After suffering a humiliating loss at the hands of Atlanta FaZe, the OpTic Chicago players were left reeling as it turned out they were playing on the wrong server, giving FaZe a huge advantage.
While the Call of Duty League has been online for over a year now, there still seems to be a lot of debate over how to make games fair for everyone playing — but they seem to have hit a pretty serious snag in the FaZe vs OpTic Stage 3 matchup.
While for the most part, the games have run incredibly smoothly, this monumental matchup was apparently put on the wrong server, at the serious cost of OpTic’s ability to play on a level field.
While teams get to choose which servers they play on to make it fair for everyone, the players are alleging that a “typo” in an email caused this high-stakes matchup to be played on the Atlanta server — home of the FaZe team.
According to Envoy, the OpTic vs FaZe match was played on the wrong server due to a typo 😬 https://t.co/Pu8hK4Ul1Y
— Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) May 9, 2021
While OpTic were absolutely dominated by their Atlanta rivals, this definitely raises questions over the all-important CDL series, which had serious ramifications for both teams.
Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell tweeted after the match that they “got finessed in broad daylight” for a chance to make the winner’s bracket of the Stage 3 Major.
Got finessed in broad daylight that ref is probably dapping up Banks & the boys throwing the FaZe up rn
— brandon (@DashySZN) May 9, 2021
Dylan ‘Envoy’ Hannon also tweeted saying that it happened due to “a typo in an email,” adding that it’s not why they lost but is “f**king unacceptable.”
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Just got told the CDL Host selected the wrong server in our match because of a typo in a email. 1000% not why we lost but that is un fucking acceptable.
— Ultra Envoy (@DylanEnvoy) May 9, 2021
Other pros baffled
It wasn’t just the OpTic players mindblown at the server ordeal, either. Seattle Surge’s Sam ‘Octane’ Larew questioned how the ref of the match didn’t see any issue with Atlanta FaZe loading into an Atlanta server against a team based in Texas.
No way the guy loading up the Atlanta server saw FaZe in the lobby and thought to himself yeah this is right
— Sam “Octane” Larew (@OctaneSam) May 9, 2021
Taking to Reddit, JKap explained how the server picks usually work, saying “I saw that match was gonna be on ATL plus someone had told me that OpTic hated the STL server so much that they agreed to the ATL one.” Upon realizing the League actually messed up, he’s clearly as confused as everyone else.
As a result of Atlanta’s 3-0 win over Chicago, the OpTic side will start in the loser’s bracket at the Major. While questions can be raised over the server ordeal, they looked completely out of place in all three maps, ping-related issues or not.
They’ll be hoping to tighten things up at the Stage 3 Major, with a $500k prize pool, CDL points, and a whole lot of glory on the line.