After an intense weekend, two UK Call of Duty teams found themselves at the bottom of the pack in a very stacked CoD World League group. Jacob Hale reports.
Epsilon
Epsilon came in to the weekend tipped as one of EU’s top two teams, having beaten Splyce at CWL Birmingham little under a month ago.
However, they failed to bring the same fire when they needed it most, and in the end it cost them their chance in the $500,000 playoffs.
Starting off against Luminosity Gaming, a team constantly seeking to challenge the top teams in the world, Epsilon found themselves losing 3-1 in very tight matches and starting their Pro League journey with a 0-1 record.
They rectified this loss with a 3-0 win against fellow UK team Millenium, completely dominating them in the Hardpoint (including placing Millenium in the 100-point club!) and Search and Destroy, despite Dqvee dropping a glorious 0 kills in the Search.
How many kills did you drop in the snd vs Millennium Dave? pic.twitter.com/l200H6hcD0
— Dave (@Dqvee) May 6, 2017
At the end of day one, Epsilon had a 1-1 record with matches against Luminosity and world-beaters eUnited on the schedule for day two.
Day two was supposed to be Epsilon’s hardest day of the weekend, but they once again came out with a 1-1 record.
Their first of the day was a 3-1 defeat to eUnited, once again holding their own very well but failing to clutch up in the final moments of each Hardpoint map, ultimately costing them the series.
Following this, they faced Luminosity, needing a win to stay level with them in the standings. They turned the tides in their favour and won 3-1, playing some of the most well-rounded Call of Duty of the weekend.
At the start of day three, Epsilon and Luminosity Gaming were tied in second place, and they simply needed to win more than LG to take the spot.
Epsilon again took a 1-1 record for the day, with a loss against eUnited and win against Millenium once more. It came down to the final match of the weekend – Luminosity vs eUnited – to find out whether Epsilon would make it.
If LG lost by two maps or more, Epsilon would finish second. If they lost by one map or win, LG would finish second.
It came down to a Game 5, Round 11 Search and Destroy, ultimately meaning that Luminosity had already qualified and knocked Epsilon into third, breaking the hearts of their players and fans.
There were certainly some questionable plays on the side of eUnited, who had already qualified and had little to play for, which is certainly an issue many took to Twitter about, even accusing eUnited of ‘throwing’ the game.
The throw is so obvious… Seriously eUnited? Gravity gun? Just fucking play seriously…
— 🙂 (@Hydric_EU) May 7, 2017
Other weird ones though. Prestini sitting outside uncontested hill, popping armour for 10 seconds of hill time. They never make those errors
— Evin (@iiEviNi) May 7, 2017
Millenium
Millenium, on the other hand, didn’t have anywhere near as good a performance.
Having gone out to Columbus two weeks prior to get in some essential LAN practice, where many teams in the league said how well they had looked in scrims, MarkyB and co. finished the weekend with a 0-6 record.
Understandably, MarkyB was devastated by the results, which admittedly did not reflect how they had performed for the most part. There were a lot of (now deleted) tweets that, justifiably, were very downtrodden.
Shit like this was happening all weekend it got to the point where it's literal comedy. https://t.co/pgCwPLAgU9
— Mark Bryceland (@MarkyB) May 8, 2017
It seemed that whenever Millenium had some momentum in their favour, there were problems with in-game mechanics, small issues that could otherwise have helped them win maps.
Ultimately, though, the score lines weren’t entirely inaccurate as a representation of their play. They failed to take even one Hardpoint win across the entire weekend, only really seeming capable of taking the Uplinks.
Millenium were no doubt the weakest team playing this weekend, and it’s a shame to see such a committed and talented team fall in this way. We can only hope they make it in to the top four (alongside Fnatic) at relegation to qualify again for stage two.
So far, no UK teams will be joining Splyce in the stage one playoffs, a poor reflection of how well the UK has been able to perform on an international level this year.
Next weekend Red Reserve and Elevate will take their shot at qualifying, but they must face the long-standing Greenwall, Call of Duty’s undisputed best team for the last three years, OpTic Gaming.
(Image Credit: Sammy Lam/iEventMedia www.sammylam.net)
