The Call of Duty Championships – Day 1 results

This was it. The first of its kind event, and South Africa had a front row seat to not only observe, but to kick some sizeable amounts of ass as well. It was a day of excitement, exhilaration, hope and opportunity. Here’s it all went down.

The venue

Situated at The Hollywood Palladium, the venue for the million dollar competition may have looked a tad shabby from the outside, but the inside was another story altogether. With a sizeable floor space, multiple monitors, arenas, practice areas and space leftover for shoutcasters, things kicked off in a grand fashion.

It was a classy event overall, and that was just for day one.

Team XtaZ

Make no mistake, this was a team that had their eyes on the prize. And that cost them. Working less as a team, and more as a set of four Lone Wolf McQuaids, Team XtaZ was soundly beaten in their debut round by Team Unite.

A wake up call, Team XtaZ headed immediately to the practice area, and started pumping in some serious digital work-outs, in order to stand a chance to take down Team Inferno BYL and move ahead in the round robin, best of three elimination brackets.

A few hours later, and the lads had their game-faces on this time. A massive improvement over their first round scrubbing, the fellas hit with Inferno BYL with everything that they had, but still lost at the end of the day.

Out of the running for the top prize in the championship, Team XtaZ went back to the practice pool, to train even harder for the next match against Quantic. With nothing left to lose, the team took the fight to Quantic while showing another power-up of skill, but despite some early leads, eventually lost that round as well.

It’s a shame that the SA team won’t be going any further, but at the same time, they got a taste of competition on a global level, stood their ground, and came back stronger every time. They may not have won, but seeing as how everyone back home on the coast was cheering them all the way, they’ve got nothing to feel bad about.

Walk tall guys, walk tall.

Everyone else

Winners, losers and top notch gamers aplenty were present for the Olympics of face-stabbing and excessive bullets. Here’s a run down of the 16 teams that are going through to the next round;

• Complexity
• KillerFish
• Soar
• Quantic
• Fariko Impact
• Epsilon
• Pain Gaming
• Optic Gaming
• Donut SHop
• Enigma
• The Stand
• Envyus
• Fear
• Fariko All Stars
• Inferno Esports
• VVV Gaming

These teams will be competing tomorrow, in order to narrow the field down to eight contenders for the championship crown, before the Sunday play-offs.

Last Updated: April 6, 2013