On August 1, 2021, Minnesota RØKKR achieved one of the rarest feats in Call of Duty esports – a best-of-nine reverse sweep to take home the Call of Duty League Stage 5 Major title. In a new documentary by Dexerto, Dillon ‘Attach’ Price and Eli ‘Standy’ Bentz relive the greatest comeback in CoD history.
Down 0-4 in the Grand Final of the Call of Duty Stage 5 Major, it looked as though Minnesota RØKKR’s dream run was over. Making a Grand Final in a season their highest finish at a Major had been fourth was no small task. However, the glory was likely soured by the 5-0 sweep the Toronto Ultra was likely about to hand them.
But then it happened. Minnesota found a second wind and bounced back to take the series 5-4.
In a new documentary by Dexerto, ‘Behind CoD’s Greatest Comeback’, RØKKR players Standy and Attach relive the season-defining moment.
RØKKR heat up after a cold 2021
The 2021 season could have been better for Minnesota RØKKR. In the four majors prior to late July’s Stage 5, RØKKR cracked the top five once.
- Stage 1: 9th
- Stage 2: 4th
- Stage 3: 10th
- Stage 4: 6th
But coming into Stage 5, things were looking up. The team earned a third-place finish in the group stage, placing them in the Winner’s Bracket for the Major. However, that meant an opening match against the red-hot Atlanta FaZe, who RØKKR were 0-2 against in the season.
In the first shock of the Major, RØKKR prevailed 3-1, moving on to face the equally in-form Dallas Empire, who they were 2-4 against in 2021. And again, Minnesota won 3-1.
“We were feeling really good, we beat FaZe, the only team to beat them in not a game 5 the whole season,” Attach said. “And then we played Dallas, another team that had got second in the major before, beat them 3-1… so our confidence was at an all-time high.”
The win over Dallas catapulted RØKKR into the Winner’s Final, where they would face the Stage 2 champions, the Toronto Ultra. While RØKKR and Ultra considered each other rivals, dubbing their matches ‘The Battle for the North’, Toronto were undefeated through four matches against Minnesota.
But the streak would end as RØKKR stomped Ultra 3-0 to reach the Grand Final of the Stage 5 Major. However, the Ultra came looking for revenge as they beat OpTic Chicago in the Loser’s Final to set up the rematch with Minnesota.
The Final
“We didn’t get a warm-up before the finals because the other teams were out and they played OpTic in losers and we played against our coaches in a 3v3 raid so it wasn’t the best warm-up to get the comms and everything warmed up,” Attach explained.
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Toronto dominated the first map of the final, taking it by a score of 250-34.
The blows kept on coming for RØKKR, as they lost maps two and three in equally convincing fashion. While they were able to put up a fight on map four, the eventual loss meant the team was looking at a near-impossible situation.
“When you’re down that bad, you don’t have anything to lose, so we’re just like, ‘OK, let’s go out there and do our thing’, and we were really good at Miami SND and we were really confident, so we were like, ‘let’s go and do our thing, let’s take that one map, and then just go from there,'” Attach said.
RØKKR indeed showed their dominance on Miami, taking a hard-fought 6-3 victory.
“So we were taking a bathroom break, talking to each other, and we were like, ‘hey, it’s all good, let’s just have some fun, if we lose we lose, but hey, if we lose we’re going to lose going down hard,'” Standy said.
Ultra seemed helpless as RØKKR just kept on winning.
- Map 6 (Control on Garrison): 3-1 RØKKR
- Map 7 (SnD on Standoff): 6-2 RØKKR
- Map 8 (Hardpoint on Apocalypse): 250-165 RØKKR
The map eight win meant that the Grand Final was going somewhere few had thought possible an hour or so earlier – a deciding map nine. It would be SnD on Raid, which was a mixed situation for RØKKR. While they were 2-1 in SnD rounds in the Final, they were also 0-2 on Raid.
Standy opened the final round with a clutch double kill to give RØKKR the lead. He put them up 2-0 with a triple kill in round two. RØKKR extended their lead to 4-1 before allowing Ultra back into the game with two clutch rounds that put the score at 4-3. That would be the last time Ultra won in Stage 5 as another clutch double from Standy put RØKKR up 5-3 and then they were able to hold off the plant from Toronto’s Tobias ‘CleanX’ Jønsson to complete the impossible.
“It felt like we were in a movie… It was just the craziest rush ever… I felt like I was going to pass out after that, I was like, ‘oh God, I’ve got to sit down,'” Attach said after the win.
Standy, arguably the hero of map nine, was already looking ahead to the next moment.
“Everyone was just joking around with me, saying, ‘you’ve made a BO3 reverse sweep, a BO5 reverse sweep, a BO7 reverse sweep, now a BO9, now they’ve got to add BO11s and you’ve got to go down 0-5,'” Standy said. “And I was like, ‘that’s not good for my heart, but I’d be up for the challenge.’”
