What an eventful weekend at Full Sail University for Call of Duty fans and players. Once again Full Sail has pulled together another amazing event with Major League Gaming and Activision to create an event that displays to all its fans of who will make it to Call of Duty Championships again this year. With 16 teams making it to the qualifiers, only 8 of them were going to make it to the Championships hosted in Los Angeles California. The way the event worked was if you won 2 match ups before you lost 2 match ups you made it. But if you lost 2 series match ups before you won 2, you were out and had no chance to make it to the Champs. This was causing a lot of pressure for all the pros who made it to the event last year because what kind of pro are you if you can't make it to the world championships again?
With first round match ups underway there weren't many upsets except for a few. Strictly Business (sB) beat FaZe competitive in a best of 5 with 3 straight map wins to knock them in to the losers bracket. It wasn't expected for sB to beat FaZe so easily. The biggest upset in the first round matches was Curse LV losing to a team that has shown up to their first tournament. LV lost to Rise Nation in the first round with a map count of 3-2 going down to a nail biter in the final map. The common teams moved out of first round with ease though, with OpTic Gaming, Team Kaliber, Vexx, Justus, Complexity and EnVy winning all of their first rounds with little to no competition.
Second round matches were where many things happened that no one expected. Rise Nation moved on to round 3 with a a 3 -1 win over former 3rd place winners Justus knocking them into the losers bracket. Another upset was on the reigning world champions compLexity when they got a complete 3 - 0 sweep made on them by sB that no one saw coming. It was a phenomenal win for sB but championship teams have been knocked into the losers bracket before and made their way out. So everyone still had hopes for complexity to make it to the world championships. EnVy, the boys in blue made a miraculous appearance against OpTic Gaming, beating them 3-1 knocking them, also into the losers bracket. And with Team Kaliber beating Vexx 3-0 moving onto round 3 too. With EnVy, Rise Nation, Team Kaliber, and Strictly Business already all qualified for CoD Champs, the tension in the complex went to who was going to make it through the losers bracket and qualify.
With 5 teams in the losers bracket who have been to the previous CoD Champs. No one knew who was going to make it. OpTic is the only team to have made it to the past 2 out of 2 CoD Champs and everyone wanted them to make it to their third. With FaZe, compLexity, OpTic, and Curse LV, and Justus all needing only one match to knock them out of the qualifiers and saying goodbye to their chances of being champions. A couple of the teams held on with their first round in the losers bracket. FaZe sweeping Final Boss with a 3-0 victory means they only needed one more win to make them able to play in champs. Curse LV had the most upsetting moment of the night though, with them going to a final map final round count on Octane Search and Destroy, everyone knew that whoever won this round, deserved to continue. They played Curse NY and lost with the upset of the former world champions of Parasite, MiRx and Killa not having the chance to make it to champs.
Round 2 of the losers bracket was where it all got everyone eager to know who will make it and who won't. Everyone shaking with the possibility that compLexity, OpTic and FaZe might not make it. The performances were very please. FaZe moved on to beat Vexx 3-0 securing their position in CoD Champs with ease. OpTic Gaming with a win they will never forget and the closest one in round 2 losers bracket. They played against Curse NY who were on their momentum from beating Curse LV and they showed OpTic the matches of their lives. Going to final map with Curse, OpTic was showing strength. They played them on Freight Search and Destroy and Matt "Nadeshot" Haag made the fans jump out of their seats. With OpTics full team pulling through, Nadeshot showed up in the final map with an impressive 12 kills and 4 deaths winning the SnD 6-1 and eliminating Curse NY, moving OpTic into CoD Champs safe and sound.
The 8 teams who qualified for Call of Duty Championships to compete against the 24 other teams (19 different countries) are, Strictly Business who lead on the Sunday to win the US Finals over compLexity. Who indeed fought through the losers bracket. Team Kaliber, Rise Nation, and EnVy Us made it with ease on day one giving them high seeds for CoD Champs. OpTic Gaming, FaZe, compLexity and XFinity Gaming all made it on day one with their fight through the losers bracket.