The Los Angeles Thieves got back into the win column on Sunday evening, taking down OpTic Texas in a 3-1 victory in their final online qualifier for the Call of Duty League Major I.
After dropping their last two matches to the Atlanta FaZe and Florida Mutineers, the defending CDL champions regained momentum ahead of next week’s premier tournament in a 3-1 win.
The series started off with a back-and-forth affair in the first map, Hotel Hardpoint. Both teams traded blows back and forth before OpTic finally locked down the map and secured the 1-0 lead with a 250-204 victory. Scump and iLLeY were massive for the Green Wall on the map, posting 1.33 and 1.44 K/Ds in the Hardpoint.
OpTic looked poised to take a 2-0 lead in the series’ second map, Fortress Search and Destroy, with Texas holding a 5-3 lead.
Needing just one more round to take the map and commanding lead, though, it was the Los Angeles side who made play after play to bring it to a Round 11. With the map tied 5-5, the Thieves bull-rushed OpTic, picking up three quick kills and leaving Dashy in a one-vs-four situation.
While Dashy is one of the best players in the world, the advantage was too much to overcome and L.A. clinched the round and map, bringing it to a 1-1 tie in the CoD series.
In the series’ third map, Hotel Control, it was business as usual for each team, with all four rounds going to the defensive team, bringing it to a round five.
Los Angeles found themselves on the less-desired attacking side to start, but that wasn’t an issue for the defending champs. Thanks to clutch shots from Envoy, the Thieves found themselves on the B point with only seconds needed for the win and OpTic spawning across the map to give L.A. the unlikely map victory and 2-1 lead.
From that moment on, it seemed destined the Thieves would take the series.
They were flat-out dominant in the series finale, Embassy Hardpoint, in a 250-116 victory that was not even as close as that score indicated. While the slaying numbers weren’t as one-sided as the scoreboard, L.A. made the right plays at the right time, playing nearly perfect Hardpoint.
Octane and Kenny have been the long-time anchor of the Thieves, dating back to their days with 100 Thieves during the Black Ops IV season, but this match was dominated by the young guns in Drazah and Envoy. Drazah posted a 1.15 series K/D while dealing more than 10K damage while Envoy posted a 1.22 while nearly dealing 11,000 damage in the four-game series.
Los Angeles will head to the season’s first major tournament with some momentum after an up-and-down start to their 2023 campaign.
Meanwhile, for OpTic, this match is going to sting. They had golden opportunities to close maps out but were unable to do so. Still, Texas looked very impressive at points in the qualifying stage and with a veteran-laden team, should be able to put this one behind them.
Both OpTic and Thieves finish the CDL qualifying stage with a 2-2 record.
