MESF 2019 COD:MW EEG 3.0 - Day 1 Recap, Top Plays & Day 2 Expectations

With the end of day 1 of the MESF COD:MW EEG 3.0 comes great triumph, loss, and excellent Call of Duty matches. Between the quad kills, the 1v2 clutches, and the close Hardpoint games, it was an exciting group stage. Now that that’s done, we can finally get into that sweet, sweet bracket stage. Let's get right into analysing what went on today.

Day 1 Group Stage Steamrollers

As you will have with any esports tournament, there will be teams that absolutely demolish the competition. Electrify, a tournament favourite (as mentioned in our previous article) from England put on a clinic in their group, not dropping a single map to any other team in group A, defeating Kollision and TeamHavik to get a spot in the bracket stage easily. I do not think anyone was shocked to see that Electrify had such a dominant performance so early in the tournament.

In group B Team ETERNAL came out on top, which came as a surprise to absolutely no one. After punching their way through The Atlas Lions and Tekk10 Gaming, ETERNAL is looking to make it to the finals stage on Sunday. 

In Group C, not a single team went into a 3rd map. Leading the group is Raven Esports Club, who is really looking like no slouch coming into the bracket portion of the tournament. Followed closely by Raven Esports is TSU Esports, who beat out Team TwiZux to clinch a bracket spot.

In group D Spain came out on top, as both Spanish teams Black Claw and XLYNX will advance to the brackets. Watching these two teams play each other was an absolute treat. The Search and Destroy portion of the match was an all-out slugfest between the two teams, although Black Claw eventually came out on top. Topping the Black Claw scoreboard was Erikboom (@EriKBooM_ ) and Vikul (@VikulJM) who went 14-4 and 13-7 respectively. Erikboom played an incredibly aggressive game, and he kept getting away with punishing XLYNX without being punished himself. XLYNX simply got outpaced by Black Claw and it cost them the match.

Group E was topped off by the Amsterdam Lions, who beat ISO and exquisite Esports to steal a guaranteed spot in the bracket stage. Although the Lions don’t have a very well known roster, they played like superstars this Friday, even beating the Tehran Isotopes 6-1 in the Search and Destroy portion of the match.

Highlights and Spotlights

There was a lot of good Call of Duty played yesterday, but I believe that an especially notable performance was Fussion on Hackney Yard in the Ravens Hardpoint match against TSU. Fussion ended up with 31 kills and only 16 deaths, winning the first map for the Ravens. On a map that is as small as Hackney Yard, you have got to get real aggressive to win. Fussion had no issue showing that he is perfectly capable of getting aggressive when he needs to in order to secure the win. The Search and Destroy portion of this match was one of the most equal and balanced games that I have ever seen. Watching these two teams duke it out on Gun Runner and taking it all the way up into Round 11 was electric.

The Amsterdam Lions definitely deserve an honourable mention too. Playing a Hardpoint on Gun Runner against the Tehran Isotopes, they all showed up to play in a match that was way too close for comfort. Timo gets the spotlight with this matchup as he started the game with a NINE killstreak, which is impressive in competitive play. On the flip side of this coin Jsaiyajin for the Tehran Isotopes left something to be desired with a 13-30 kill death ratio. If he had a little bit of a stronger game maybe we would have seen the Isotopes take this win. With a final score of 250-240 it would have not been out of the realm of possibility.

Our runner up is going to FTW Esports for the show that they put on playing Hardpoint against Corrupt Talent on Azhir Cave. After the dust cleared, the scoreboard showed that the entire Corrupt roster had a negative KD, while all except one player on FTW had a positive one. Although most of the time it goes without saying, you have to be alive to win a Hardpoint match.

Tekk10 Leaves Tournament Amidst Rule Challenge

While playing a Search and Destroy match on Arklov Peak Just before the end of round 2 the host ended the game. After a brief intermission, it was revealed that Qlash Malta had been using a specialist scorestreak, which is against tournament rules. Tournament rules also dictate that the map is then forfeit, which brought the map score up to 1-1. After this, Tekk10 decided to forfeit the rest of the tournament and go home.

The Road Ahead

With the group stage over, we have lots of Call of Duty left to play this weekend as we head into the bracket stage. The closer that we get to finals the better that the competition is going to get. So buckle up and get ready to watch some brackets today. By the end of the day, we’re going to be down to a select few teams that will still be eligible to win the grand prize of 3500 Euros.

Stay tuned for more updates on the tournament! Good luck to all teams today, and happy viewing!