With playoff seeding on the line, the Toronto Ultra picked up a crucial win over the Dallas Empire today to advance to the grand finals of the Toronto Home Series.
The Ultra, who entered the day in 10th place in the Call of Duty League, needed to win their semifinals match against the Empire to even have a chance to avoid starting the $4.6 million postseason at a severe disadvantage. Fortunately, Toronto squeaked out multiple close map wins to upset the second-ranked team in the league and qualify for their first finals of the season.
Despite having a 6-6 record on the map, the Ultra pulled off a three-point win against Dallas on Gun Runner Hardpoint to take an early series lead. And after going down 5-4 on St. Petrograd Search and Destroy, the team fought back to take two consecutive rounds to put the three-time champions on the edge.
While the Ultra proved to be no match for the Empire on Hackney Yard Domination, another narrow Hardpoint win—this time on St. Petrograd—secured the series win for the league’s lone Canadian team. The grand finals appearance earned the Ultra another 10 CDL Points, which now puts them in a three-way tie with the Paris Legion and OpTic Gaming Los Angeles for eighth place.
Due to the Call of Duty League’s tiebreaker rules, the Ultra would be the official eighth seed if OGLA lose to the Atlanta FaZe in the other semifinals matchup. Paris, who did not compete this weekend, will finish 10th in the regular season standings due to the three-way tie.
If OpTic defeat FaZe, the Ultra and OGLA would meet in a crucial grand finals where the winner would earn the eighth seed and the loser gets the ninth seed, the latter of which would mean starting the CDL Playoffs in the losers bracket.
With the loss, the Empire finished the regular season in second place at 260 CDL Points. A win against Toronto would have meant tying Atlanta for the most points in the league and a potential grand finals meeting to decide the top seed heading into the postseason. Unlike the London Home Series, however, Dallas had trouble throughout the weekend.
After a nearly flawless weekend during the last event, the Empire went to game five against the Florida Mutineers in their opening match and were swept in their second match. Despite the showing, the Empire will have a two-round bye in the playoff bracket.
The Ultra will play the winner of FaZe vs. OpTic today. The scheduled time for the final was set for 6pm CT, although it is more likely the match will begin closer to 7pm CT.
