Legendary Call of Duty pro and current OpTic Gaming star Damon ‘Karma’ Barlow has revealed that his team have made changes to their in-game roles as they prepare for the two biggest tournaments of the year.
CWL Finals and CWL Championships are the biggest tournaments of the 2019 Call of Duty calendar, and with the Pro League now concluded, teams are earnestly preparing in the hopes of making a deep run in these events.
While OpTic Gaming will undoubtedly be one of the favorites heading into CWL Finals, the team have decided to make a major role shift as they try to solidify their lineup ahead of the $1.25 million tournament.
While OpTic finished top of the Pro League’s Division A, the team have decided that Karma and teammate Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter will switch specialists, less than a month after Thomas ‘TJHaLy’ Haly revealed that he thought role changes were not the answer to their Hardpoint problems.
In the switch, Karma will take up a slower position in the team, using the ICR assault rifle and the Recon specialist. Crimsix will move back into a more aggressive role by playing with the Maddox and running Crash, whose TAK-5 special issue item will allow him to boost his squad’s health by 50 points each.
Karma confirmed on Twitter that Seth ‘Scump’ Abner will be using Battery and the War Machine for the remainder of the season, TJHaLy will switch to Ruin and run Grav Slam, and Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell will remain on Prophet with the Tempest tactical rifle.
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I was flying high when I should’ve been this all year pic.twitter.com/WVr4KkFCqu
— Damon B (@OpTic_DKarma) July 10, 2019
seth war, crim crash, teej ruin, brandon prophet
— Damon B (@OpTic_DKarma) July 10, 2019
While OpTic may have won their division in the CWL Pro League, their 2019 season overall has been a difficult one, with their sole tournament victory coming at CWL Las Vegas back in December.
Since then, 100 Thieves have staked their claim as Call of Duty’s top dogs, winning back-to-back tournaments in London and Anaheim, and positioning themselves as favorites heading into the summer’s big tournaments.
OpTic will be hoping that their major role switches will help them close the gap to teams like eUnited and 100T in a LAN tournament environment, but we’ll have to wait until July 19 at CWL Finals to see what effects these changes have.