Call of Duty League

Call of Duty World League New Orleans Recap – Powered by KontrolFreek®

Keshav Bhat

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The second CWL event of the 2018 season was this past weekend, as over 256 teams came to New Orleans, LA for the Call of Duty World League, presented by PlayStation 4 New Orleans Open event featuring a $200,000 prize pool. This weekend saw the largest number of teams in CWL event history.

After three days of Call of Duty: WWII action, Team Kaliber took the crown and secured the lion share of the $200,000 prize pool.

Pool Play: 

The open bracket was the largest open event in Call of Duty esports history. The top 4 open bracket teams ended up in the following Groups: Lightning Panda was placed in Group A; Evil Geniuses was in Group B; GGEA.Orange was in Group C; and GGEA.Blue was in Group D.

OpTic Gaming, Team Kaliber, Luminosity, and eUnited all had a 4-0 Pool Record in their respective groups. The top two teams from each group were then placed into the Winners, and the lower two teams from each group were placed in the Losers Bracket.

Bracket Play:

The first round of Winners Bracket matches proved to have unexpected results in the lower half. Echo Fox put up an incredible fight to send OpTic Gaming to the loser’s bracket with a 3-1 series win. Luminosity also came out on top over FaZe Clan, setting up a Luminosity vs. Echo Fox winners semifinals.

In the top half of the winners bracket, the matches went as expected. Team Kaliber, the CWL Dallas Champions, won their series 3-1 over Rise Nation. eUnited took down Evil Geniuses 3-2 in an intense Game 5.

The action heated up as we moved to the Winners Semi-Finals matchup. The Team Kaliber vs. eUnited match went all the way to the final deciding Game 5, as Team Kaliber emerged victorious and moved forward to the winners bracket finals. Luminosity beat out Echo Fox in the second Winners Semifinals, setting up a Team Kaliber vs. Luminosity Winner Bracket Finals.

Team Kaliber won the Winners Bracket Finals 3-1, making an insane comeback in Game 4 Hardpoint, and secured their spot in the CWL New Orleans Grand Finals!

Loser’s Bracket:

The Losers Bracket matches had some unexpected results. European team Red Reserve eliminated OpTic Gaming with a 3-1 series win; FaZe Clan eliminated Team EnVyUs with a 3-1 win in their series. Red Reserve continued their impressive performance and eliminated FaZe Clan and eUnited.

In Losers Round 6, Red Reserve took on Rise Nation. Red Reserve’s incredible losers bracket run came to an end here, as Rise Nation won this series 3-2 to advance to the Losers Bracket Finals to face Luminosity. Luminosity won the series 3-2 over Rise Nation.

Grand Finals:

The Grand Finals saw Team Kaliber going up against Luminosity. It was rematch of the Winners Bracket Finals. Luminosity opened up the series with a big win in Game 1 Hardpoint. Luminosity put up an impressive fight and forced a second best of five series against Team Kaliber.

The second best of five was an amazing series to watch. The games went back and forth and ended at a Game 5, where Team Kaliber was able to secure the final series win 3-2.

Team Kaliber were crowned the 2018 Call of Duty World League New Orleans Open Champions! They are back-to-back champions after also winning CWL Dallas Open in December.

Next CWL Open Event: CWL Atlanta

The next Call of Duty World League, presented by PlayStation 4 2018 Open Event will be CWL Atlanta, live March 9-11, which features a $200,000 prize pool. Spectator Passes are still available at MLG.com.

CWL Pro League – Stage 1: 

Before the next open event, the CWL Pro League kicks off with Stage 1 action on January 23. The top 16 teams will compete in the MLG Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

After CWL New Orleans, 16 teams officially qualified for Stage 1 of the CWL Pro League:

  • Team Kaliber
  • OpTic Gaming
  • FaZe Clan
  • Team EnVyUs
  • DooM Clan
  • eUnited
  • Echo Fox
  • Luminosity
  • Rise Nation
  • Evil Geniuses
  • Splyce
  • Red Reserve
  • Epsilon esports
  • Team Vitality
  • UNiLAD
  • MindFreak Pro

Stay tuned for the latest Call of Duty World League news by following us on Twitter.

Feature Image: MLG

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