Full Wrap #38

Can we get a round of applause? Online COD is officially done for the season. For the teams that have yet to win anything, cough… cough… OpTic, your time is running out.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE WEEKEND

Lucky Number 13

The Los Angeles Thieves have been nigh unstoppable since Minor 1 and entered this weekend on an 11-win streak with matches against Cloud9 and Vancouver.

Look, let’s not beat around the bush. There was no way either of these teams were taking a series off the Thieves. C9 put up a surprisingly good fight but were predictably unable to win a respawn. And Vancouver? Well at least they didn’t waste anyone’s time in their 3-0 loss.

After this weekend the Thieves have now tied Cold War FaZe with 13 straight series victories and have locked up the top seed for Major 4 in Paris.

In order to repeat as champions, they will need to break the undefeated curse: no team with an undefeated qualifying stage has won that Major. Except, of course, Cold War FaZe. Can LAT snatch their win streak and break the curse in the same weekend?

Thieves enter Major 4 with a chance to break the CDL win streak record against the Ravens in their first series of the weekend. Knowing how Carolina performs on LAN, we may as well hand LAT the record now.

OpTic End their Streak

It’s been a very weird stint of matches for OpTic. After starting Stage 4 with a 2-0 record and making the Minor 2 Finals, securing a Winners’ Bracket spot appeared to be a done deal. Three straight losses later and OpTic was just one more loss away from needing to rely on tiebreakers to make Winners’.

The last match on OpTic’s schedule was a series against Toronto KOI, a team they’re 5-0 against on the season. Toronto was also in need of a win and didn’t roll over despite the lopsided record, taking Map 1 250-177 behind their dominant slaying, ending the map plus 20. The SMG duo of Abe and CleanX went a combined 62/45 (1.38). 

OpTic found their footing in the Search, bouncing back with a 6-3 map win. Shotzzy led the way, going 12/4 with two First Bloods. 

In the Overload, KOI erased a 3-1 second-half deficit in just 21 seconds, putting the teams into potential next-goal-wins territory. With under a minute remaining, OpTic found a flurry of kills, including a three-kill spree from Mercules, who also punched in the game-winning goal with under a minute remaining.

In the final Hardpoint it was once again the SMG duo on the side of KOI leading the way to victory, this time going 66/53 (1.25). Who needs JoeDeceives anyway?

What better way to end a series than a Map 5, Round 11? Unfortunately for KOI, the finish was anticlimactic, with Toronto only getting a single kill. Even more unfortunately for Abe, his 17/6 performance wasn’t enough to win.

A Neslo victory is not what OpTic was hoping for following their loss streak if they want to win an event. However, it secured them the 3rd seed and a date with the Boston Breach in the first round.

Mates Look Practiced

Another team entering the final week of qualifiers in need of a win, the Paris Gentle Mates. Pressure was on to avoid starting in Losers’ at their home Major.

Before Stage 4 started, a match with Boston seemed like an auto win, especially after shipping off their star AR, Nastie, to G2. Boston’s 3-1 record during qualifying would suggest otherwise.

Luckily for Mates fans, their new star came out shooting. JoeDeceives finished Map 1 with a 31/14 (2.21) scoreline, cruising to a 250-121 victory. However, Paris quickly found themselves in a series after dropping the SnD 6-3 despite getting five of the nine First Bloods.

In the next two maps, Mates flexed their talent, showing it was a respawn diff and outslayed Breach by 14 and 10, respectively.

With the win, Paris landed the 4th seed and a matchup with FaZe to kick off their home Major. After an up-and-down Stage 4 filled with roster turmoil and scrim bans, the 4th seed is not a bad place to be if you’re a Mates fan.

FaZe Right the Ship

Vegas FaZe had started the Major 4 qualifying with a shaky 1-2 record but were looking to set themselves on the correct path heading into the Major.

Their first series of the weekend came against Riyadh, a team that was contending for the top seed with an undefeated 3-0 record. The last time these two teams met was a Falcons 3-0 victory at Major 3. This weekend FaZe would reverse the result. 

Led by 04 with a 1.53 K/D, FaZe put an absolute beating on the Falcons; not a single map could be described as competitive. The Vegas squad outslayed their opponents by 56 kills over three maps to hand them their only qualifying loss of the stage.

FaZe rolled their momentum right into their match with the Carolina Royal Ravens (playing with substitute Knox for Standy) with a 100-point club in the first map. They fended off Carolina in an 11-round thriller in Map 2, winning 6-5 despite Lurqxx’s 14 kills (seriously, please save this man; he’s the only reason this roster isn’t C9 level). Map 3 was just a cleanup, as Abuzah paid homage to Messi with a hat trick.

Vegas’ flawless weekend catapulted them from a fringe Losers’ Bracket team to the 5th seed, setting up a first-round matchup with the hosts, Paris Gentle Mates.

TOP PERFORMERS

HyDra: The former MVP continued his tear in the MPC meta with a 1.26 K/D overall performance this weekend. He led his team in kills in both series, racking up 170 in just 7 maps (next highest: Abezy with 148). The French Phenom punctuated the weekend with a 1.57 against Vancouver, his best performance of the season.

Simp: It’s never a surprise to see Simp on our Team of the Week, but having gone negative in four of his previous five series leading up to this week, it’s clear he had been struggling. Simp put any worries about his play to bed, posting a 1.26 K/D (118/94) across his two series this weekend while dropping zero maps in the process.

JoeDeceives: Another weekend of Joe topping the leaderboards, leading the way for Gentle Mates with his 1.32 K/D (95/72). Hardpoint was his playground, dropping a staggering 63/39 (1.62) stat line while also going down as the lone positive player in SnD for Paris.

04: Twin, where have you been? 04 had been having a rough qualifying leading to this point, failing to secure a single positive series. This weekend he exploded with a 1.28 K/D. He returned to his SnD kid roots with a 1.60 in the mode. He was the catalyst for FaZe against Riyadh, turning in a season second-best 1.53 K/D for the series.