eUnited Call of Duty Ready To Shine at CWL Pro League Playoffs

By: Zachary Lange

When eUnited takes the stage at the Miami Beach Convention Center beginning Saturday near beautiful downtown Miami, they’ll be looking to cap off the weekend by earning what has been evading the squad since the start of the Black Ops 4 competitive cycle – a championship.

The quintet has come close twice, earning a pair of runner-up finishes at CWL Las Vegas and CWL London, but could potentially have the best odds this weekend when the CWL Pro League concludes with the Pro League Playoffs.

In preparation for this weekend’s event, the team traveled to Texas to participate in scrimmages against OpTic Gaming, FaZe Clan and Gen.G, three of the top seeds in the playoffs.

“Going into this event one of the main focuses was Search and Destroy,” said coach Brice “Faccento” Faccento. “Recently it’s been our worst game mode and that needed to change. The boot camp was (also) to clean up any remaining respawn issues.”

Despite some hiccups throughout the event portion of the schedule this season, primarily before the arrival of Chris "Simp" Lehr, the team has been rock steady during pro league play at MLG Studios in Columbus, Ohio. Through the regular season, the team amassed an impressive 18-4 record en route to earning the first overall seed for this weekend’s event.

The road to earn a bye into Saturday’s portion of match play was not easy, however, with crucial victories coming along the way.

Cutting it close against 100 Thieves

During Week 3, eUnited opened Division B with a 3-1 record concluding with a crucial match against 100 Thieves. The team wouldn’t know it at the time, but this match is one of two victories versus the Thieves that set them apart from the opposition in Division B.

With Game 5 heading down to the wire, it was Tyler “aBeZy” Pharris that picked up a clean trio of kills on Frequency Search and Destroy to earn eUnited the match win.

A baker’s half dozen, 7-0 streak in Week’s 9 and 10

With a comfortable gap in the playoff race to fourth place, the team could have allowed complacency to creep in during the closing two-week period of play in Division B.

Instead, the squad rattled off seven straight wins, earning wins against each competitor in the division to take a vice grip of first place in the standings. Of the seven wins, three went to a deciding Game 5, including a divisional finale against Team Heretics.

Despite losing the opening game of the season back in the opening week of play, the team exacted revenge on the Spaniards to close out Week 10. A well-executed defensive call by eUnited also on Frequency during a Game 5 Search and Destroy closed out the series, with Simp providing a double-digit kill performance to lead the squad and close out a perfect pair of weeks.

Playing odds with the play-in bracket

As a result of securing the a first-round bye in the playoffs, eUnited will take a day off on Friday to allow the play-in qualifier to sort itself and determine their first opponent. Team Reciprocity is slated to play the winner of the eight-team preliminary bracket.

Despite not officially knowing who their opposition will be to begin playoffs, the team will have an eye out for the winner of Gen.G and Splyce, who eUnited would face with an opening round victory.

By the numbers

All statistics used are from match play in the CWL Pro League and are courtesy of CoDStats.gg.

.652- eUnited’s overall map win percentage in pro league play? 65.2%. At 60-32 across all three game modes, the spread among game wins broken down shows an interesting knack for consistency. How consistent? Each win percentage only deviates by a mere 3% on average, with Hardpoint at 24-14 (63%), Control at 15-7 (68%) and Search and Destroy at 21-11 (66%) respectively.

No other pro league team can claim win percentages across all three game types above 54%. This level of steady play easily translates to more wins.

1.36- Simp’s kill-death ratio in Search and Destroy. It’s no secret that Simp’s abilities as a Saug submachine gun player alongside aBeZy have allowed eUnited to close out crucial series in the pro league and at events, especially in Game 5 moments.

The pair of aBeZy and Simp average a combined 1.83 engagements per round of Search. With the duo displaying high levels of teamwork and cooperation, they share a combined kill-death ratio of 1.27.

Both their engagements and kill-death ratios rank in the top-12 in the pro league.

$500,000- Lets keep it simple on this one. A half-million dollars is allocated for the winner of the playoffs, with a total prize pool of $1.25 million spread across 10 teams.

How to watch

As always, broadcasting of CWL play can be found on the official Call of Duty Twitch channel, as well as MLG.tv.

With eUnited off until Saturday, a detailed breakdown of the schedule ahead is TBD.

One member of eUnited will be on mainstage Friday, however, as Simp is set to participate in the Miami All-Star Game, his first ever All-Star appearance. The All-Star Game is scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern.