CALL OF DUTY:
BLACK OPS

Black Ops had a genuine competitive scene on PC, even though it was short-lived. Its largest known European event was ESL Major Series Season VIII, a 5v5 tournament with a €2,500 prize pool won by Reason Gaming. The wider circuit included national and European EMS qualifiers, the ClanBase Featured Cup powered by ROCCAT, ESL ladders, national teams, LAN events in Norway and France, and a Japanese CyAC championship featuring 16 PC teams. [S1–S3, S6, S11–S17]

Many former ESL and ClanBase pages are no longer available, leaving some brackets and rosters incomplete. GamersMafia preserved several European match sheets. In Japan, Negitaku’s archived coverage and Mizuiro’s account clearly document a PC scene that was separate from the console competitions. [S4–S15, S25]

The T1/T2/T3 labels are used only to make the archive easier to read. They were not an official ranking system used across the scene in 2011. A team’s level depends on the period, the event it entered and the results that can still be documented.

Four key points

• Reason Gaming won EMS VIII. The surviving sources disagree on second place: Esports Earnings lists H2k-Gaming, while Liquipedia lists Tt Dragons. Esports Earnings places webSPELL third.
• Spain is the best-preserved national scene in terms of surviving pages and rosters, with 4FRAGS, Addiction.Tt, OverGame, dXm, For-Stars, Team Spain and many other teams still documented.
• Japan had its own PC circuit: 16 teams appeared in the JEC 2011 group stage, and a final planned for Akihabara was moved online after the earthquake. Soyuz finished second.
• Competitive activity continued into 2012, with YDK?ME winning cups and a ClanBase ladder before moving to Black Ops II.

Sources: S1–S15, S19

2.1 — What is included

This archive covers teams competing on Windows PC, leagues and cups clearly identified as PC competitions, as well as the players, captains, managers and organizations involved.

Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii competitions are not included. Black Ops II results, along with CoD4 or MW2 rosters that cannot be clearly linked to BO1 on PC, are kept separate as well.

2.2 — How to interpret the information

2.3 — T1/T2/T3 reference levels

2.4 — When surviving pages disagree

When two surviving pages report different results, both versions are shown. EMS VIII is the clearest example: Reason Gaming is confirmed as champion, but second place varies between the databases that remain accessible. Missing rosters are simply marked as unknown.

1. 9 Nov. 2010

   Black Ops launches on PC. Community cups appear almost immediately.

2. 17 Nov. 2010

   GamersMafia Cup I draws 21 entries—strong initial interest, but rosters are already shifting.

3. Dec. 2010

   uLISES publishes the first European pecking order; the Spanish scene is taking shape around 4FRAGS, 4Stars, dXm and We Are.

4. 2 Jan. 2011

   Lafa names seven European contenders: Paranoia, eSrael, devoted, clanless, banhammers, in7 and prohibited project.

5. Jan. 2011

   ClanBase runs the Featured Cup by ROCCAT, while the CyAC group stage begins in Japan.

6. Feb.–June 2011

   The EMS VIII cycle runs from national and European qualifiers into the main online season.

7. 11 Mar. 2011

   The earthquake in Japan forces the JEC 2011 LAN final to be cancelled; the championship is later completed online.

8. 21–25 Apr. 2011

   Two documented PC LANs take place at the same time: The Gathering in Norway and Gamers Assembly in France.

9. 1 May 2011

   The Japanese BO1 PC championship concludes online; Mizuiro reports that Soyuz finished second.

10. 29 May–5 June 2011

    The surviving databases place the end of EMS VIII in this period; Reason Gaming is champion.

11. 31 May 2011

    The PC Mod Tools beta arrives late, after most of the qualifying season has already passed.

12. summer–autumn 2011

    Spanish ladders continue alongside OverGame, the Country Championship and further cups.

13. Nov.–Dec. 2011

    MW3 arrives; several players and organizations return to CoD4 or move to another title.

14. mid-2012

    A smaller competitive scene survives: YDK?ME still wins cups and a ClanBase ladder before moving to BO2 in November.

Sources: S1–S17, S21–S23

4.1 — How to read the levels

The circuit worked in stages: launch cups, local ladders, national qualifiers, European qualifiers and finally EMS. ClanBase also ran its own international competitions, while LANs and national championships sustained local scenes.

