The Florida Mutineers punched their ticket to bracket play today after a thorough beatdown of OpTic Texas at the 2023 Call of Duty League Major I in Raleigh, North Carolina.
After a close battle in the series’ first map, Hotel Hardpoint, that saw OpTic win a back and forth affair by a count of 250-236, things started to unravel for Texas. In the second map of the series, Mercado Search and Destroy, things were rolling for the OpTic side. Early on in the map, iLLeY and Brack were in a one-vs-one. Brack ran out into the open, giving iLLeY some easy shots to take the round, but the 2020 CDL Champion decided to give Brack some love in the form of shooting his body for around 10 seconds before finally defusing the bomb.
After the match, Brack told the fans at the Raleigh Convention Center he knew once iLLeY did that that it was over for the Green Wall.
“I said ‘Alright guys, we’re winning this series, Inder shot my body,’” he stated in a post-match interview on stage. “And I knew it was over after he did that.”
OpTic eventually got to map point with a 5-2 lead, needing just one more round to take a 2-0 lead in the series. But like many times this season, Texas were unable to close on the backs of their sizable lead. Florida rattled off four straight maps to stun OpTic and tie the series at a map a piece. Led by Brack and Havok, who posted 1.83 and 2.40 K/Ds in the comeback victory, the Mutineers went into the third map with all the momentum.
In the El Asilo Control, Florida rode the high from their big map two victory to a quick 2-0 lead, winning both an offensive and defensive round. While OpTic did manage to win a defensive round of their own to cut it to a one round deficit, they were unable to win the ensuing offensive round, giving Florida the map and the 2-1 lead in the season.
To OpTic’s credit, Texas did bring the series to a Game Five with their impressive 250-186 victory on Mercado hardpoint. But like so many times this season, their Hardpoint has not been the biggest issue. It has been their Control and Search and Destroy, the two modes where they have had opportunities to win big swing maps but have been unable to close out.
During the decisive Fortress SnD, Florida were a cut above. The Mutineers did not allow OpTic to get comfortable and ran them off the stage with a 6-1 victory behind a 11-2 performance from Brack, who ended up having the final laugh after iLLeY shot his body earlier.
With the loss, OpTic are eliminated from the season’s first major and now have some soul searching to do. This was an extremely disappointing event for an organization that has as high of expectations as anyone in esports, especially in the first major tournament of Scump’s last season.
Meanwhile, Florida will now face off with the Toronto Ultra in their first match of bracket play. That match is taking place right now on the Call of Duty League Twitch channel.
