Call of Duty pro player Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter has hit back at critics of his performance following his team’s third place finish at CWL London on May 5.
CWL London was the first and only Black Ops 4 major event scheduled to take place on European soil this season, and saw all 16 Pro League teams make the trip across the pond for the opportunity to be crowned CWL London champions, and take home a slice of the $325,000 prize pool.
For OpTic Gaming, a team who secured victory in the first CWL event of the year in Las Vegas, third was a disappointing finish – especially after going undefeated in pool play – prompting some fans to single out Crimsix’s performance on the final day of the event.
Crimsix responds to post-CWL London criticism
Following the conclusion of CWL London, statistics showed that Crimsix was the only player to finish with a negative kill/death and assisted kill/death ratio in the entire squad, with some on the OpTic Gaming subreddit stating that these kind of numbers from an ICR player were “unacceptable.”
Others discussed the Control match played on Arsenal against 100 Thieves, stating that if the team had managed to convert two incredible chances to win the map, things may have been different. Unfortunately for fans of the Green Wall, an amazing Kenny ‘Kenny’ Williams kill-spree tied the Control up at 2-2, with OpTic unable to secure the final hill despite having the numerical advantage for almost the whole round.
Crimsix chose to address the critiques head-on, writing on Reddit: “You all need to fucking relax. I was constantly winning [against] other team’s ICR [players]. Yeah, I had an off event in terms of K/D, but that’s not why we lost.”
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“If we won that Control, we [would have] won the event,” continued the two-time World Champion. “That shit literally destroyed us, and no one is bringing up the fact that I dropped a 1.5 [K/D] against Slasher and Octane on Arsenal? In my opinion, I would say that I could only kill ICR [players] this event, and struggled versus everyone else.”
OpTic Gaming’s defeat at the hands of 100 Thieves seemed to be the turning point of the tournament for them, with the team unable to recover from their disappointing loss, losing to back-to-back series as they were dumped out of the tournament by eUnited.
100 Thieves went on to win the event, taking a 3-1 victory over eUnited in the grand finals, securing a first major trophy for the organization and its owner, Matt ‘Nadeshot’ Haag.