Denial eSports

Denial eSports
Manager(s) Robby "Ringokid" Ringnalda (CEO)
Divisions Call of Duty
Halo
League of Legends
Smite
fighting games

Denial eSports, also referred to as the Wolf Pack, is a North American eSports organization, sponsoring multiple teams across various games such as Call of Duty, Halo, League of Legends, Smite and fighting games. The Denial Call off Duty team is the reigning world champion, having won the Call of Duty Championship 2015.

Call of Duty

2014

In the 2014 season of Call of Duty: Ghosts, Denial entered the scene with a 13-16th placement at UMG Philadelphia 2014[1] and an 8th-place finish out of eight teams at the Call of Duty Winter Invitational.[2] The Wolf Pack was disappointed with their past two placings and looked to make changes heading into the COD Champs season with a new plan involved, two teams. Denial would end up picking up two rosters to compete for them under the names Denial.West and Denial.East. However, neither of the teams qualified for COD Champs at the Call of Duty Championship 2014: US Regional Final. West finished with a 9-12th placing and East finished 13-16th, the teams were disbanded later on because they did not qualify.

Denial eSports would get their first true recognition when they entered Season 2 of the Major League Gaming CoD League in place of Erupt Gaming with a roster consisting of Tyree "LegaL" Glover, Brian "PRPLXD" Ladd, Hamza "VeXeD" Pirzada, and Tommy "ZooMaa" Paparratto. They would finish in 7th place with a 23-21 record. Their placement in the top 8 earned them a spot at the Season 2 Playoffs in Anaheim. They would go on to beat Curse Black 3-2, before they fell down into the loser's bracket after losing to XGAMES Champions, OpTic Gaming, 3-0. They were then eliminated by TCM Gaming 3-0 and placed 11th, but were able to hold their heads up high as OpTic and TCM would go on to place 2nd and 3rd at the event, respectively. After the event all of the players except ZooMaa, was released. They ended up putting together a roster that consisted of ZooMaa as captain, Replays, Saints, and StuDyy. Many people thought this team was a top 3 contender, but because of Saints being unable to travel outside of the U.S. the team would miss Gfinity 3. Their first event with the new squad would be UMG Dallas 2014, where the team dominated the competition with a map count of 15-3 to take home their first 1st place. Only a week later did the team attend a minor LAN event with Censor in place of Saints, and they took home another 1st-place finish at ETG 7.

They would not see success for the rest of the Call of Duty: Ghosts season as they placed 2nd, 6th, and 6th at UMG Nashville 2014, MLG CoD League Season 3 Regular Season, and S3 Playoffs. The team would however see their first roster change in five months immediately after the playoffs, as the would then release StuDyy to pick up another young rising star in Dillon "Attach" Price heading into the Advanced Warfare season. This was a change that many saw coming since Attach was one of the people ZooMaa originally wanted to pick up back in June, but could not due to contract issues.

2015

Heading into the Advanced Warfare season, the team was seeing immediate success in online tournaments, but then a change that shocked many happened. It was announced that Replays and recent pick up Attach were released. After a few days they were eventually picked back up with Denial's CEO and ZooMaa saying that they made a huge mistake and that Replays would be captain moving forward, many speculated that the plan was to pick up the legendary duo of ACHES and TeePee but that their plans fell through. On November 28, 2014, Denial headed to their first LAN event of AW in Columbus for the Columbus Open 25k. The Wolf Pack started the tournament off strong by winning their pool 4-0 with a map count of 12-3 winners bracket, but ended up losing 3-2 to Team EnVyUs in Winner's Bracket Round 1. The team fell down into round 4 of the loser's bracket, where they 3-1 and then 3-0 Automatic Reload and Team JusTus, respectively. Their loser's bracket run ended though as they lost 2-3 to eventual champions, FaZe Clan, to place 6th at the tournament. The teams struggles didn't end there though, after going home and recollecting themselves the team headed to UMG Orlando 2015. Here they finished pool play in 2nd with a 10-5 record and had to play Team Kaliber in the first round of the Winner's Bracket. tK proved to be little competition for them as the Wolf Pack won 3-0 and advanced to play the tournament's dark horse, Stunner Gaming. The team lost 3-0 and dropped down to the Loser's Bracket where they 3-2 and 3-1 Team eLevate and Team JusTus to advance to the Loser's Bracket Finals. Here Denial had to face off against Stunner Gaming once again, the results weren't very different though. Stunner won the series 3-1 and eliminated them from the tournament with a 3rd-place finish. The team improved on their 6th place placing, but were not satisfied with 3rd place because of the standards they set in the previous title.

