In the first match of their run at a championship in the 2023 Call of Duty League season, OpTic Texas needed a comeback effort to knock off the Florida Mutineers 3-2 today at Major One in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Things started off well for the Green Wall on Breenbergh Hotel Hardpoint. After a 250-191 victory in the series’ first map that saw iLLeY and Shotzzy lead the way with 1.22 and 1.35 K/Ds, respectively, OpTic let things slip away for a moment. There were some similarities to their most recent match, a 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Thieves last weekend, that saw Texas blow a 5-3 lead in Search and Destroy and drop a defensive round five in Control.
In the series’ second map, OpTic found themselves up by a count of 5-3 in the Mercado Las Almas SnD. While it looked like Texas were primed to take the map and a 2-0 lead, Florida battled back to make a 5-5 round count and sent it to a do-or-die round 11. With Scump and iLLeY in a two-vs-two against Brack and Havok, it was Florida shutting the door on OpTic and closing the map out with the defuse. Havok had a fantastic map, with the veteran putting up 15 kills to only seven deaths.
Blowing another 5-3 lead in SnD was the last thing any Texas fan wanted to see, but the team had the opportunity to take the lead in the series if they could win the Hotel Control. Things started well for Texas again, with the team winning back-to-back attacking rounds to take a 2-1 lead with a defensive round on the way. But Florida were having success as attackers and were able to hop on the final point to send it to another decisive round. In the round five, OpTic were awarded defense, but on this map, it appeared starting from the attacking side was the advantageous side with Florida taking the round and map, giving the Mutineers a 2-1 lead.
This appeared to be another match that OpTic would give away when they might have had a 3-0 series victory if not for a couple of massive plays from the opposition. But for this Texas squad, who have had to come from behind before, the moment was not too big. They found success in the Mercado Hardpoint behind another big performance from Shotzzy, who led the way with 27 kills, to take the map by a count of 250-212, setting up a game five.
In the decisive map five, Embassy Search and Destroy, OpTic had a 4-2 lead and looked to be cruising to a map victory. But again, Florida found a way to bring it back to 4-4 before the map ultimately went to a round 11. Shotzzy opened up the round with a massive first blood onto Vikul and then, moments later, iLLeY found a snipe Havok, giving Texas a massive 4-2 life lead. Once MajorManiak dropped, there was not much Brack could do before he was found out. Despite the map getting to a round 11, OpTic made sure there would be no collapse behind iLLeY’s 12 kills with the sniper.
With this win, OpTic will now face the Toronto Ultra later tonight to see who will earn the first seed from Group B at CDL Major One.
