by Anne “hubwub” Celestino
In a day’s time, the first major Call of Duty Black Ops II event for 2013 commences in Dallas, Texas. Players are flocking to Major League Gaming’s (MLG) Winter Championships as 204 teams vie for a part of the $50,000 prize pool and the right to participate in Activision’s $1,000,000 Call of Duty Championship.
With a convincing win over Swag Kills, the start of the Winter Championship’s online qualifiers were a breeze for compLexity. The mood shifted in the second round when coL faced Team FeaR in a problematic best-of-three series.
The first map, Hard Point on Standoff, saw compLexity leading 117 – 37 when Tyler “TeePee” Polchow was knocked offline via DDOS attack. This allowed FeaR to come back from a significant deficit and win. As a precautionary measure, the following map, CTF Raid, would not played on stream, yet FeaR emerged as the victor and dropped coL into the lower bracket. CompLexity COD Captain Patrick “ACHES” Price described the series against FeaR as “pathetic,” and expressed a deep disappointment in the decision not to replay.
“There were over 10,000 viewers watching the stream… we were by far the better team and everyone knew it,” said Price. “I was baffled at how FeaR acted like they won legitimately. We are both pro teams that have been doing this for years… I believe MLG should have forced a replay.” “People like that will never be respected by me or anyone on my team. You took the easy road, congrats.”
CompLexity got off to a smooth start in the lower bracket with 2-0 wins over Awe Sports and Quantic Gaming. The team would need all three maps to defeat Prime Example in the following round. In a highly anticipated match compLexity player Aaron “TuQuick” Chang faced off against his former team Fariko.Impact in the lower bracket. It was here that Chang and the rest of squad would suffer their second loss and bow out of the MLG Winter Championship online qualifiers. “Fariko is a really good team,” said Chang, “but the qualifiers don’t mean anything as we are a ‘LAN’ team.” “I can’t wait to play them again soon.”
After the disappointing loss, coL shifted their focus away from MLG to the Champions Series of League Play. There, compLexity’s time and effort paid off as the team earned one of the coveted eight $1,000,000 Call of Duty Championship online qualifier spots.
Heading into Dallas, the journey for compLexity will be spent through the tiring gauntlet that is the open bracket where they will battle for one of 12 spots in the Winter Championships. Even with the team’s less than favorable starting position, compLexity has been predicted among the favorites. “A prediction is a prediction, to us they are nothing more than an opinion,” said compLexity COD player Ian “Crimsix” Porter. “It is important to remember that results are the only aspect we strive for.”
With scores to settle over Team FeaR and Fariko.Impact and an ever growing rivalry with the men in green, OpTic Gaming, (whom coL suffered defeat to at the UMG Chicago Grand Finals) the Winter Championships offer several compelling storylines and a handful of opportunities for “heightened emotions” according to Tyler “TeePee” Polchow.
“We definitely have a bigger rivalry with some teams such as OpTic or FeaR due to our past events and history. We obviously want to prove that we are better than both of them and any team we face,” Polchow added. “Our results so far depict us as one of the top teams in the game, and I want to continue down the path to being the most successful Call of Duty team in history. Dallas will hopefully just be the next step.”
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Stay tuned as we will be providing full Call of Duty coverage over the course of this weekend!