The match that almost every Call of Duty League fan was waiting for ended today within a matter of minutes. Atlanta FaZe and OpTic Chicago squared off for the right to represent Group B in the winner’s bracket of the Stage 3 Major, but FaZe swept OpTic in short order.
The match was the classic Atlanta beatdown that was so common earlier in the 2021 season. However, shortly after the match ended, controversy struck, putting the match itself into question.
OpTic Chicago face strange server issue against Atlanta FaZe
Essentially, OpTic and FaZe played on an Atlanta host for the entirety of the match. This means the connection to the Call of Duty servers was much stronger for Atlanta than it was for Chicago, whose roster is based in Texas.
Obviously we got smoked, but it doesn’t help we just played on an Atlanta host, all of us on 33 ping theirs were 11.
— OpTic FormaL (@FormaL) May 9, 2021
According to both teams, this was a result of a typo in an email. Apparently, a representative from OpTic misspelled “STL” as “ATL.” The match was supposed to take place on a St. Louis server, but thanks to the typo, it was played on an Atlanta server. Dylan “Envoy” Hannon explained this in a tweet, claiming the mistake was “un **** acceptable” and exclaimed the referee was at fault for still selecting an Atlanta server with FaZe playing in the match.
https://twitter.com/DylanEnvoy/status/1391521442664173568
FaZe players even responded to the tweets saying they felt sorry this happened in such a key matchup. McArthur “Cellium” Jovel responded to Envoy saying, “GGs bro sorry that happened.”
Obviously, this doesn’t excuse the absolute manhandling that Atlanta displayed against Chicago’s roster. However, it does raise some questions as to if the match would have been closer had FaZe not been given such a large connection advantage.
Putting the connection issue aside, FaZe mopped the floor with OpTic in every way possible. The entire roster fired on all cylinders from the get-go, with Chris “Simp” Lehr and Tyler “aBeZy” Pharris leading the way. If this Atlanta roster shows up to the Stage 3 Major, the likes of New York and Toronto better lookout.
In regards to OpTic, it’s hard to judge their performance due to their connection disadvantage. While someone like Envoy, who finished with a 0.48 KD, could have played better, it’s difficult to know how much their performance was affected by the Atlanta server.
Regardless of the controversy, Atlanta finishes the group stage at 4-1 and gets the second seed in the winner’s bracket at the major. OpTic, on the other hand, shockingly starts in the loser’s bracket. The Stage 3 Major takes place on Thursday, May 13.
