It’s the first round of the Grand Finals of CAL Invite Season 13, featuring team CompLexity and zEx Gaming facing off on Inferno. zEx starts the match on offense, and they slowly begin to push up the banana hall on the left of the map. They reach the far end of the hall with a minute left in the round – plenty of time to employ any additional tactics. Thirty seconds now remain, and zEx still waits outside the bomb site, holding their positions. Finally, with twenty seconds remaining, zEx begins to move into position to rush the bombsite. With 17 seconds left, they attack, but coL is ready for the strategy. After trading frags and attempting take over the site, zEx is left with only one player alive (without the bomb), and one second left on the clock, ensuring an all-important pistol round victory for CompLexity. The strategy was just too slow, and what in the pistol round was a problem for team zEx quickly turned into an overall theme – on this night, they were too slow for CompLexity.

In the fourth round of the match, after two save rounds, zEx employed a slow 3-2 split to the A bombsite, and after a few firefights, found themselves in a three versus one situation, with only Matt “Warden” Dickens of coL left alive. It was at this point, however, that another theme appeared: Dickens’ domination of team zEx over the next five rounds. After taking out two zEx players hiding in the bomb site, Dickens found himself in a one on one situation with zEx’s Andy Rector. After a fake defuse, Rector came out of his hiding spot in the middle area of the map, the two players exchanged shots, and then Rector fell back into the middle seeking cover. Dickens again quickly hopped on the defuse, which Rector incorrectly thought was another fake. Dickens defused the bomb, and in doing so, won the vital first gun round for his team. In the next four rounds of the match, Dickens would rack up nine more frags, including two in the eighth round, when he once again came up huge for his team, winning a one versus two with a spectacular headshot on zEx’s Sam Hickey to give coL an 8-0 lead. This came only minutes after the sixth round, when Dickens had single-handedly thwarted zEx’s slow banana strategy by getting the first three frags of the round, leaving zEx in a five on two situation which they backed out of in favor of saving their weapons. zEx would not return to the banana hall until the twelfth round of the match, at the end of the which the score was 11-1 in favor of CompLexity. After an unsuccessful second B rush, and a save round, zEx won the last round of the half, making the score 13-2 in favor of coL.

The second half of the match started out looking more promising for zEx, as they won the first four rounds of the half, largely thanks to Himal Patel’s spectacular third round. CompLexity brought two up the right middle of the map and three out of the halls, and Patel quickly but methodically ended coL’s hopes of taking the bombsite. In the fifth round, though, coL started to take over, and won the next three rounds to win the match and their first Cyberathlete Amateur League championship by the dominating score of 16-6. But there are more important factors besides Dickens’ first half performance that account for the 10-round margin of victory that was displayed in this match.

Matt “Warden” Dickens was really only a determining factor in this match for the first eight rounds of the first half. In the last seven rounds of the half, his performance dropped significantly, as he died in the 12th and 13th rounds when zEx rushed B, and he lost a one versus two in the last round of the half. Dickens ended up with 28 total points in the half, but it is important to note that he had four defuses. The point here is that zEx’s loss cannot be attributed to Matt Dickens alone – their offensive style deserves equal, if not more, blame. At not one point in the match did zEx employ a fake strategy; every tactic they used involved either a slow overload, or a slow split – emphasis on slow. In the fourth round of the match, zEx brought two players into the banana hall. They slowly walked up the hall, spamming as they went, and therefore making their presence known to Matt Dickens and Justin “Sunman” Summy, who were defending the B bombsite. The zEx players continued to spam from the middle of the banana hall without changing their position, and so Summy flashed over the B wall, while Dickens peeked out, mowing both zEx players down. Slow strategies can certainly be effective, but oftentimes only when they are also covert.

zEx’s strategies for attacking bomb site A were equally slow and ineffective. Their default setup for A seemed to be a 2-1-2 split, with two players coming up middle, one boosted in the window room, and two coming out the far right halls – a perfectly sound attacking setup. However, there didn’t seem to be any coordinated timings in zEx’s attacks; it appeared as if they relied on picks as cues for when to move up. CompLexity’s defensive A setup was extremely passive, and as such, zEx got no help in finding players to pick off. They had to create their picks for themselves, which often took way too much time off the clock. Even when zEx did create their own picks in the middle, they looked hesitant in taking the bombsite. When their players had taken control of the middle area outside A, zEx continued to walk or delay their rush into the site instead of rushing together. This allowed coL’s B defenders to rotate, while their A defenders took out zEx’s players one by one. Essentially, zEx’s hesitation and delay in attacking bomb site A counteracted any player-for-player advantage their tactics might have given them. Such slow and hesitant play resulted in either zEx being entirely denied, or planting the bomb in a disadvantageous situation, such as a one or two versus three.

CompLexity's attack in the second half was similar, but much more coordinated and confident. While their tactics also developed in a relatively slow manner, they didn’t have to create their own picks because of zEx’s aggressive defensive setups. In the fifth round of the second half, zEx employed a stack on the lamp post boxes outside of the banana bombsite; a setup which was easily deterred by coL with the use of flashes and grenades. Knowing zEx’s B defenses had disintegrated, coL quickly took the bomb site, and subsequently won the round. Similarly, in the seventh round, zEx employed an aggressive right hall defense, which, once deterred by some nice CompLexity picks, gave coL open access to bombsite A. Not only was coL able to obtain picks more easily (because of zEx’s aggressive defense), they acted much more quickly and confidently in making decisions after the picks.

The end result of all of this is that team CompLexity is the new champion of the Cyberathlete Amateur League's most elite division. What is most important, however, to understand about this victory is that it was achieved only through hard work, dedication, and practice. coL’s performance in this grand finals match, especially on the offensive side of things (even though they only needed three rounds), displayed a very high level of team chemistry. It is this chemistry and teamwork, combined with zEx’s overall slow offensive tactics and decision-making (not to mention some clutch play by Matt Dickens in the first eight rounds) that should be held primarily responsible for such a dominating performance.