This past Monday Pandemic brought to an end a successful year of Call of Duty, finishing right where they started, on top. The team's long and successful road in CoD4 would start only weeks after the release of the game when Xfire hosted their First Strike 4v4 tournament featuring over 100 competing teams. While there were numerous rule changes and issues to work through with a young game, Pandemic stayed ahead of curve, adapting well to the changing competitive scene as they slowly but surely made their way to the top. A finals match against The Doctors, now EG, solidified Pandemic their first CoD4 championship in what would only become the biggest rivalry in North America.
As a final competitive ruleset began to emerge Pandemic found themselves competing in a plethora of online events including TGL, FGL and CEVO. In all three inaugural CoD4 events, the team found themselves cruising through the competition to the top. Three more finals matches would yield another championship in TGL's Last Stand tournament as well as FGL's first season and a narrow 2nd place finish behind Guardian's in CEVO's Finish the Fight tournament.
With the introductory events out of the way, Pandemic shifted to focusing on the big picture upcoming LAN events as well as TGL & CEVO's first official seasons. It would be through these events the rivalry bewteen Team EG emerged as Pandemic would fall second fiddle to their Canadian counterparts in two narrow finals matches during CEVO-P, TGL-P, and NERV LAN #2 after an early exit at the first NERV LAN event. With the announcement of three major European LAN events three weekends in a row Pandemic buckled down for three weeks in preparation for their first crack at European competition.
The team's first event would be the Antwerp Esports Festival in Antwerp, Belgium where the majority of European commentators and players wrote Pandemic off finishing 6th with some not even thinking the Americans would land in the top 10. After a long delay for the group stage matches Pandemic solidified their position in the final double elimination bracket and didn't look back as they began tearing through the likes of SK, MYM and Dignitas to make it to the grand finals. There, Pandemic would face KomaCrew, the only team to win more then six rounds against Pandemic on both Crossfire and Crash. KomaCrew quickly pulled out a convincing victory on Crossfire, a map Pandemic had avoided throughout the tournament, however, once the map switched to Crash it was Pandemic in total control as outstanding individual play coupled with excellent teamwork would give Pandemic their first international championship and prove the impossible quite possible indeed.
The following weekend the team landed in Roskilde, Denmark for The eXperience event, this time, with the whole community watching with anticipation of a potential repeat performance. The tournament started off strong as Pandemic looked flawless winning their first few matches with ease, however, the long days and hot tournament venue would get the better of the team as they would eventually fall to LowLandLions in the upper bracket finals and then again to EG in the consolation finals, sending them home with the bronze medal.
Back on American soil, the team took a few weeks break after an exciting summer as the second season of CEVO kicked into full motion. Pandemic found themselves in an uphill battle, however, fighting personal conflicts and activity to end the regular season with a less then desirable 10-5 record and the 4th seed heading into playoffs. The team would rise to occasion, however, as they stormed past a 50 Calibre team would defeated them only weeks ago.
In their next match Pandemic would find themselves in an all to familiar situation, EG on Strike. This time, however, Pandemic came prepared for victory as they slowly but surely pulled out a lead and defeated the undefeated #1 seed in EG. With seemingly their hardest match out of the way, Pandemic finished their run through the upper bracket with a convincing win over MoB to advance to the CEVO-P finals for a second time.
Unlike season one, however, Pandemic would find themselves against a MoB team hot off an impressive victory over EG. The first map Backlot, Pandemic's pick would be an intense rollercoster as Pandemic and MoB battle back and forth within the first half, desperate to not let one another gain any major lead. Fortunately, Pandemic's Keith “kzu” Hullenaar picked up an impressive clutch in the final round of the half to give Pandemic a narrow 7-5 lead heading onto defense. Here, Pandemic would swing into full gear winning round after round to eventually bring the score to 12-7 in their favor. MoB would not be shutout, however, as they mounted an impressive six round comeback to bring the match into the final round where Pandemic managed to squeeze out a 13-11 victory.
The second map of the best of three series would be Strike, MoB's map choice. With a victory in the knife round Pandemic took to the offensive side, running havoc on MoB's defense and going up an impressive 6 rounds to none. Again, however, MoB would not be silenced as they mounted another comeback before Joe “nabore” Amorosa clutched the final round of the half to once again give Pandemic a narrow 7-5 lead. This time, Pandemic would be sure to not let MoB make a comeback as huge play from Justin “prank” DeMara closed the match 13-9 in Pandemic's favor and handed them the $3250.00 cash prize.
While some might say CoD4 had a very short window of opportunity to become a great competitive game, in the year's worth of competitions, Pandemic managed to find themselves in more championships then any other single team. Be sure to stay tuned to TeamPandemic.net for the release of Call of Duty: World at War and it's potential competitive future.
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