The word ‘pro’ appears frequently in old profiles and configuration files, but it does not necessarily mean that a team was professionally salaried. In this archive, leading teams are those that reached EMS, its qualifiers or the strongest documented national results.

An important distinction: EMS VIII itself is classified as T1, while the national and European qualifiers that led into it are classified as T2. They are shown on separate rows to avoid confusion.

4.2 — Main organizers

5.1 — The competition

ESL presented the Major Series as its highest European level outside the Intel Extreme Masters. Black Ops joined Season VIII as a 5v5 title with a €2,500 prize pool, which is why EMS VIII is classified as T1 here. [S2]

5.2 — Standings and the dispute over second place

5.3 — Missing information

• The database preserving the podium does not list the BO1 rosters for Reason Gaming, H2k-Gaming or webSPELL.
• The complete EMS team list and most match sheets have disappeared from ESL’s currently public pages.
• Modern databases can mix platforms or time periods. A BO1 PC roster must therefore be tied to a specific page, match or date.

5.4 — Routes into T1

Qualification unfolded over several stages. uLISES’ record credits Addiction.Tt with winning the Spanish qualifier and then two European qualifiers. Tt eSPORTS also announced that its Italian national champions had qualified. These results show that a highly competitive T2 level existed directly below EMS, even though several rosters are now unknown. [S9, S19]

Sources: S1, S2, S3, S9, S19

6.1 — Snapshot from 30 December 2010: uLISES

uLISES stresses that this is not a definitive ranking: too few matches had been played to establish a reliable order. He hoped that a promod would attract CoD4 teams and make LAN events possible. [S4]

6.2 — Snapshot from 2 January 2011: Lafa

This second ranking, published three days later, adds several tags absent from uLISES’ list. The scene was moving quickly, and recent cups strongly influenced how players viewed the European pecking order. [S5]

6.3 — Organizations and ‘mix teams’

The scene combined multigaming organizations—Reason, H2k, webSPELL, Tt, eSrael, OverGame and YDK?ME—with more informal teams. A tag change did not necessarily mean that the entire line-up had changed; conversely, the same tag could replace several players within a few weeks.

Sources: S4–S10, S25

7.1 — 4FRAGS: a particularly well-preserved roster

The 4FRAGS–myR.ru match sheet from 26 January 2011 preserves ESL and ClanBase links, player ages and, in some cases, their home cities. It also states that 4FRAGS were ranked 12th on ClanBase at the time. The match ended in a forfeit, so it cannot be used to compare the two teams’ playing level directly. [S6]

7.2 — OverGame and uLISES’ continuity

The announcement describes the team as unbeaten on the ESL Spain ladder. uLISES’ record later credits OverGame with winning the summer 2011 5v5 S&D competition and the BlackOps.es tournament, as well as holding first place on the 5v5 and 2v2 ladders for extended periods. [S8, S9]

7.3 — Addiction.Tt and the road to EMS

uLISES’ record credits Addiction.Tt with four important results: the Spanish EMS VIII qualifier, European QR1 and QR2, and the Roccat Cup by ClanBase. cHoi, kAAst and Padde appear around the team in comments and match pages, but the complete roster still needs confirmation. [S9, S25]

7.4 — Team Spain at the 2011 Country Championship

Spain finished first in its group and reached the playoffs with uLISES as captain. He explains that BromaS, cHoi and Helber left the team five days before rosters were locked. The team then had to find replacements and later forfeited against the United Kingdom. The championship’s final standings remain unknown. [S8]

7.5 — Teams registered in November 2010

GamersMafia Cup I received 21 sign-ups only one week after the game launched. The entries included For-Stars, Gamerluzos, dXm, Euphoria, Mixteam, MHIA, pek.intel, 29’s team and 4FRAGS. The comments contain several corrections and line-up changes, so these lists capture teams at a specific moment rather than necessarily showing their final rosters. [S7]

Sources: S4, S6–S9, S25

8.1 — The 16 teams in the JEC 2011 groups

The page lists the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 groups separately, preventing teams from different platforms from being mixed together. [S11]

