The Call of Duty League’s MW2 season got off to a strange start for OpTic Texas when a controversial ruling on a game replay against Minnesota RØKKR resulted in OpTic forfeiting the match. After righting the ship against Florida, Scump seemed determined to keep that momentum going in OpTic’s direction against Royal Ravens, refusing to lose in a 3-2 victory.
A day after going 0-2 in Hardpoints in their match against the Seattle Surge, including a 250-63 drubbing on Hotel, London flipped the script behind massive performances from Asim. The longtime CoD veteran, who is in his first season with the London franchise, set the 2023 single season kill record in the series’ first map, Fortress Hardpoint, with a 38-22 statline. His massive showing lifted the Royal Ravens to a 1-0 lead before the series headed to Mercado Search and Destroy.
In the series’ second map, Scump played like an MVP candidate, posting an 8-2 statline while making one of the biggest plays in the entire series. With the map tied at one round a piece, OpTic held a two-vs-one advantage before PaulEhx made a massive play onto Shotzzy, leaving Scump alone in the one-vs-one. With the bomb down for the London side and time running out, Scump rushed into the bomb site, landing shots onto PaulEhx to pick up the kill and defuse the bomb, giving Texas a 2-1 round advantage. OpTic would go onto win the map 6-2 behind the strong performance from their captain.
Things got off to an auspicious start for the Green Wall in the Hotel Control, falling behind 2-0 early on. The deficit meant they would need to win both an attacking and defensive round to bring it to a round five, but thankfully for OpTic, they had Scump on their side. After holding in their defensive round, Texas had to capture the B point to keep the game alive. Scump picked up a three-piece, including a grenade kill, to put the pressure on London and allow his teammates to stack the point, clinching the round and pushing it to Round Five.
OpTic played clinical Control from that point forward, not allowing any member of the Royal Ravens to inch toward the final point needed for the London side. While Texas pushed their lead to 2-1, the Royal Ravens continued to show out in the Hardpoints, again led by Asim, who put up 35 kills en route to a 250-193 London victory on Embassy Hardpoint.
While London fought extremely hard to get to map five, OpTic completely shut the Royal Ravens down in the decisive Fortress Search and Destroy. Thanks to another big-time performance from Scump, who was 7-3 in the map, OpTic rolled to a 5-1 lead, needing just one more round to clinch the map and series. In a two-vs-two situation, iLLeY peaked around the corner, and with his sniper put a shot onto both PaulEhx and Nastie, giving him a collateral for the win.
With the victory, OpTic are sitting at 2-1, with one match left of online qualifiers. They will take on the defending CDL Champions, the Los Angeles Thieves, on Dec. 11 at 5pm CT. Meanwhile, the Royal Ravens fall to 2-2 in the online qualifying stage and will be on stage next weekend at the season’s first major event in Raleigh, North Carolina.
