This past weekend was a grand one for me. Not gonna lie, it brings much joy to my black heart to watch Scump and the boys clap Dallas. Which they did, twice, this weekend.
This past weekend was the first official tournament style CDL event, hosted by the London Royal Ravens. There were 8 teams invited, with 2 wins in your group guaranteeing you a spot in the playoffs of the event. Invited were the Paris Legion, New York Subliners, Dallas Empire, Seattle Surge, Los Angeles Guerrillas, Toronto Ultra, Chicago Huntsmen and London Royal Ravens.
The group stage went about exactly how I expected it to. Chicago dropped 1 game the whole group stage, Dallas made it out on the back of a weak group really, with the only real excitement coming from Group B. Paris got bodied their first series against the Subliners, which after their Minnesota performance, it was kinda surprising to see. The Royal Ravens showed up to play, with a solid 3-1 against the Ultra and a tight 3-2 series against New York.
Paris battled back and took the losers bracket of the group, beating Paris 3-1 and decimating New York the second time around. Which brought us to the bracket stage of the home series, with the Huntsmen facing off against Paris and London playing Dallas.
This was an INSANE series, one of the best of the event if I’m being honest. London came out guns blazing, with the crowd at their backs to go up 2-0 in the series with the game 1 Hardpoint and game 2 Search and Destroy victories. This is where it all took a spiraling plummet for the Royal Ravens.
Down 0-2 in the series, Dallas battle back with a solid 211-162 Domination victory to get a point on the board. Following that, they took the game to a game 5 after winning the second Hardpoint of the series. The Ravens dropped the ball in game 5, losing the Empire in the final search and destroy and getting reverse swept. You absolutely hate to see it, and you hate to see wuskinz sad like this…
This means that somehow Dallas has made it to the finals of the home series, and would either play Chicago or Paris. Shame. On to the next series.
Just when I thought that the previous series would be the best of the event, boy was I wrong. Whether Paris was just on fire or Chicago was struggling after having not played for awhile, Paris won the game 1 Hardpoint to the surprise of a lot of people 250-216. Hoping to keep the momentum going, they went into the game 2 Search and Destroy with high hopes.
High hopes is truly all they had, the Huntsmen battled back to win that game 6-2, with a very solid showing out of the boys in black and green. Following this, Chicago absolutely DECIMATED Paris in the Domination, 215-110. Leading the series 2-1, Chicago went into game 4 hoping to close out the series with a Hardpoint victory. Well…that didn’t happen, for the first time this year Chicago was taken to a game 5 Search and Destroy, with Paris winning the Hardpoint 250-239. That feeling of success didn’t last long for the Legion though.
The King came to PLAY. With an absolutely dominating performance from Scump, Chicago GOOSED Paris in the game 5, and won S&D 6-0. Yikes from the Legion, hell yeah from the boys. So it all came down to my favorites series’ to watch, Chicago vs Dallas.
I just absolutely love to watch Chicago play Dallas. Y’know, this whole offseason was basically Dallas running their mouth and C6 talking about revenge this and never forget that and blah blah blah. Once again, they were unable to put their money where their mouth is. After Arcitys took over game 1 Hardpoint, Chicago came out ahead 250-239 to take the game. Following that up, Gunless had an AMAZING play which led the way for the Huntsmen to take the game 2 Search and Destroy.
I mean this play is insane, watching the caster view, it looks like Crimsix got the defuse, but apparently Gunless not only killed 2 people in quick succession, he managed to JUST kill C6 to secure the round, which deflated the Empire into a game 2 loss.
That was all she wrote for the Empire, as Chicago came out, mathematically beat them with 3 minutes left in the Domination game, and took home the big W. Shout-out to the Huntsmen for being absolute LEGENDS and bringing home the first victory of the 2020 CDL season!
#BeTheHunter
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