New York Subliners take down OpTic Texas to remain undefeated

The miracle run for the New York Subliners remains afloat; the Subliners had arguably their toughest test of the CDL Major IV qualifiers today against OpTic Texas. OpTic might be getting back into their rhythm with Indervir “iLLeY” Dhaliwal, but they’re still a strong team. Today, though, New York looked considerably stronger than Texas in almost every way; in fact, NYSL is playing better than they have all year, and this jolt couldn’t have come sooner.

Coming into today, New York was sitting at 100 CDL Points, still only good for 11th in the standings. However, they were only 20 points behind both Florida and Minnesota; with their win today, the Subliners are now only 10 points behind them. Just as well, NYSL is now just 20 points behind current eighth-place team, the LA Thieves. In order to make the CDL Champs bracket, teams need to be in the top eight after Major IV. Before the qualifiers began, no one gave NYSL much of a shot, as they were only at 70 points for the season. Their recent 4-0 run so far certainly has people changing that narrative, though.

Aside from a horrid Search and Destroy performance, New York dominated OpTic Texas. The map one Hardpoint on Bocage wasn’t too close for most of the match and the map four Hardpoint on Berlin was even more dominant. OpTic never held the lead for long on either Bocage or Berlin, as Paul “PaulEhx” Avila and Paco “HyDra” Rusiewiez dominated throughout the maps.

Hello @francediplo_EN, we are once again asking for a visa extension. ✈@HyDrAnml | #StandClear pic.twitter.com/ZYhTKkgx6A

— Subliners (@Subliners) July 3, 2022

Perhaps the most interesting part of the entire match was the Control. OpTic has seemingly lost all of their prowess in the mode, as they simply can’t win a Control map anymore. Yesterday, they lost to Paris on their best map, Tuscan, and today they lost 3-0 on Berlin, their second-best. Texas’ Control woes could be their ultimate doom come Major IV and Champs. In previous stages, OpTic relied on the mode heavily and since they started struggling in Control, they’ve lost more matches than ever.

The New York Subliners have a real shot to win their own major event in two weeks, as they now sit at 4-0 and are guaranteed a top seed. However, if they can’t make a deep run at Major IV, all of this winning in the qualifiers could be for naught. As for OpTic, they need to salvage their qualifiers against the Toronto Ultra next weekend; especially if they want any semblance of confidence heading into the major. Perhaps more time with iLLeY will solve some of OpTic’s recent struggles.