The GFinity Summer Championship kicked off with a bang. Such good matches took place. To think it's only the first day of this weekend long tournament is phenomenal. At the pace GFinity is at right now, the next two days of competition could supply some of the best Call of Duty played this year. Here's how Day 1 went down in London.
Please note that because two matches were always being played at one time, a recap of every match was not a managable feature. The matches being covered here by VAVEL USA are exclusive to the Main Stage, which is what GFinity clearly want emphasis on.
Epsilon.EU 3-2 Rise Nation
The day started off with arguably, the best team from Europe in Epsilon going against a mid tier American squad in Rise.The first two games went in favor of Epsilon. Detroit Hardpoint was a 245-202 score in favor of Europe's finest. Although the score seemed close, Epsilon seemed to have control throughout the whole game as Rise gained most of their points on the Green Hill. Riot SND would follow and it would be a slober knocker. 6-0 in favor of Epsilon. The game only lasted about five minutes. But Rise would muster a comeback. Starting on Bio Lab Uplink, Rise took a 6-2 lead coming into the last minute but were unable to put Epsilon away. The Europeans would put all four Rise member down and score a dunk to manke it 6-4, but Rise would come off spawn to Send the four Epsilon players to the killcam to finish the game. Rise would go on to win Game 4 handily with momentum on their side. Every player on Rise would top 36 kills in a 230-129 win on Solar Hardpoint. Game 5 would be on Recovery SND. It would be a close game until just past halway through, Epsilon started to gain momentum. Apathy from Rise got off to a hot start, but once he cooled down, Epsilon cruised to a 6-3 win to claim the series.
Infused 3-2 Team Kaliber
Arguably the best match of the day came with an upset. On Detroit Hardpoint, Infused outplayed Team Kaliber massively. But coming into the last hill, tK started to make a comeback. Down 40 to start the hill, they got the deficit down to 2 points before Infused broke in to take the game 233-227. On Riot SND, Infused looked to carry that momentum. They would go up 2-0 before Team Kaliber would begin to just play smarter and faster. tK wouldn't drop a round for the rest of the game and would tie the series with a 6-2 win. Bio Lab Uplink would be very gut wrenching. Down 3 points with 45 seconds left, Infused would miss a throw and would bounce off the map. They would get a dunk to make the deficit 1 point but time ran out on them. The throw they missed cost them the game in a 7-6 Team Kaliber victory. But the tide would turn on Solar Hardpoint with Infused bringing it down to the wire. On the last hill, MarkyB from Infused would pop a 3-piece and push tK out. This would give Infused the 202-182 win they need to force Game 5. Recovery SND was back and forth between the two squads. It went all the way down to Round 11 to determine the winner. On defense, Infused would quad push the A street and completely caught Team Kaliber off guard. Infused would win tyhe map 6-5 to take the series 3-2.
OpTic Gaming 3-0 VwS
Detroit Hardpoint would start off the series in what was expected to be a one sided affair. But VwS came out hot surprisingly. SunnyB would pop a 3-piece to start the game off and VwS would be hanging in there with OpTic for the first half. But it seemed like OG were only starting to warm up. Through the second set of hills, VwS would only score 48 points as OpTic would start to cruise to a 250-159 victory. On Riot SND, OpTic began to impose their will on on VwS. Scumpii from OpTic would begin the game with an ace and the following round Formal would pick 3 VwS players out of the air. In the end, OpTic would win this map very quickly in a 6-0 campaign. Heading into Bio lab Uplink, VwS would put a throw in to open the game up 1-0. But it would be the only point they could muster as OpTic would hit the score limit in a 20-1 victory to finish the series 3-0.
Vitality.Storm 1-3 TCM
In the group of death, Vitality wanted to start hot. But they were met by the opposition of TCM who have been quite the mystery as of late. In Detroit Hardpoint, Vitality was going along with business. That's when Jurd on TCM began to heat up. He would help reduce the lead Vitality held and on the final hill of the game, helped TCM hold the School area strongly in a 244-198 win for TCM. Game 2 would see TCM continue on the momentum they were carrying. They would win the map with ease in a 6-1 effort.On Bio Lab Uplink, Watson from Vitality started to pick up clutch kills. He started 0-8 but would bring it back to 11-10 and would finish 24-27. His comeback would help Vitality take game 3 and stay alive in the series with a 7-4 win. Solar Hardpoint worked much like game 1. Vitality held a steady lead but started to lose it late. It was a dead even game coming into the final hill and TCM started to build a lead. Then Watson would come in and kill everything in his path. Sadly one of the players he killed was a teammate and once Watson went down, no one was there to stop TCM as they would go on to win a tight 190-188 affair.
Other matches not covered: Hyper 0-3 EnVyUs, FaZe 3-0 Liquid, eLevate 3-0 IGI, OpTic Nation 3-0 Spirit.
Pool play will finish tomorrow. The day will start with VwS - Hyper, Liquid - Team Kaliber, IGI - Rise Nation, Spirit - Vitality.Storm. The losers of those matches will be eliminated while the winners will keep their hopes of getting into the bracket alive. Then we'll see OpTic Gaming - EnVyUs, FaZe - Infused, eLevate - Epsilon.EU, OpTic Nation - TCM. The winners of those matches will get into the bracket while the losers will play the winners of the matches mentioned earlier for their final chances in making the cut.
