After finishing the Black Ops 6 season in undeniable fashion, winning both the Call of Duty League Championship and the Esports World Cup, OpTic Texas have kicked off their 2026 BO7 campaign in a similar fashion. They ran through their opponents and barely dropped a map in the Monster Gaming Launch Invitational.

Following the announcement of the CDL 2026 roadmap, the COD League revealed that Monster Gaming would host a $75,000 invitational tournament for all 12 professional teams, as well as four top Challenger teams, providing amateur players with the opportunity to prove their skills against the best in the world.

Upset Potential at BO7 Launch Invitational

With the tournament only coming a week after Black Ops 7 launched, there was a chance for some real upsets from the teams that practiced the most in week one and learned the game the quickest.

And, while there were some upsets, the inevitable happened when OpTic stormed through every single opponent, right up to the grand final, where they beat the “Orgless” team, which is reported to be the Gentle Mates roster for the upcoming season.

$75K @MonsterGaming Launch Invitational CHAMPIONS 🏆@DashySZN @Shotzzy @Tbemercules @Huke @DKarma @JPKrez pic.twitter.com/NQBpzYY3ZK

— OpTic (@OpTic) November 24, 2025

OpTic Didn’t Drop a Map Until Grand Final

Much like at CDL Champs 2025, OpTic didn’t drop a single map throughout the tournament until the grand final.

They won 3-0 against Stallions, the team owned by former pro player Thomas “ZooMaa” Paparatto, to open the tournament, before going on to win 3-0 against Carolina Royal Ravens, FaZe Vegas, and Orgless in the double elimination bracket.

They faltered in the grand final, which went to a Game 7 after some strong plays from the Orgless players, but no plays were more impressive than what Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro pulled off in the opening map of the final.

You can take the boy out of Halo but you can’t take the Halo out the boy pic.twitter.com/yE93SNbxWj

— Jacob Hale (@JakeHaleee) November 24, 2025

Yes, that is a Halo Ninja — from a Halo and COD world champion — in Call of Duty, in 2025.

While the grand final was a little more dicey than OpTic’s fans and players might have liked, it was perhaps the most interesting way to cap off what was an incredible weekend-long performance from all four players.

Major 1 qualifiers officially start on Friday, December 5, and that’s when the real action kicks off. Right now, it looks as though OpTic Texas are, by far, the team to beat – and every team is simply playing catch-up right now.