Over the course of last weekend at the CWL Dallas Open, the EU Pro Point standings were finalised and the six European teams to qualify for Season 1 of the Global Pro League were all British squads.
Jacob Hale looks at the final standings of all the UK teams.
iGame (formerly Team 3G) started in the Open Bracket and had a strong beginning, making it to the Open Bracket Round 5 before missing out on Pool Play qualification with a loss to Team Kaliber.
iGame then had to try their hand at a Loser’s Bracket Run to qualify to the championship bracket, and once again were thwarted by underdogs G2 Esports. As they were in seventh place in pro points, they knew their Pro League chances were gone as they had not managed to outplace Epsilon, the team they were battling with for the final European spot.
This resulted in some major disappointment, especially from Desire who recently left Epsilon, making the performance sting just that much more.
lol probably the most embarrassing lose of my who career, don't even know what to say, fuck knows what's next for me now.
— BenWright (@ben_wrighttt) March 18, 2017
Epsilon had a similarly disappointing run, not qualifying for Pool Play and being knocked out of the tournament in Round 1 of the Championship Losers Bracket.
Although they did not get as far as they would have expected in the tournament, Epsilon outplaced iGame and therefore secured their Pro League spot. Both teams will be looking to improve drastically in the coming months.
Another team that will be disappointed with their performance over the weekend is Elevate. Entering the tournament as the fourth European seed, Elevate were handed a fairly difficult group, and this showed in their performances: they failed to win a series throughout the whole tournament, eventually placing T24 with only six map wins across five series’ (Best of 5 format).
The players didn’t make any secret of their shame, either.
https://twitter.com/Rated_COD/status/842951119726936064
Two teams that were unlucky this weekend were Fnatic and Millenium. Both came third in their pools, and Fnatic could have placed second had they only won one more map.
Both teams then went on to place T16, with Millenium dropping out of the tournament after a loss to North Americans Evil Geniuses, and Red Reserve wiping out Fnatic in Losers Bracket Round 3.
“Splyce showed this weekend why the UK is not far from catching up with the supremacy of North American Call of Duty”
Millenium will be less than impressed as an organisation after buying out the team for this event, and although they have qualified for the Pro League, they will be disappointed with how MarkyB and the rest of the former Team Infused squad performed in Texas.
On the topic of Red Reserve, this recently-formed team performed far better than most expected, especially seeing that they were placed in the ‘Group of Death’ alongside the powerhouses of Team EnVyUs and eventual champions OpTic Gaming.
Although they were put into the Loser’s Bracket straight out of Pool Play, Red fought their way through each series and eventually placed T6, becoming the second-highest placed EU team at CWL Dallas.
That leaves us at our very own ‘god squad’ of Zer0, Bance, Jurd and Madcat, otherwise known as Splyce. This team has been dominant in Europe, and this weekend showed their worth in placing fourth at the CWL Dallas Open, with their only losses coming to winners OpTic Gaming and runners-up eUnited, including taking the ‘GreenWall’ to a Game 5 in the semi-finals.
Splyce showed this weekend why the UK is not far from catching up with the supremacy of North American CoD.
https://twitter.com/TreiZer0/status/843560208421048321
Overall, the UK teams will be disappointed with their performances; each have the raw talent to perform better on an international level, and Splyce especially will be unhappy leaving Dallas without a trophy.
