One team has dominated Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare since its release late last year. But this weekend it seems the dynasty is finally at an end.
OpTic Gaming lost their second straight final to FaZe Clan, this time falling at the Gfinity Summer Championship in the United Kingdom.
The final was a close-fought series going down to a full seven games. OpTic took a 3-2 lead, but FaZe stormed back to win Detroit Uplink to force game seven, following it up with an even stronger performance on Search and Destroy in the final game.
It’s the second-straight tournament win for FaZe since acquiring 2015 Call of Duty Championship winners Clay “Clayster” Eubanks and Dillon “Attach” Price at the end of June. On July 13, FaZe took out OpTic Gaming at UMG Dallas, a precursor to the Gfinity result. The pairing of Eubanks and Price with Tommy “ZooMaa” Paparratto and Ian “Enable” Wyatt continues to be a winning one.
To make matters worse for OpTic Gaming, Gfinity featured a $100,000 prize pool, the only tourney with a six figure pot so far this year outside of the $1 million Championship itself. Of the three tournaments OpTic has lost this year, two featured the biggest prize pot.
The result has OpTic Gaming fans up in arms over the acquisition of Damon “Karma” Barlow. With the 2013 Champs winner in the lineup, the team has only won half of the tournament’s they’ve attended, and Barlow’s numbers aren’t what you’d expect from a superstar player. But Gfinity was likely his best tournament yet, especially on the maps that weren’t Hardpoint, already OpTic’s best game type.
FaZe managed to pull ahead thanks to superior teamwork, even with a lineup that’s played together for less time than the four OpTic Gaming are running into the server. Whether that will make them the next dynasty, though, is another question. But it’s clear that the era of OpTic Gaming domination is at an end.
