Dallas Empire clinch top seed in CDL Stage 5, knock off Toronto Ultra 3-1

The Dallas Empire put the finishing touches on an impressive Stage Five group play run today with a 3-1 win over the Toronto Ultra. The Empire sit atop the standings in Group B following today’s victory in the Call of Duty League Stage Five group play. 

Dallas, who finished 4-1, hand Toronto their first loss in Stage Five and the Ultra’s first defeat since the Empire knocked them out of the Stage Four Major back in June. Dallas looked dominant at times throughout the series, jumping out to a 2-0 lead, but the Ultra nearly pulled off a major comeback on the Game Four Garrison Hardpoint before Dallas hopped on the point to clinch the map and series. 

“Our first half was literally the best CoD that we’ve ever played in terms of comms, in terms of, like, everything that was just happening around the map,” Shotzzy said in a post-game interview. “We played really good the first half and then towards the second half, and it was like ‘alright, we’re in this lead, you know, we do whatever we want.’ We start doing that, and you know, we saw they started to come back, and there were a lot of mistakes on the second hill.”

Fortunately for Dallas, they were able to clutch up and take the win and the #1 seed in next week’s major, locking themselves into Winners Round Two. 

“It feels really good,” Shotzzy said about Dallas earning the top seed. “We finally get a bye, so that’s really good. We’re just going to keep doing what we normally do, you know, we’re going to go back to practice and try to keep perfecting stuff.”

Shotzzy led the Empire in K/D ratio, posting a 1.17 K/D across the series’ four games. Dallas’ AR duo had phenomenal games as well, with Crimsix holding a 1.14 series K/D and iLLeY contributing a 1.11 K/D. Crimsix was tagging opponents up left and right, leading the Empire with over 20k in damage. The Empire will face the winner of the Winners Round 1 matchup between Atlanta Faze and Minnesota RØKKR at next week’s major. 

Toronto, widely viewed as the second-best team in the CDL behind Atlanta FaZe, put a disappointing finish on an otherwise impressive Stage Five. Finishing 4-1, the Ultra came into today’s match with a 12-2 map count in the first four series of group play. Even with the loss, Toronto will start the Major Five in Winners Round 1 when they take on the Los Angeles Thieves for a chance to match up with OpTic Chicago in Winners Round 2.