The road to the Call of Duty Championships that took place between Friday and Sunday was long and filled with bitter rivalries. From the build up of the Champions Series Season 3 across all of February, to preliminary tournaments in March like the MLG Winter Championship and the ESL Championship, the world’s most popular military first-person shooter gripped the growing, rabid fan base of competitive gaming. At the close of competition, with the $1 million in prizes ponied up by Activision, the team Fariko Impact came out on top.
Fariko dominated through the first three rounds of the tournament, handily putting down competing teams Epsilon, Optic Gaming, and Complexity before facing off against EnVyUs. The last time Fariko Impact took on EnVyUs was in the first round of the MLG Winter Championship when Fariko literally shut out the team in a 3-0 match up. EnVyUs came to the Call of Duty Championships thirsty for revenge though, pushing Fariko Impact into a tie-breaker. Fariko came out on top, but just barely, squeaking out a 6-5 win to take home the grand prize of $400,000. EnVyUs walked away with $200,000
The team consists of American players Adam “Killa” Sloss, Chris “Parasite” Duarte, “MiRx,” and Canadian Damon “Karma” Barlow, a smaller group of the larger Fariko Gaming group which dominates the competitive Call of Duty world. Their team manager is Aaron “Jergin” Ryan. Since forming a few years ago, Fariko Impact has been a rising star in 2013, taking away the championship at the EGL 9 competition in the UK on March 31, as well as the MLG Winter Championship in Dallas.
Some of the teams that Fariko felled in early rounds actually have storied histories in the Call of Duty Championships. Optic Gaming, another team of American players, were actually the champions at the Call of Duty Championships back in September 2011 when they beat out the UK team Infinity in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Infinity didn’t participate in this year’s competition.
