Elevate rises from lower bracket, rules CODM Summer Invitational

MANILA, Philippines – All-Filipino team Elevate stringed a five-match winning streak to be crowned the champions of the Call of Duty: Mobile Summer Invitational (CDSI) 2024 held offline at the Chengdu AG Esports Centre in China over the weekend.

After finishing third in Group B, Elevate had been relegated to the lower bracket of the knockout stages. But the squad — composed of Kenneth "KenDy" Pimentel, Justin "Susanoo" Cecilio, John “Yop1” Manalang, Juan "kLo" Morales, Patrick "Peejay" Sagudo, under coach Mark “Olea” Olea — took down top CODM teams GodLike, Stalwart Esports and Xrock, and swept last year's CODM world champion Wolves, 4-0, to set up a rematch with Chinese team Qing Jiu Club, which had defeated the Filipinos in the group stages.

In the best-of-seven grand finals, Map 1 Hardpoint in Hacienda saw a tight match, but it was Elevate that got to 250 points first. Map 2 Search and Destroy saw the Chinese team equalize the series, but Elevate propelled themselves to match point after taking the lone Control Map Arsenal and with a dominant performance in Hardpoint (250-187).

With Elevate a map away from the championship, Qing Jiu Club forced overtime thrice. But the Filipino team closed out Map 5 Search and Destroy, 12-10, to take home the title along with the lion's share of the prize pool — approximately  P1.6 million.