opponents to continue in Stage 2 of
the CWL Pro Division.
Here are the final rankings for each CWL Stage 1 Pro Division
region:
North America
1st OpTic Gaming
- Seth “Scump” Abner
- Ian “Crimsix” Porter
- Matthew “Formal” Piper
- Damon “Karma” Barlow
2nd Rise Nation
3rd – 4th Faze Clan/Team Elevate
5th – 8th compLexity Gaming/Luminosity
Gaming/Team EnVyUs/Team SoloMid
Europe
1st Millenium
- Callum “Swanny” Swan
- Jordan “Jurd” Crowley
- Thomas “Tommey” Trewen
- Dylan “MadCat” Daly
2nd Splyce
3rd – 4th Epsilon eSports/Team Infused
5th – 6th exceL eSports/TCM Gaming
Australia/New Zealand
1st Mindfreak
- Mitchell “Buzzo” Mader
- Denholm “Denz” Taylor
- Lincoln “Fighta” Ferguson
- Conrad “Shockz” Rymarek
2nd Tainted Minds
3rd - 4th Orbit/Team Immunity
As always, you can re-live the Stage 1 action on the Call of
Duty YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/CALLOFDUTY/videos.
Be sure to check out https://www.callofduty.com/esports and
follow @CODWorldLeague on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch for the
latest CWL updates.
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