OpTic Chicago lost their opening matchup of the 2021 Call of Duty League Stage Two Major today.
The Toronto Ultra pulled off the upset in the first round of the winners bracket, beating OpTic 3-1 in a hard-fought series.
Related: Results for 2021 Call of Duty League Stage 2 Major
OpTic came into this match on a modest two-match winning streak. After struggling in the second week of Stage Two group play, Chicago finished the stage off with big wins over the Seattle Surge and Dallas Empire to secure their spot in the winners bracket of the Major.
Toronto, on the other hand, went 2-3 in Stage Two group play. But that was good enough to grab the No. 3 seed in Group A.
OpTic kicked off today’s match with a nail-biting 250-236 win in map one, Checkmate Hardpoint, behind a 31-kill performance by Scump. Chicago then built a 5-3 lead on Moscow Search and Destroy, but Toronto pulled off the comeback to take map two 6-5.
From there, the rest of the series played out on Raid. The Ultra started on defense on Raid Control and both teams traded three straight defensive rounds. But in the fourth round, Toronto won an offense to take map three 3-1 and gain a 2-1 series lead. Scump dropped 33 kills for OpTic in a losing effort.
Map four, Raid Hardpoint, was a back-and-forth affair. It looked like OpTic were going to force a decisive fifth map but Toronto pulled off two impressive holds on the basketball and courtyard hills to come back and win 250-234.
With this 3-1 victory, Toronto advance to face the Atlanta FaZe in the winners bracket semifinals tomorrow. OpTic, on the other hand, will now have to fight for their tournament life in the losers bracket against the winner of the Seattle Surge vs. Florida Mutineers.
There are still two more losers bracket series to be played tonight in the Stage Two Major. The Los Angeles Thieves are playing against the London Royal Ravens right now on the official Call of Duty League YouTube channel.
