Elevate’s mostly-UK roster came out on top in Breakingpoint’s Next Challengers EU event finals presented by the Boston Breach.
The team, consisting of Brits Stephen ‘Vortex‘ Allan, former Royal Ravens players Joey ‘Gismo‘ Owen and Harry ‘Harry‘ Payne, and Belgian Bjarne ‘Denza‘ Sleebus, took down Aw0babobs in a clean 3-0 sweep to secure the tournament victory.
Elevate bagged themselves $2,000 of the $6,000 prize pool for the EU and NA events, and Aw0babobs didn’t go home empty handed, as second place granted them $1,000 from the total prize pool.
Elevate started the tournament with a 2-0 sweep of Aym Esports. This included a 250-185 Hotel Hardpoint victory where all three of Elevate’s UK players put over 20 kills on the board.
They followed this up with a Mercado SnD (search and destroy) where Harry technically broke an EU challengers gentleman’s agreement by pulling out the sniper to secure a 6-4 win on the map and move onto the winners finals.
Up next was the winners finals match against Aw0babobs, a foreshadow to the final.
Elevate started well once again, winning a 250-194 Hotel Hardpoint – with Gismo almost getting 30 kills and 1:20 objective time in the map.
“We won the first SnD tournament in Europe, now we’ve won the first respawn. It’s to be expected, we’ve won everything for years when we’ve teamed. Me, Harry and Ste [Vortex], it’s just the same old same old.”
Gismo, Elevate
Aw0babobs then responded with a closely fought 6-5 victory on El Asilo SnD in spite of Denza putting up 12 kills for the opposition, giving Elevate their only game loss of the entire bracket.
However, Aw0babobs were unable to build on this game win, as Elevate once again took a closely knit Hardpoint 250-206 on Fortress to force their way into the grand finals.
After Aw0babobs took down team Maple 2-1 in the losers finals, the rematch was set for the tournament finals – Aw0babobs and Elevate would battle it out for the title.
Elevate went into the series with a 1-0 lead after coming from winners, and doubled their advantage to cement their perfect Hardpoint record in the bracket after a dominant 250-147 victory on Hotel.
Aw0babobs took a 3-0 lead in the final SnD, before Vortex pulled an absolutely disgusting 1v2 clutch in the fourth round to get his team back into the game.
After flipping the game on its head, Elevate were held to a round 11 for the tournament, but managed to come out on top with Vortex putting up 11 kills on the map for the tournament victory.
This game win cemented the sweep for Elevate.
Ironically, only one of Elevate’s players made the top five K/D (kills to deaths) ratios for the tournament, that being Harry at third place with a 1.20 K/D. Three out of Aw0babobs four players made the list, Abuzah topping the table with an impressive 1.29 K/D, followed by Cobra in fourth with a 1.20 K/D and Breszy with a 1.18 K/D.
After the tournament, Gismo said on the Breaking Point finals stream: “We won the first SnD tournament in Europe, now we’ve won the first respawn. It’s to be expected, we’ve won everything for years when we’ve teamed. Me, Harry and Ste [Vortex], it’s just the same old same old.”
‘The talent is in Europe, I’m not saying there isn’t talent in NA but we’ve got to bully ourselves back into the Call of Duty League… that’s the plan. We plan on winning everything, so that there’s no excuses, [a CoD League team] WILL pick us up for next year.’
Gismo, Elevate
Gismo was frustrated that teammate Vortex was snubbed for MVP for the tournament, jokingly saying: “Who the f*** put Abuzah as MVP? Ste’s just pulled off a 1v4 ace, a 1v2 and we won the tournament round 11, that guy needs to be MVP.”
He also commented on the talent that is somewhat hidden in European Challengers, touching on what he called ‘the best Challengers team’ from last year, Toronto Ultra Academy NA, that contained two Europeans (Hicksy and Beans).
“The talent is in Europe, I’m not saying there isn’t talent in NA but we’ve got to bully ourselves back into the Call of Duty League… that’s the plan.”
He added that he plans on ‘winning everything so there’s no excuses, [a CoD League team] WILL pick us up for next year’.
To close out, he spoke about their finals opposition Aw0babobs: “They love a chall, I love a chall so I love playing against them, I expect them to be at the top.”
Meanwhile, in the NA version of the Breaking Point Next Challengers Finals, there were a few more UK players on show. Ben ‘Beans’ McMellon finished third with the Boston Breach academy, with this insane 1v2 clutch against Hicksy and Co in losers finals just one of his many highlight plays from the tournament.
Charlie ‘Hicksy’ Hicks went one step further, finishing second in the tournament.
His team secured $1,000 of the prize pool but were sadly beaten by Exceed and Co for the championship at the last hurdle.
Related article: Skrapz re-enters competitive Call of Duty alongside fellow veteran in Challengers roster for MW2 season