Road To COD Champs

After a few weeks of playing in the MLG Pro League Season 1, Denial saw their first roster change since AW launched. ZooMaa and Saints showed interest in leaving the team and joining Team EnVyUs, the easiest way to do this through the league's rules was to trade them to nV for Clayster and JKap. The plan was for them to pick up JKap and for Clayster to join Prophecy, but after their performance against OpTic Gaming in a league match Clay decided to join the team. They finished Season 1 in 2nd place with a record of 29-15, this made Denial go in to S1 Playoffs confident with the #2 seed. The first round of the tournament brought the match that everyone wanted to see, Denial eSports vs Team EnVyUs. The Wolf Pack however lost the series 1-3 to ZooMaa's and Saint's nV to drop down to the Loser's Bracket. That loss lit a fire inside the players of the Denial as they climbed their way through the Loser's Bracket by winning series 3-1, 3-2, 3-1, and 3-0 against Prophecy, Aware.NA, FaZe Clan, and Team Kaliber to advanced to the Grand Finals to play OpTic Gaming. The GreenWall held their ground as they beat the Wolf Pack 3-0, this marked their first top 2 placement in AW and since UMG Nashville 2014.

After Denial qualified for the Call of Duty Championship 2015: NA Regional Finals through the online qualifiers they went in once again confident, but had issues on Friday with one of their players. Clayster ended up arriving late to the tournament due to car troubles so their match against Aztec Gaming was pushed back, but that didn't stop them from beating the Mexican team 3-0 before falling down to Loser's Bracket after being beaten by Team Revenge 3-0. They ended up making a long run through the Loser's Bracket by beating teams such as XGN, Rise, Prophecy, and tK by winning the series 3-0, 3-1, 3-0, and 3-1. Their next opponent that stood in their way of a top 4 placement was Team Revenge, this time tR was dismantled by Denial as they ended up losing the series 0-3 to the Wolf Pack. After another rough start Denial eSports was looking at another top 3 placement but didn't stop there as they beat both OpTic Nation and FaZe Red 3-1 to advance to the Grand Finals to play the reigning champions again, OpTic Gaming. OG once again bested Denial as they beat them 3-0, giving Denial eSports back-to-back 2nd-place finishes.

Heading in to the biggest tournament of the year, Call of Duty Championship 2015, Denial eSports went in confident with the #2 seed and well practiced. They were placed in Pool B with Prophecy, HyperGames, and Klar1ty Gaming where they finished 2nd with a 8-3 map count. Their only loss was to Prophecy, where they lost 2-3 in a lackluster game 5 Search and Destroy (SnD).[3] However, the team bounced back strong and looked forward to bracket play where their first match was against tournament favorites and reining champs, OpTic Gaming. This time Clayster led the Wolf Pack through the GreenWall as they crushed OG in all gamemodes (besides the Uplink) to send the tournament favorites down in to the Loser's Bracket. After causing the biggest upset of the event in the very first round Denial powered through the rest of the bracket by crushing Team Kaliber and Automatic Reload. This got them to the Winner's Bracket Finals against the event's wildcard team, Team Revenge. This time neither team had the advantage over the other as both teams fought hard, but in the end Denial came out on top as they beat tR 3-2 to advance to the Grand Finals of COD Champs. Denial sat back and watched the Loser's Bracket Finals to see what team they'd play in the Finals. Revenge ended up bouncing back to the Finals to face the Wolf Pack. Clayster ended up leading the team through another hard fought series against tR, but Denial ended up killing the last man alive on tR, Faccento, while Attach defused the bomb in game 5, round 10 on Riot Search and Destroy to take the tournament.[4] Denial eSports took home the biggest tournament of the year, the $400,000 check and the rings and Clayster took home the COD Champs MVP trophy.[5][6]

