The anticipation was high for CWL Fort Worth and the tournament did not fail to deliver. With upsets and reverse sweeps, the event became one of the craziest in recent memories. Favorites fell early paving the way for the underdog teams, eventually leading to the Luminosity Gaming coming out of the Winners Bracket and defeating Splyce to win their first tournament of the year.
Before diving into the Pro Tournament, the Open Bracket has to be mentioned. The new format separating the two as different tournaments, the Open Bracket team winner did not play in the Pro Bracket or pool play. FaZe Clan Black dominated the amateur tournament without dropping a series and claiming the $15,000 first place prize.
Pool Play
Now, on to the Pro Tournament. Pool play was insane, and it created a bracket no one could have predicted. Heretics was a favorite in Pool A to win it or at least place top 2 yet did not even win pool match (3-9 map count) and finishing last. Gen G the other power team, however, won the pool easily with a 9-3 map count record and an overall 3-0 record. Surprisingly, Denial Esports, who look abysmal in the Pro League locked up 2nd place only losing to Gen G followed by UYU placing 3rd.
Pool B was not the pool of death but became very competitive with Enigma6 playing better than expected. A 2-1 record for three teams resulted in going to map count for the tiebreaker. Red Reserve (8-4) notched 1st in the pool and E6 (8-7) grabbing second over 100 Thieves (7-5) even though 100T beat them head to head. Evil Geniuses did not win a match and only won a total of 2 maps the entire tournament.
Pool C went as expected with Splyce sweeping the pool followed by LG. With the drama and team changes from Excelerate Gaming and Midnight Esports, their tournament was doomed before it started. Although, ExG did beat Midnight in the head to head. Midnight did not win a series the entire tournament even after their controversial roster changes that dropped the 1st place team in the Pro League to pick up new players.
Pool D. The “pool of death” did not disappoint. They two favorites from the pool though did. Las Vegas Champs and overall tournament favorite did not look good. They started 0-2 on the way to 3rd place finish in the pool. EUnited also did not play up to their potential finishing last in the pool. It came down to the head to head of Team EnVyus and the team no one gave a chance, Reciprocity. REC came out on top with a 3-2 win going the distance to a round 11 last, map SND.
Bracket Play
The crazy pool play introduced the craziest seeding for bracket play. The top three favorites, OpTic, 100t, and eU, were placed in the loser’s bracket for failing to make top two in their respective pools. On top of that Gen G lost in the first round dropping them to the loser’s bracket playing OpTic in round 2 loser’s. 100T looked to make an amazing run through the losers bracket only dropping 2 maps in four series, but due to an illness of their top player “Priestahh” forcing them to play with a substitute, they fell short against REC in the losers semi-final match.
After LG beat Gen G in the first round, they instantly became the favorite to win it all, which they did. LG probably was not on the radar to win. They finished the first half of the Pro League in 6th place with a 3-4 record and their team chemistry just seemed to be off since “Formal” was picked up in the last title of Call of Duty. A good pool one of the easier paths in bracket play led to them hoisting the trophy. This is not to take away the fact they did have to defeat a top team in Splyce in both the winner’s semi-finals and the Grand Finals. They took care of business though beating them 3-1 both series and hoisting up the CWL Fort Worth trophy and taking home $125,000. Second place Splyce did not go home empty-handed though, raking in an $80,000 prize.
Luminosity’s “Gunless” played lights out on his way to earning MVP of the event. His stats were unreal with a 1.35 hardpoint KD, a 1.44 Search and Destroy KD and a 1.07 Control KD. His SND KD was number 1 overall for the event and he notched the number 3 overall respawn KD. He also was 2nd overall in damage dealt in for the entire event. “Gunless” played lights out and as the last seconds of the Grand Final closed, everyone knew he would be the MVP.
As disappointment rocked the top teams, LG slayed and rode their momentum to their first win of the Black Ops 4 season. Next week starts cross-division play in the Pro League. Can OpTic and eUnited take their place as a top team again and can LG continue to grow as a team? These next few weeks will answer those questions.
Congratulation Luminosity Gaming! CWL Fort Worth Champions!
