CWL Seattle — Winners and Losers

This past weekend, Rise Nation made a phenomenal run through the loser’s bracket to take home the title of CWL Seattle champion. The new-look roster took down Evil Geniuses over two best-of-fives and were one of the several teams which impressed over the weekend. Here are the winners and losers from CWL Seattle

Winners

Lightning Pandas

With Doug “Censor” Martin off to Complexity, the Lightning Pandas managed to acquire former Evil Geniuses flex, Ian “Enable” Wyatt heading into CWL Seattle.

After missing out on pro league qualification, the pandas comfortably ran the gauntlet of the open bracket and were placed into pool A, alongside Echo Fox, Rise Nation, FaZe Clan and Tainted Minds.

The new team comfortably defeated Tainted Minds and managed to defeat Echo Fox in a close five-game series. A result that many were not expecting. Next up would be eventual winners Rise Nation. Matthew “Royalty” Faithful dropped 53 kills in game one, followed by a solid performance in a 6–2 S&D victory.

Momentum was in full swing for the new side and it showed with a dominating 7–2 win, handing Rise one of their three losses of the weekend.

Heading into the second half of the season, the Lightning Pandas have proved once again, that they are the best team outside of the Pro League. With plenty of time to practice before Anaheim, LP could be a real tournament contender in the coming months.

Rise Nation

People were quick to question replacing Anthony “Methodz” Zinni on Rise Nation but their Seattle victory justifies the change. Austin “Slasher” Liddicoat offers that much more experience and leadership and certainly played a part in their run through the loser’s bracket.

Peirce “Gunless” Hillman also shone with the assault rifle, particularly in the grand finals, where his performance saw him earn the MVP trophy.

With stage two on the horizon, Rise Nation are heading into the league at the very top of the Call of Duty landscape. This team have a real chance of cementing themselves as one of the more dominant teams in recent times.

Evil Geniuses

CWL Seattle was the first time in three years that Evil Geniuses had reached a Call of Duty grand final.

New additions of Adam “Assault” Garcia and ex-eUnited player, Justin “Silly” Fargo-Palmer quickly established themselves as a tournament frontrunner with wins over Red Reserve, Splyce and EZG Blue in their pool.

EG quickly made an impact in the championship bracket, sweeping Team Envy, taking down Echo Fox 3–1 and a sweep of eUnited to reach the grand finals.

Although they were unable to take the tournament, the new Evil Geniuses team have plenty of positives to take into the rest of the World War 2 season.

Losers

European CoD

Three of the past five global open grand finals have featured a European team. Seattle was a stark contrast in what has been a very good season for the region.

After their second-place finish at CWL Birmingham, Splyce looked to be on some form of resurgence ahead of Seattle.

Their failure to adapt to the ever-changing AR meta has cost them another high placement on the world stage. With a second round of roster changes imminent, could we see a possible change to one of Europe’s most successful rosters?

Red Reserve managed to scrape a top eight finish together after narrowly missing out on defeating Team Kaliber. A win there could’ve been the catalyst for one of their infamous runs through the loser’s bracket.

Epsilon managed to secure their place in stage two prior to Seattle. Their problems continued as they failed to win a single map in their pool and were quickly dispatched by Heretics in the loser’s bracket. Can a team that is full of talent improve ahead of the pro league? Or will they be holding the rest of the table up just like in stage one.

OpTic Gaming

By far the biggest disappointment of the weekend is the shockingly low placement of fan favourite, OpTic Gaming.

Since winning the 2017 world championship, the green wall has struggled to establish some level of consistency during the World War 2 season.

The lack of success at Seattle appears to be the final straw for the current roster, with several rumours circulating that a change to the team is all but guaranteed heading into the pro league.

The question on everyone’s mind is which players will be replaced and who are their replacements going to be.

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