The Fall of The World Champions

The Wolf Pack would then go back home to play more league matches in Season 2 of the MLG Pro League before heading out to Paris to defend their newly earned title. At ESWC Zénith 2015 Denial would go 2-1 in group play, only dropping a series to OpTic Gaming on last map. In their first match of bracket play they had to once again play Team Revenge, this series ended up going the distance as the Wolf Pack clutched up on Recovery Search and Destroy in round 11 to advance to another Grand Finals. Here they would face the GreenWall once again in another finals, this time OpTic bested Denial as they won the series 3-1. Denial walked away with another $10,000 and another 2nd-place finish, they would get a shot at redemption one week later in London at Gfinity's Spring Masters 1. After making it out of the Winner's bracket side of their pool, Denial would fall to OpTic Nation in the first round of the Knockout Stage. This meant that they placed 5-8, out of the money and the organization's worst placing in Advanced Warfare. The team then headed back to the states after a disappointing trip over seas, they missed UMG California due to Attach going to his high school prom.

The Wolf Pack finished out Season 2 of the online league in 3rd place with a 27-17 match record, same as 2nd place team FaZe. Next event was the MLG Pro League Season 2 Playoffs at this year's summer X Games Austin 2015 in Austin, Texas. Clayster tried to defend the title and win back-to-back gold medals, but wasn't able to as the team fell to FaZe Clan in the second round of bracket play after beating Rise Nation in a dominating fashion. This was the final straw though because following the event the team underwent numerous roster changes, the first being the release of team captain, Replays, and JKap.[7] This left the new captain, Clayster, and Attach looking for two players to play under Denial eSports. After some time passed, Clayster and Attach left the team to join FaZe Clan. Clayster shared his side of the story in a YouTube video, he stated that Replays and JKap offered to step down from the team so him and Attach tried picking up ZooMaa from FaZe and then look for another 4th. ZooMaa turned them down instantly so then they approached SlasheR and Huke, also from FaZe. After those two players considered the offer, Enable and ZooMaa offered Clay and Attach a spot in FaZe, which they ended up taking. This left Denial looking for a new roster.[8]

Denial was unable to find a roster in time for the Call of Duty World League, and thus missed out on qualifying for the event.

Ex-Infinity Ward development lead Robert Bowling bought the team on January 14, 2016.[9]

Tournament results

2014

2015

Roster

Former

ID Name Role Joined Left
ASM1chaelzZ Michael Hanssens Slayer March 2011 June 2014
Clayster James Eubanks Slayer ? June 2015

Heroes of Newerth

Denial's Heroes of Newerth squad got 2nd at DreamHack Winter 2013 with a squad of Pontus "Zlapped" Mähler, David "Probusk" Busk, Dennis "Flensmeister" Brofalk, Micke "m`ICKe" Nguyen, Son "VnSensation" Nguyen.

References

  1. ↑ "UMG Philly Results". ReadyUp Gaming. Retrieved January 9, 2016.
  2. ↑ "MLG Winter Invitational 2014 CODGhosts". Millenium. February 8, 2016. Retrieved January 9, 2016.
  3. ↑ Pitcher, Jenna (March 30, 2015). "Denial Victorious in Call Of Duty Championship 2015 Grand Final". Retrieved January 9, 2016.
  4. ↑ Heaney, James (March 30, 2015). "Denial eSports Takes the CoD Championships". The Escapist. Retrieved January 9, 2016.
  5. ↑ Lemne, Bengt (March 30, 2015). "Denial eSports wins Call of Duty Championship 2015". GameReactor. Retrieved January 9, 2016.
  6. ↑ Duwe, Scott (30 March 2015). "CoD Champs 2015: Denial eSports Wins It All". Red Bull eSports.
  7. ↑ "Replays et JKap quittent Denial eSports". June 17, 2015. Retrieved January 9, 2016.
  8. ↑ Deason, Ross (June 17, 2015). "Denial eSports Loses COD Roster". L33t Magazine. Aller Media. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
  9. ↑ MINOTTI, MIKE (January 14, 2016). "Ex-Call of Duty developer acquires Denial esports team '". VentureBeat.
Preceded by
compLexity Gaming		 Call of Duty Championship winner
2015 		Succeeded by
to be determined

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