The GO Malta Esports Festival 2018 Recap: Black Ops 4

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has solidified itself as the instalment of Call of Duty where the series has come back as a fan favourite title. Ignoring the minor complaints of removing the traditional Campaign for BlackOut, it's been a great success on the public and professional front. Therefore, we decided to partner up with EEG in order to organize a top-notch competition, including €5,000 cash prizes and 16 international teams from over 6 countries, one of them being Malta. The following is the Gamers.com.mt recap of the tournament. 

Group Play

The 16 teams were mixed into 4 groups of 4 teams each, with the Winners and Losers Bracket acting as prospective destinations. A larger tournament overall, compared to the CS:GO competition, so we'll try to cover everything without entering into too much narration. In each situation, only the top teams progressed to Winners while the other two fell to the Losers Bracket. 

Making up Group A; Iconic Gaming, Future Gaming, spenzA and SIN Gaming would create quite a tense environment, as a tie would lead to score difference at the bottom. Iconic Gaming happily maximized their wins, all 3, while the other three settled on a single victory each, all of them having 3 points. Down to differences, Future Gaming, spenzA and SIN Gaming were arranged in that specific order. No Maltese team would make it out of this group. 

That narrative hits a speed bump with Group B, as Project Eversio managed to steer themselves to a second place finish, wrestling out 6 points from 2 victories. They placed below the leaders of AfterShock, who would journey very far in the competition, and above the other teams of Recognised Talent and Born to Play. Within this group, the pattern of 9-6-3-0 was observed. Project Eversio would face stronger competition further down the line. 

Moving on to Group C, a similar pattern was created by EFFICIENCY Team, Supra, Atlas eSports and We are Spaniards. EFF wouldn't drop a single map, displaying one of the most dominant Group Play performances, with a team like Spaniards struggling to grab a single map. In the middle of the map, Supra bested Atlas in the final series of the group to ensure they progress upwards, while Atlas would have to pick up the pieces in the Losers Bracket. 

Now it's time for my personal favourite and the final Group; Group D. Consisting of Sea Chickens, Cosmic Energy, Black Claw and LEGIO IXI, it would all come down the final three series of the group. Keeping this in mind, the resulting tie between three of the teams except for LEGIO IXI, each sitting at 6 points, would lead to Sea Chickens and Black Claw finishing top 2, while Cosmic Energy would finish 3rd. 

Already being Saturday by the time all Groups were concluded, it would be quite an eventful Sunday for everyone involved.