New attendance record at CDL Major 3: Toronto wins

New attendance record at CDL Major 3: Toronto wins

14. March 2023 by Andrew Williams

Toronto Ultra takes the CDL Major 3 championship after stopping OpTic’s dream run. It’s the first Major in two seasons for Toronto. Claiming a 4:2 win versus their opponents OpTic Texas and taking home their second CDL Major title! At the same time, a new record for viewership was set!

New Viewership record

The Grand Final was watched by so many fans, it broke the previous record! With the highest viewership being 333,277 concurrent people!

The fact that OpTic Texas was the host and at the same time also played in the final against Toronto Ultra probably played a role as the Esports Stadium Arlington was the venue for the third Call of Duty League Major 2023.

Thrilling final

After OpTic picked up nine Hardpoint wins in a row, Toronto finally put this Series to bed at Hotel Hardpoint. After some back and forth in the early stages, the Ultras quickly took the lead and never relinquished it. Toronto had an incredible plus 30 hits on the Map, thanks to 53 combined kills from Tobias “CleanX” Jønsson and Charlie “Hicksy” Hicks. They won the map 250-152 to take a 1-0 lead in the Series. Switching to Search and Destroy on Fortress, OpTic made sure the disastrous first map was quickly forgotten. They built a massive 5-0 lead, but Toronto refused to be shaken off.

The Ultras were able to secure three rounds in a row to cut the deficit on the map to 5-3. Texas finally prevailed when Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro and Brandon “Dashy” Otell won a 2v2 with the bomb. With that win, both teams had each won a map in the best-of-seven series.

Back and forth match

The match continued on the third Map, Hotel. Toronto got off to a strong start, going on the offensive against OpTic in the very first round. Texas replied with their own round win and got a consecutive defense round win to make it 2:1. The Ultras had an easier time in the second defensive round, allowing only one point to OpTic.

With this defensive performance, Toronto got a defensive round and could have decided the map. But Texas had no trouble winning their second offensive round. Toronto was unable to stop their B-stack so OpTic took the map and made it 2:1! Daniel “Ghosty” Rothe was the absolute MVP on this map, making it a 28-15 stat line in the win.

Toronto wins the Major

Going back to hardpoint the Ultras took the map by storm, maintaining full control all the time and preventing OpTic to get back into the game. Next up was Search and Destroy on Hotel. The green wall started off strong and was up 4:1 at one point.

But Toronto kept playing catch-up and found themselves in a four-on-one advantage after the 11th round. Shotzzy had no chance in this situation and the Canadian Org only needed one more map to get their second Major title. The Series went back to Control, the map was El Asilo. Toronto was a round ahead when they found a gap that brought about the decisive win.