After dropping the first three series against Atlanta FaZe in the 2021 season, OpTic Chicago finally toppled their rival in an incredibly entertaining Call of Duty League matchup today.
OpTic have been a consistent top-four team all year, but the biggest question was whether they could take down the league’s best teams. Chicago answered with an emphatic ‘yes’ after their 3-2 win.
The key to OpTic’s chances against the best teams in the CDL has always lied with Envoy. OpTic goes where Envoy goes. He matched up against Atlanta’s aBeZy, one of the best players in the entire league, and dictated the flow of every map, winning one vital gunfight after another. Envoy led the way for OpTic with a 1.21 K/D across the series’ five matches, but no stats could do his Game Five performance justice. He posted an 11-7 statline in the decisive Game Five, including numerous first bloods to open the map up.
This win could help provide the momentum Chicago needed to get over the hump against the top teams in the league. OpTic looked dominant in parts of the 2021 CDL season but struggled when facing teams at the top of the standings. The latest victory is now OpTic’s second win in a row against a top-four squad CDL standings and easily Chicago’s most impressive win of the season so far. This win also guaranteed OpTic a start in the winner’s bracket for CDL Champs.
“Oh for sure, we have been believing that we can the whole year,” Envoy said about OpTic’s chances to win CDL Champs. “We’ve had some hiccups along the way, but I really think we are hitting stride now and we’re just gonna go back to the lab and keep working on these key things that we’ve been preaching in practice.”
FaZe played relatively well, but every loss can get amplified for a team with a 33-5 match record and feel worse than it actually was. Atlanta are still the best team in the league and will be the heavy favorite in the Stage Five Major later this month and CDL Champs in August. Still, this loss is going to sting for a while. There were several moments where they didn’t truly look like themselves, failing to make plays they usually pull off every week.
Atlanta will close out Stage Five group play when they take on the New York Subliners on July 25 at 3:30pm CT. Chicago is back in action against the London Royal Ravens on July 22 at 3:30pm CT before they finish up Stage Five group play and face the Los Angeles Thieves on July 24 at 5pm CT.
