Team Kaliber Are the Winners of CWL New Orleans Open 2018
Team Kaliber Are the Winners of CWL New Orleans Open 2018
The North American squad Team Kaliber has won their second CWL Open event in a row. In the grand finals they defeated Luminosity Gaming 3-1 ,receiving $80,000 in prize money and 25,000 qualifier points.
The tournament was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 12-14. The prize pool was set at $200,000. It featured three stages: open bracket, pool party and championship bracket.
In the open stage 256 teams from North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific competed in a double-elimination bracket with Bo3 and Bo5 matches. Lightning Pandas NA, GGEA Orange, Evil Geniuses and GGEA Blue placed top-4 in the winners bracket, thus qualifying for the pool party. Meanwhile EZG eSports, DooM Clan, InControl Gaming and Millennium secured their spots in championship bracket loser’s round 1 by placing top-4 in the losers bracket.
The pool party featured 20 teams: 10 from North America, 5 from Europe, 1 from Asia-Pacific region, as well as 4 teams which qualified from the open bracket. They were seeded into 4 groups of 5 teams. Two teams with the best results in each group advanced to the champions bracket winner’s round 1. The teams placed 3rd made it to the championship bracket loser's round 3. The teams placed 4th qualified for championship bracket loser's round 2, while the teams placed 5th advanced to championship bracket loser's round 1.
Pool Play
| Group A | Group B | ||||||
| Team | Series | Games | Team | Series | Games | ||
| 1 | Team Kaliber | 4-0 | 12-4 | 1 | OpTic Gaming | 4-0 | 12-1 |
| 2 | FaZe Clan | 2-2 | 7-9 | 2 | Evil Geniuses | 3-1 | 9-6 |
| 3 | UNILAD Esports | 2-2 | 9-10 | 3 | Team Envy | 1-3 | 7-9 |
| 4 | Mindfreak | 1-3 | 6-10 | 4 | Team Vitality | 1-3 | 6-11 |
| 5 | Lightning Pandas NA | 1-3 | 8-9 | 5 | Epsilon eSports | 1-3 | 3-10 |
| Group C | Group D | ||||||
| 1 | Luminosity Gaming | 4-0 | 12-3 | 1 | eUnited | 4-0 | 12-5 |
| 2 | Rise Nation | 3-1 | 11-4 | 2 | Echo Fox | 3-1 | 10-4 |
| 3 | Red Reserve EU | 2-2 | 6-8 | 3 | Splyce | 2-2 | 9-9 |
| 4 | GGEA Orange | 1-3 | 4-11 | 4 | compLexity Gaming | 1-3 | 6-9 |
| 5 | Enigma6 Group | 0-4 | 2-12 | 5 | GGEA Blue | 0-4 | 2-12 |
The championship bracket was held in a double-elimination format with best-of-five series. Team Kaliber and Luminosity Gaming placed first in their group, so they started their way to the grand finals from the winners bracket. They faced each other two times – the first match happened in the finals of the winners bracket and ended with a 3-1 score in favor of Team Kaliber. Luminosity dropped to the losers bracket, where defeated Rise Nation 3-2. The Grand Finals ended with the same result as the winners bracket finals – Team Kaliber outplayed Luminosity 3-1 and became the champions of their second CWL event in a row.
Tournament Results:
| Place | Pro Points | Prize | Team |
| 1st | 25,000 | $80,000 | Team Kaliber |
| 2nd | 15,000 | $48,000 | Luminosity Gaming |
| 3rd | 11,000 | $32,000 | Rise Nation |
| 4th | 9,000 | $16,000 | Red Reserve EU |
| 5th-6th | 8,000 | $8,000 | Echo Fox, eUnited |
| 7th-8th | 7,000 | $4,000 | FaZe Clan, Evil Geniuses |