The Los Angeles Thieves has claimed its first Call of Duty championship of the season and third dating back to the 2022 campaign with a hard-fought 4-2 victory over OpTic Texas.
The first map of the grand finals was a replay of these two teams’ matchup in the winner’s finals earlier today, with Hydro playing host. The first go around on Hydro was a thriller, with Los Angeles taking it in the last second, 250-244. While this wasn’t the same buzzer-beater map, it was extremely back and forth. L.A. did grab a big lead early after chaining P1 to P2, but OpTic managed to bring it back within 30.
That’s as close as they got though, with the Thieves taking their third straight Hardpoint from Texas with a 250-200 victory.
After dropping their lone Search and Destroy to the Thieves in the earlier matchup, OpTic needed the series’ second map in a big way. While a 2-0 deficit would not be impossible to overcome, stealing momentum back from L.A. would have given a large buff to Texas’ chances.
On Hotel SnD, L.A. took an early lead by winning two of the first three rounds. But OpTic took five of the next six rounds behind an 11-kill performance from Shotzzy to take the map and knot the series at a map apiece. He made massive plays all over the map and was a big reason the Green Wall was able to right the ship and get on the board.
It was another replay as the series headed to Expo for the first of two Control maps. While OpTic took the first meeting 3-1, it was the reverse this time, with Los Angeles taking the map 3-1 to regain the lead in the series.
All four members of L.A. dropped K/Ds of 1.10 or more on the map, led by the AR duo of Drazah and Octane, who both posted 22-18 stat lines for 1.22 K/Ds.
Despite dropping their last three Hardpoints to the Thieves, OpTic had to be happy spawning into Fortress Hardpoint. It is arguably their best map in the entire game, inducting many CDL teams into the 100-point club over the last two months. While it wasn’t as lopsided as some of their past performances, there was nothing Los Angeles could do to counter Texas during OpTic’s 250-138 victory.
Ghosty led the way in the slaying category for the Green Wall, dropping a 2.07 K/D in the map with an absurd 29-14 stat line. Huke and Dashy were massive for OpTic as well, dropping 1.42 and 1.47 K/Ds, respectively.
This was a massive moment for Texas to regain momentum, but it would only matter if they were able to take the next map for the series lead.
Los Angeles came out red-hot in the El Asilo Search and Destroy, capturing five of the first six rounds to take a commanding 5-1 lead. OpTic did battle back and had an opportunity to send it to a round 11, but with Ghosty left in an impossible one-vs-four situation, the comeback hopes were slashed when he fell to give L.A. the 6-4 victory.
Just one more map win remained between the Thieves and their third championship since July with the series staying on El Asilo, but this time it switched gears to the second Control.
OpTic got off to a fantastic start in the first round on offense, capturing both points and going into the second round with a defensive start, looking to grab a 2-0 lead. Unfortunately for them, Kenny started to heat up and took over for the rest of the map. He posted the most kills in the lobby with 30 and held a K/D of 1.43 in the map.
After OpTic had an impressive hold on round four to send it to a round five, the Thieves had the championship in their sights and would not be denied. After swiftly picking up the A point, Los Angeles turned their eyes to B point. A slew of kills came in, with the kill feed lighting up red.
The Thieves stacked the point and captured the remaining time needed to secure the map and claim their third CDL championship in franchise history after winning multiple championships under the 100 Thieves banner during the 2019 CWL season. After the CDL was announced and competitive CoD transitioned from open tournaments to a franchised league, 100 Thieves were out of CoD entirely during the 2020 season.
With 100 Thieves returning to CoD ahead of the Cold War season with the Los Angeles Thieves, the 2021 season became a season to forget. No championships, multiple roster changes, and a top-eight finish at CoD Champs led to big moves ahead of the 2022 season. Since bringing on Octane and Envoy to pair with Kenny and Drazah, the Thieves have won the most championships in the CDL from the beginning of the Vanguard season.
100 Thieves founder and CEO Nadeshot rose to stardom while competing for OpTic and bringing multiple championship titles to the org. This championship has to be extra sweet for the Haag, as this is the first time the two orgs have met in a grand finals of a major championship, and his team brought the trophy home to Southern California.
L.A. are hitting their form late in the season, just as they did in 2022, where the team won the season’s last major championship and claimed the CDL championship just a month later. Octane, who posted 107 kills and dealt 11,306 damage throughout the series, was named Most Valuable Player for the major.
This is the second consecutive loss for OpTic in the grand finals of a CoD Major after they lost to the Toronto Ultra at their home CDL Major just last month.
Published: Apr 23, 2023 08:00 pm