Despite being sent to the losers bracket in the first round of the 2018 Call of Duty World League Championship’s playoff bracket, Luminosity aren’t out of the world title tournament just yet.
The team, which includes three former world champions, were predicted to be one of the event’s toughest and they’ve proved that through the first four days. Their perfect group stage was followed up by a shocking sweep in the first round of bracket play, however.
Elevate came out strong against Luminosity to take the series in three games, but LG have fought in the losers bracket to earn the attention of fans and fellow teams. The North American squad took down Rise Nation, Lightning Pandas, and Red Reserve to earn a spot in the losers bracket quarterfinals.
Following LG’s impressive win over Red Reserve, Johnathan “John” Perez discussed his team’s performance with Dot Esports.
What do you guys to have to do to keep this losers bracket run going?
John:Â We pretty much have to keep our momentum going. Keep our teamwork up and make sure we’re all working together and just playing our time, don’t rush any plays, don’t try making any big hero plays on your own, and just work as a team.
You guys have the most former Champs winners on a single roster. What does that type of experience do for you as a team?
The achievements could help. Everyone’s comfortable. You know everyone on your team isn’t going to get nervous. Even [Slacked]—the one with no rings—has been playing phenomenal the whole weekend. He’s doing his thing.
Does being a roster with titles bring more pressure?
I don’t think it puts pressure on us, but—I can’t speak for other people—I feel like other people get scared playing us. Especially at Champs time.
Luminosity and OpTic have been linked ever since the Octane-FormaL trade earlier in the year, so what was your initial reaction when they were knocked out on Thursday?
Nothing. I mean Octane wanted to go to OpTic the whole time. He got offered like months before. And I honestly feel like he didn’t want to play for the team anymore, so we just let him go. If he didn’t want to play for the team—I actually feel like he threw Seattle just so he could join OpTic and at that point, just let him go and we’ll pick up FormaL, who wants to grind. He just got off OpTic and wanted to show everyone why he’s the best.
What made you think Octane threw?
From past events we played at to that event—it’s not that he didn’t play as well—it just felt like he wasn’t going as hard or giving it 100 percent.
Your loss to Elevate was surprising. Why did that happen?
I think they just caught us at the right time. Honestly, our teamwork felt off and—we didn’t take them too lightly—we just didn’t know how they played and they knew how we played.
Was that because of SpaceLy (LG’s former coach)?
It’s a little bit of that, but obviously they went back and did their research because we can always change our stuff up and they never know if we’re going to do the same exact thing.
Kenny said it was harder to prepare for LCQ teams than league teams because of the lack of video footage. Do you feel like that about Elevate?
Yeah, to a certain point. It’s WWII—everyone’s going to play a certain way. It’s just that they were valuing their lives a lot more than we were. We were just throwing our lives away and they were taking the opportunity.
John and Luminosity will look to continue their CoD Champs 2018 losers bracket run tomorrow, Aug. 19.
Published: Aug 18, 2018 05:13 pm