COD Champs Recap - Defining the Iconic Event

Ask anyone familiar with the international Call of Duty scene what the Call of Duty Championship means to players. You'd be hit with replies pertaining to its legacy, the fact that CoD legends are carved in its competition, redeeming the rest of the season for many and solidifying the best team of a given season. Nothing else matters as long as you show up at Champs. This year's iteration couldn't stay truer to this statement, with upsets galore and surprises which blew everyone out of the water from top to bottom. Here's my recap of my favourite event of the year. 

With $1,500,000, the competition was underway as early as Wednesday. Unlike any other previous year, elimination would be as early as bracket play - it's either you qualify in the top two spots of the group or wave goodbye to bracket play. This caused a few upsets very early in the competition. 

Group Stage

With eight groups involved, as the 32 teams were shuffled into groups of 4, I'll try to keep this short as it seems there was a surprise in every group. Group A started off the competition in dramatic fashion, with the tournament favourites in TK losing out in a series to the rising Lighting Pandas to concede first seed placement. Hence, those two teams qualified while Epsilon and Heretics went on home. Group B had Rise Nation take an expected position at the helm, while Tainted Minds crumbled to Lethal Gaming to placing last in the group. The Australian region continued to fail in Group C, where Mindfreak was edged out by Ghost Gaming who placed below Red Reserve. 

Meanwhile, Group D was terrorized with a redhot Team Sween, a bunch of European veterans who took down the likes of eUnited and Splyce, forcing them to battle it out for qualification. eUnited made it through. Group E and F went as expected, for a change, with the top names proceeding to bracket play. However, Group G saw Echo Fox perform in a shadow of themselves to make way for Team Vitality at second place with LG on top. 

Group H; the true group of death which nobody expected. Every year, there seems to be a bracket in which a three-way tie ensues - only this time, the third was eliminated. Due to Supremacy conceding all 3 games in sweeping fashion, and Elevate taking it to EG and OG, it came down to the final series. Putting EG and Optic at odds, Optic Gaming needed just one map while EG needed to sweep. The upset of the century occurred, with Evil Geniuses silencing the Green Wall with a top 32 finish! The curse of Aches and Optic continues, as one of the biggest names in CoD shamefully walked home without even reaching bracket play. 

By Friday, 16 teams remained.