Sometimes I Think They’re Hate-watching

The prospect of winning an unprecedented hat-trick is upon us. OpTic Texas are a handful of games away from winning three consecutive Call of Duty World Championships, and Brandon “Dashy” Otell would join the illustrious three-ring club.

Sitting pretty in the upper bracket final, with a match against FaZe on the horizon to secure a top-two finish at the bare minimum, there’s still a lot of Call of Duty to be played before they can be immortalised as potentially the greatest roster of all time.

But the scripts are already being written, and for Dashy, that means he could equal or surpass the legacies of his mentors in Matthew “FormaL” Piper and Damon “Karma” Barlow.

Ahead of the final two days of Champs, we spoke to Dashy about OpTic’s Search and Destroy fragilities, the MVP discussion, and whether he’s told his OpTic family that the padawan is the master now.

So first off, yeah, congratulations on another good series versus Gentle Mates. How did that feel out there?

Dashy: Insane. I mean, it never gets old, especially playing at Champs. The atmosphere, the energy from both teams, the preparation, there’s really nothing like it. It’s really the pinnacle of COD, and it’s a blast being out there.

Jack: Colossus HP seemed to be another staple for you guys again, but a bit of a mixed Search and Destroy session. As the old trope goes, SnD wins championships. Are you confident that your search is good enough to avoid getting Neslo’d going into the deeper stages of the tournament?

Dashy: That’s definitely been the focus point for sure. It’s the SnD’s, a little bit of the overload, especially against matchups like Thieves, in particular. But we’ve definitely put in a lot more time, a lot more preparation into those two game modes. Our Hardpoint is still going to be good – we’re still going to play it every day, we’re still going to put the same level of attention to detail – but still, those are the two game modes as SnD does win Championships. It’s a cliché, but it really is true.

That’s another clinical upper bracket route so far, carrying on that incredible run that you’ve had all year. But the one we did see you win was with that lower bracket ‘buff’. Are you confident that now you’ve broken that little curse and you’d be able to go through the winner’s bracket here?

Dashy: It definitely feels better that we kind of got our own revenge, I guess you could say, in the last event. But Champs is unique. It’s a little different. The series is just one on Sunday. It’s not like you’re waiting backstage all day – three hours go by, and then now you’re playing a red hot team. Both teams are neutral, and then it’s just the best team that wins on the day. It was nice to get one, though. For sure.

Jack: With LA Thieves out now, who do you kind of see as your biggest threat? I

Dashy: The easy answer is FaZe. Either one of us or FaZe is guaranteed to get to the finals; it’s just a matter of who the third team is. To be honest, our focus is just on FaZe. You really don’t know who you’re going to play in CoD. One day, the best team loses, and the worst team becomes the best team ever. We’ll just see what happens tomorrow.

Jack: I don’t know if you’ve been able to hear it with the headsets on, but you’ve been getting a lot of MVP shouts throughout the event. Do you think you kind of should have maybe won the season MVP?

Dashy: It’s tough to say. I’m a little biased. Obviously, I think I should have won it, but I actually do believe that somebody on our team should have won it. It could have been me, could have been Mason [Mercules], Cuyler [Huke], Ant [Shotzzy]. It didn’t really matter, but I just thought the season we had, it was a historical season.

I don’t know if any team, at least in the CDL era, has gone to every single final in a year. Then we ended up winning the biggest one. Consistent all year, 40 wins, top of the league, could have been every Major. This sounds insane, just saying it out loud, but I actually genuinely believe that it could have gone to any of us four – and I think it should have. But, you know, end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just something that the fans love to talk about, but our focus is on winning.

Read More – “I should have been on the first team” – Simp on All-Stars, Honeymoon Falcons, and SnD Preperations

Jack: Finally, OpTic has got such a storied team of creators and legends. Have you had the uncomfortable conversations with Karma and Formal to see where your legacy stacks up against them if you win here?

Dashy: Sometimes I think they’re hate-watching. Nah, nah, I’m just joking. They’re actually unreal. They always help out. They give advice whenever they see something that we could do better; they’re always supportive. Even seeing Crim today, he’s got so much aura on the desk, so he’s doing his thing out there, especially with racing. But I mean, we got Damon as a coach, so we got to talk to one of the four [dynasty players] every day. I still see Seth pretty much every other day of the week, and obviously talk to him a lot.

I don’t know who decides all that, but [FormaL] said that if you win this one, I’ll give it to you.

What if I already had him? But, nah, we actually have a good bond.