The Toronto Ultra have proven that winning by the reverse sweep is a viable strategy; they defeated the London Royal Ravens by a score of 3-2 in the first match of the winner’s bracket at Major IV. Like their other wins in the Major IV qualifiers, this win was a reverse sweep. London won two close maps to start out the series but their inability to win a Control map gave the Ultra the momentum they needed to mount an impressive comeback.
Toronto now moves on in the winner’s bracket and plays the winner of the LA Thieves and Atlanta FaZe on Saturday. While the Ultra certainly wanted to win this match to move on in the major, this match earned them an extremely valuable 20 CDL Points. Toronto came into today with 160 points, which was only 15 points ahead of the eighth-place LA Guerrillas. With these 20 points, the Ultra has strengthened their spot in the top eight of the standings and looks like a strong contender to make the Champs bracket.
London falter against the Toronto Ultra
The first map to kick off this series was Tuscan Hardpoint; to sum it up, this was arguably the most intense Hardpoint map of the entire 2022 season. The two EU rosters went back and forth the entire map, with it all coming down to P2. It looked like Toronto was going to take a narrow victory until Joey “Gismo” Owen flew down from above to secure two kills and the map win at a score of 250-249.
NOW THAT'S HOW YOU START A MAJOR 🤯#6thRaven | #CDL2022 pic.twitter.com/aHWuc0zJR6
— Call of Duty League (@CODLeague) July 14, 2022
London continued their great play on Desert Siege Search and Destroy. While Toronto tried to mount a comeback, Marcus “Afro” Reid stopped them in their tracks. Afro finished with 14 kills in the map, bringing the game to a map three Control on Tuscan. The Ravens went 0-5 in Control during the qualifiers and they thought LAN could change their woes. Well, suffice to say, LAN changed nothing, as London continued to look terrible in Control.
This gave the Ultra all the momentum they could have asked for. The map four Hardpoint on Berlin was also close but Toronto led most of the way and cemented the win on P1. Cameron “Cammy” McKilligan finished with a 1.22 KD as the series went to a map five on Bocage S&D. Here, the Ultra employed their now-famous strategy of playing at a snail’s pace on the map.
London simply couldn’t figure out how to defend or attack Toronto. The Ultra picked off the Ravens players every round, culminating in a 6-2 win and the series victory. Ben “Bance” Bance finished with double-digit kills as the main entry man for the Ultra.
The @TorontoUltra put on a show in the theatre with a REVERSE SWEEP against the @RoyalRavens 😱#StrengthInTheNorth | #CDL2022 pic.twitter.com/aGRvFY2Bei
— Call of Duty League (@CODLeague) July 14, 2022
The Royal Ravens now drop to the loser’s bracket despite being the number one seed at Major IV. They’ll play the LA Guerrillas tomorrow, while the Toronto Ultra have a date with either the Thieves or FaZe.
Published: Jul 14, 2022 05:38 pm