Lightning can strike twice. After losing in reverse sweep fashion to OpTic Texas earlier today, Atlanta FaZe mounted their own comeback tonight to knock off the Los Angeles Thieves and move on to Championship Sunday at the Call of Duty League’s first Major of the 2022 season.
Despite falling behind early in the first map, Tuscan Hardpoint, the Thieves showed why they’re one of the best Hardpoint teams in the world. The kill feed lit up with L.A. colors as they turned a 50-point deficit into a 49-point victory to take a 1-0 lead over Atlanta. Drazah led the way for the Thieves with a 28-23 statline while dealing nearly 3,500 worth of damage.
The series’ second game kept the team on Tuscan, where FaZe took what looked like a commanding 4-2 lead in the Search and Destroy. From that moment on, though, it seemed like the Thieves’ grenades had magnets and they were able to get a number of first bloods from grenade kills. In round 11, a perfectly placed grenade from Envoy found both Arcitys and aBeZy to give L.A. a 4-2 advantage in lives. That was enough for the Thieves to finish the round and take a 2-0 advantage in the series.
FaZe would not let a sweep happen, though. They notched an offensive round win on the Tuscan Control en route to a 3-1 map victory. Both Arcitys and Simp got back to their slaying ways, posting 1.33 and 1.42 K/Ds, respectively. Still, Atlanta had quite the hill to climb if they wanted to secure a reverse sweep of their own.
Gavutu has been dominated by Los Angeles all tournament long in both Hardpoint and Control. It looked like that would continue since the Thieves started off extremely strong in game four. FaZe seemed to flip a switch, though, and began lighting up the kill feed. Cellium, in particular, was incredible the entire map. He put up an absurd 35-12 statline with nearly 3,500 worth of damage dealt to help Atlanta force a decisive fifth map.
Just as OpTic dominated FaZe in the game five Search and Destroy earlier today, Atlanta did the same to Los Angeles in a 6-2 win to give them the reverse sweep victory. After losing five maps in a row across two series, the defending CDL champions showed a ton of resolve to respond and rattle off the three straight maps needed to keep their championship hopes alive. This is a battle-tested team and they’ll have their shot at the season’s first Major title tomorrow.
Atlanta will face the Toronto Ultra tomorrow at 3:30pm CT with a shot at making the losers bracket finals on the line.
