Call of Duty World League Championship – Champs Sunday

Championship Sunday has come and gone, and with it a day filled with close shaves and shocking upsets. With everything on the line, it’s safe to say that every team played their heart out today. There can only be one champion however, and with so many former underdog teams on the final bracket, it’s likely that hardly anyone would have predicted this year’s winner.

Losers Bracket Quarter-Finals

The losers bracket quarter-finals saw eUnited take on Luminosity and Team EnVyUs facing-off against FaZe Clan. Luminosity made a strong case for themselves initially as they easily took took the first round of hardpoint. This must have woken eUnited up, as they went on to snap up the second, third, and fourth rounds. The latter two rounds were close initially, but Luminosity just could prevent eUnited from eventually running away with them both.

The battle between Team EnVyUs and FaZe Clan didn’t play out quite so decisively. FaZe Clan took initiative early by taking the first round of hardpoint, but Team EnVyUs answered right back and grabbed seized victory in the second. They win on to win in the third round too, but FaZe Clan didn’t make it easy for them. This signaled the comeback of FaZe Clan, as they just barely managed to close out the fourth round in a win. They then carried this momentum into the fifth round. Team EnVyUs managed to establish a massive 3 game lead, but FaZe Clan kept pushing and pushing until that lead was fully eroded away and overturned in FaZe Clan’s favor. It was FaZe Clan, not Team EnVyUs, that proceeded to the semi-final round.

Losers Bracket Semi-Finals

The semi-final round saw eUnited engaging FaZe Clan in a contest to see who would wind up advancing to the finals. FaZe Clan must have been fired up from their recent win, because they basically went in and played as if their victory was already a foregone conclusion. eUnited certainly stood a chance in each round they played, but FaZe Clan overwhelmed them each and every time. FaZe Clan took the match with a score of 3-0, and would move on to face Team Kaliber in the losers bracket finals.

Winners Finals

While Faze Clan was taking control of the losers semi-final round, Team Kaliber and Evil Geniuses were duking it out in the winners finals. Evil Geniuses immediately pulled-off a major upset against Team Kaliber by taking the first round of hardpoint. Hardpoint has been Team Kaliber’s best gametype throughout this competition, so losing it in the first round must have come as quite a shock. If it was, it was enough to rally them for a decisive search and destroy win in the second round. Unfortunately for Team Kaliber, this didn’t translate into winning momentum. Evil Geniuses regained their footing against Team Kaliber in Capture the Flag, winning the third round and then proceeding to defeat Team Kaliber again in the fourth round’s game of hardpoint. In the end, Evil Geniuses was poised for the Grand Finals Match while Team Kaliber moved down to the losers finals against FaZe Clan.

Losers Bracket Finals

The losers finals appeared to be a repeat performance of the winners finals at first. Team Kaliber lost in hardpoint once again for an overall three game losing streak in that mode. They rallied for an extremely narrow search and destroy win in the second round, only to lose capture the flag by just as thin a margin in the third round. However, Team Kaliber absolutely refused to lose their chance at the Grand Finals by going down in hardpoint again. FaZe did absolutely everything they could to prevent a fourth game, but Team Kaliber would not be deterred. They managed to end their hardpoint losing streak and win the fourth round. The fifth and final round of this match began heavily favoring FaZe Clan. They quickly established a two game lead and answered a Team Kaliber win with another one of their own. However, they weren’t able to hold-off Team Kaliber indefinitely. Their opponents first matched their score, then eclipsed it. Team Kaliber had seized the initiative and with it they drove to a 6-3 win in the final round.

The Grand Final Matches

The Call of Duty World League Championships grand final match wound up being a rematch between Evil Geniuses and Team Kaliber. It was Evil Geniuses who’d ended Team Kaliber’s hardpoint winning streak and sent them down to the losers finals. Team Kaliber would certainly be doing everything they can to take revenge, but they’d need to win two series back to back in order to get it. The series started off quite rocky for Team Kaliber at first. They lost to Evil Geniuses once again in hardpoint and weren’t able to come back in the second round either. However, they finally started to come alive in capture the flag. They won three to nothing in the third round, took back their hardpoint crown in the fourth round after a game-long tug of war, and they even managed to close out the match and push the championships to a second series with a 6-4 win in the fifth round.

The second series saw Evil Geniuses come out with everything they had. They certainly weren’t happy about getting pushed to a second match, and they were intent on making sure their first championship win didn’t slip away from them. They defeated Team Kaliber in hardpoint once again in the first round, taking it by a small margin of fifteen points. Evil Geniuses kept up the pressure going into the second round, this time making sure that Team Kaliber didn’t get a chance to gain even so much as a foothold and winning the game handily. Third round of this series would prove to be the last. Evil Geniuses managed a flag score midway through the first half, secured streak bonuses, scored a second capture, and held off Team Kaliber until the clock finally ran out.

This quick sweep in the second series sealed Team Kaliber’s fate and crowned Evil Geniuses as the 2018 Call of Duty World League Champions. A team that hardly anyone expected to make it to eliminations, much less the championship, took home their very first championship trophy. As icing on the cake, their very own “Assault” was named this competition’s MVP. This year’s World Championship hardly went as anyone expected, but that just made all the more exciting. It was a solid weekend filled with close games and exhilarating plays, and that’s all anyone could ask of an event like this. Hopefully next year’s competition will be able to provide the same.