Optic Chicago shine in respawn once again in victory against Toronto Ultra

Optic Chicago and Toronto Ultra squared off on day three of the Call of Duty League Super Week, both searching for a win on the back of devastating losses to the Atlanta Faze.

The previous day, Ultra had lost 3-1 to Faze after a gut-wrenching map one loss 250-247 on Raid Hardpoint meant they missed the opportunity to be 2-0 up in the best-of-five series with their map two win on Raid SND.

Similarly, last week Optic Chicago threw away a map four Moscow Hardpoint to close out the series 3-1 against Faze when Tyler ‘’aBeZy’’ Pharris got a three-piece on rotation to win the map 250-245 for Atlanta.

Coming into the match many believed that Optic had the clear advantage in respawn whereas Toronto would have the advantage in Search and Destroy, given that Chicago were humiliated 6-0 and 6-1 in their two SND maps against Faze.

The first map had the outcome viewers were expecting; however the score-line was a sight to behold. Optic Chicago started the map off sprinting out to a 222-8 lead before Toronto made the score-line slightly more respectable losing 250-68.

Dylan ‘’Envoy’’ Hannon, a young Call of Duty superstar at the age of 21, had a kill/death ratio of 2.27 going 25/11 as well as having over two minutes in the Hardpoint.

In what felt like a must-win map given Chicago’s respawn prowess, Toronto responded in the map two Raid SND with a solid team effort.

Recovering from a 4-3 round deficit, UK player Ben ‘’Bance’’ Bance pulled off a 1v2 against Seth ‘’Scump’’ Abner and Brandon ‘’Dashy’’ Otell to close out the map 6-4, the latter being the only shining light of the map for Optic going 11/7.

With the best-of-five series in the balance, the map three Raid Control had added importance in determining the winner of the series.

Coming into the map Optic Chicago had a 2-0 record on the Control game-mode whereas Toronto had a 0-2 record.

The map started with offensive round wins for each team before a swing-round at 1-1 followed.

Toronto Ultra quickly captured the A point, leaving Optic with two minutes to defend B.

With the help of 9 kills in the round from Scump, Chicago defended the B point for the remaining two minutes to get the only defensive round win in the map, eventually closing out the map 3-1 to take a 2-1 series lead.

There were ominous signs for the Toronto Ultra going back to Hardpoint after the annihilation of map one, but if Ultra could sneak the series into a deciding map, they would be favoured given Optic’s SND struggles.

The map was tightly contested throughout, seeing the score-line tied at 215-215 entering the closing stages, but Envoy’s three-piece to secure scrap-time at the basketball hill also allowed Optic to get set-up for the new hill and close the map out 250-218 to win the series 3-1.

Next up Optic Chicago play the LA Guerrillas and Toronto Ultra play the Paris Legion.

My series MVP: Envoy – 1.37 K/D.