Does any APAC team other than Mindfreak have a chance at pool play for the CWL Dallas Open?

The Asia-Pacific region for Call of Duty has long been ruled by Mindfreak, a team that has won nearly every major domestic championship and competed in more international events than any other APAC team.

And so far in WWII, it looks like Mindfreak will once again dominate Australia. Mindfreak has won the first two CWL 2,000 series online tournaments. With only one pool play spot designated to the APAC region for the CWL Dallas Open in December, MF has nearly clinched that lone spot.

The team has a total of 16,295 pro points through GameBattles matches and two online 2K tournaments. The next closest team isn’t very close at all, making it very difficult—but not impossible—for anyone other than Mindfreak to represent APAC in pool play at Dallas.

Who has a chance?

Only two APAC teams can surpass Mindfreak for the top spot. The first is SYF Gaming, the team that finished second in the most recent 2K behind Mindfreak. The other is DELS, an unsigned team that is led by former Mindfreak and Tainted Minds player Cody “Excite” Rugolo.

Both teams are very close to one another, with SYF slightly higher than DELS. Both teams have a runner-up placing in a 2K so far this season, making it possible for them to steal the APAC pool play spot from MF.

At the time of writing, SYF has 8,730 pro points as a team. This means that they trail Mindfreak by 7,565 points. DELS is 7,800 points behind Mindfreak.

The most that either team can receive from the 2K is 8,000 points for a first-place finish. So while it is mathematically possible for one of the teams to take over the top APAC position, SYF and DELS both need Mindfreak to flame out of the tournament very early to even have a shot.

With the top 32 placing teams receiving a minimum of 800 points, Mindfreak would need to get knocked out of the tournament in either the first or second round. And that doesn’t guarantee SYF or DELS the top spot because one of them still needs to win the 2K.

Possible, but not likely

Mindfreak probably won’t get eliminated before reaching top 32 in the upcoming 2K tournament.

The team has never finished outside of the top 16 in an APAC 2K. The lowest that they’ve placed was top 16 in a December 2016 tournament. And other than that, they haven’t placed outside of the top four.

Although it’s almost a certainty that Mindfreak makes it in as the APAC team at CWL Dallas pool play, it’s not locked in at this time. Anything can happen, especially in online Call of Duty.