OpTic Gaming defended their Call of Duty title at the Esports World Cup, beating Team Heretics 5-3 in the Paris grand final. The win made the Green Wall back-to-back Esports World Cup champions, having taken the previous title in Black Ops 6 and adding Black Ops 7 to their collection, Dot Esports reported.
Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro was the tournament's standout, finishing with 655 kills across all series as OpTic's primary slayer.
OpTic's path through the bracket
OpTic opened the group stage against Challengers roster Project Notorious, then swept FaZe Clan 4-0 in the quarter-final, winning Scar Hardpoint 250-197, Gridlock Search and Destroy 6-3, Scar Overload 6-4 and Frequency Hardpoint 250-94.
The semi-final against 100 Thieves went the distance. OpTic dropped the first two maps — Scar Hardpoint 250-129 and Den Search and Destroy 6-5 — before winning three straight for a 3-2 lead. 100 Thieves levelled the series on Scar Overload, forcing a seventh map, and OpTic closed it out on Sake Search and Destroy 6-2. Shotzzy delivered a round-three ace in that deciding map.
Team Heretics arrived in the best-of-nine final without dropping a map, having swept Team Falcons 4-0 in the other semi-final.
The final and the prize money
Two moments from Shotzzy defined the decider. On Frequency Hardpoint he took out two Heretics players with a single frag grenade before cleaning up a third, halting a back-and-forth exchange and letting OpTic build an unassailable run on the next objective. Later, on Den Overload, with OpTic holding a spawn trap and two minutes left, Heretics broke free and eliminated three OpTic players; Shotzzy answered with two instant kills, including a sliding headshot, and dispatched a third.
The victory was worth $600,000 and 1,000 Esports World Cup club points to OpTic. Heretics took $320,000 and 750 points as runners-up. In the third-place match, 100 Thieves fell 3-0 behind Team Falcons before winning four straight maps to claim bronze 4-3, earning $210,000 and 500 club points.
The points leave Team Falcons second in the wider club standings on 2,900, behind AG.AL International on 3,350. OpTic's next Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 outing comes in the CDL season's upcoming stages as teams regroup after the Esports World Cup break.
