Empire ‘pissed’ with Major V exit after loss to OpTic in fans’ return at Esports Stadium Arlington

August 2, 2021 f_admin Esports News 0

ARLINGTON –– The Dallas Empire may have been less than 20 miles from their downtown home base this weekend at the Call of Duty League’s Major V, but they were far from home.

The Empire bowed out of the championship Sunday after a 3-1 loss to an OpTic Chicago team that was backed by a rowdy crowd. The Empire were crushed in the respawn modes, with OpTic dominating both hardpoint maps in the series.

“We are definitely pissed,” Empire star Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro said. “We want to get back to work as soon as possible to fix what we lacked this entire weekend. We know exactly what our mistakes were, and have to capitalize on this weekend.”

Call of Duty followers had to wait 510 days to see their favorite professional players and teams battle it out on the stage. OpTic has notably traveled across the country to play in front of a home crowd no matter the location through the team’s history.

Sunday was no different, with OpTic flooding the 1,600 strong at Esports Stadium Arlington.

Dallas was never going to get the building on its side even if plenty of Empire jerseys filing into the arena. What was worse for Dallas was that the gameplay hardly showed up either.

Chicago broke the gates open in a 250-86 hardpoint win over Moscow, with OpTic star Matthew “FormaL” Piper getting the audience buzzing after a hot start.

While crowd was noticed on the broadcast, the players have noise-canceling headsets, and don’t hear much but each other during the matches.

“As a player you can always see and feel those things, but the guys are really good at canceling it out,” Empire head coach Ray “Rambo” Lussier said. ‘I don’t think the crowd affected us in any way. Most of these guys have been in this position before.”

Ian “Crimsix” Porter was frustrated with the lack of team play in this chat with The Dallas Morning News Saturday evening. The Empire outlasted the Los Angeles Thieves, but because of individual heroics instead of the elusive teamplay Porter wanted.

Porter echoed that same sentiment in a post-match tweet he wrote on a smoke break outside the arena. He later revealed that the week was difficult before matches began.

It’s not a great time to play the “worst CoD” in months. The Empire spent most of their season making roster moves and adjusting to mistakes to get back into title contention. Falling to Minnesota and Chicago at the last major before Champs would signal regression.

“I just feel like we played the way we know how to play this weekend, so I don’t want to look too deep into it,” Lussier said. “It’s not like everyone forgot how to play randomly. What we really want to patch up is how we react to certain situations that are dire.”

The Empire didn’t get the No. 2 seed for Champs, which starts Aug. 19 in Los Angeles, but still have a top-three seed. What the Empire have to worry about most is their team work. Lussier has said after most losses that the Empire don’t carry over what they learn from practice into matches.

Dallas has the better part of two and a half weeks to fix the holes in the armor. It can be expected that teams like Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago and Minnesota will be in top form — that doesn’t include any potential dark horse.

The Empire were playing their best Call of Duty of the season a month ago. Now they are recovering their fundamentals.

Lussier, often quick to compare Call of Duty to traditional sports, went with basketball this time.

“They always run plays without the ball and make you run the play a million times to make sure its instinctive to where you don’t even have to think, it’s just going to happen,” Lussier said. “It’s about getting ourselves to feel that way about everything going into champs.”

That’s how the Empire felt last season. To be honest, Lussier added, it’s how he felt about the Empire going into Major V.

1/21Fans react after the Seattle Surge defeated the Atlanta FaZe during the Call of Duty League Major V tournament at Esports Stadium Arlington on Saturday, July 31, 2021, in Arlington. (Elias Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News)(Elias Valverde II / Staff Photographer)

Find more Empire coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

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