8.2 — The final bracket and relocated final

Broadcast matches from the final bracket included Soyuz–PlanB and Dazzle–SweEt(kari). The four teams announced for the decisive stage were Dazzle, MiSt, SweEt and Soyuz. An offline final was scheduled for 12 March 2011 at the UDX Theater in Akihabara, but the 11 March earthquake forced its cancellation. CyAC rescheduled the BO1 finals online for 1 May. [S12–S14, S24]

8.3 — CoDJPN and the community

Mizuiro describes playing BO1 from 2010 to 2012, winning or placing as runner-up in community tournaments, and operating CoDJPN between 2008 and 2012. He mentions Japan Players Night BlackOps #1 and his role in helping organize the CyAC PC championship. [S15]

8.4 — Missing information

• The preserved group list does not include individual rosters for the 16 teams.
• The complete bracket, detailed scores and an official page clearly naming the champion still need to be recovered.
• MiSt–Soyuz final part 1/3 and the SweEt–Soyuz semifinal were not found on a still-watchable page.
• SweEt(kari) is shortened to SweEt in some final-bracket announcements; both forms remain preserved.

View the recovered Japanese matches and frag movies ↓

Sources: S11–S15, S24

9.1 — Germany: YDK?ME in 2012

The organization’s official history states that YDK?ME replaced its inactive MW3 team with a Black Ops line-up in mid-2012. The roster won the ESL ModCup, ESL CupSeries II and the ClanBase S&D 5on5 Ladder before moving to BO2 in November. [S10]

9.2 — Italy: EMS qualification, unknown roster

Tt eSPORTS announced that its Italian national champions had qualified for EMS VIII. The complete BO1 roster no longer appears on the surviving page, so the team is classified as ‘T1 qualified’; the player names are currently unavailable. [S19]

9.3 — Israel: eSrael.BO

Refael ‘Lafa’ Branch, aged 21 in January 2011, identifies himself as the captain of eSrael.BO. He describes eSrael as a multigaming organization that took in his team during the move from MW2 to BO1. bibi and weezy are the two players he explicitly names among the strongest members of the line-up. [S5]

9.4 — Norway and France: two LANs at the same time

The two LANs took place on almost the same dates, showing that the scene did not depend on a single major event. Modern databases preserve their dates and locations, but not the complete standings. [S16, S17]

9.5 — The Balkans and later claims

A sponsorship application published in 2013 credits Damage Gamers with a Greek BO1 championship and a Clutch Time Cup. No roster or bracket accompanies the claim, so these results are marked ‘to be confirmed’.

This archive now separates directly attributed PC evidence from supplied competitive recordings that are not yet fully identified. The six new eRevTV videos remain visible, but they are not used as evidence for a specific tournament until their title, description, teams and platform have been cross-checked.

10.1 — Recovered audiovisual corpus

Japan remains the densest directly attributed set. eRevTV now contributes eight recordings: two parts identified as the Altered Focus–aQianer ESL Exhibition, plus six CODBO videos preserved with identification still in progress. They remain watchable without being artificially assigned to EMS VIII.

10.2 — Priority channels to catalogue

eRevTV is now substantially indexed in the museum: eight recordings are present, six of which still await complete documentary identification. BeThunderbolt6 remains a second priority source to catalogue video by video, still without automatically mixing PC and console footage.

10.3 — What the research has not yet recovered

Leading European teams

Spain and the Iberian Peninsula

Germany and the later European scene

Japan

Balkans / other mentions

This index brings together leading players, cup participants, captains, managers and team owners. Appearing here does not necessarily mean that a person was a salaried professional player.

Sources: mainly S4–S10 and S15 ; see each team in chapter 11.

13.1 — The core format: 5v5 Search & Destroy

EMS VIII and the Japanese championship were played 5v5. ClanBase, YDK?ME and Spanish pages show that 5v5 Search & Destroy was the most common format. There were also 2v2 cups, 3v3 hardcore events, Headquarters and Capture the Flag competitions, but no single ruleset appears to have been used across the entire scene. [S2, S6, S9–S11, S24]

13.2 — The competitive-mod problem

In late December 2010 and early January 2011, uLISES and Lafa both said they were waiting for a promod or CMMod to organize matches more effectively. The PC Mod Tools beta did not arrive until 31 May 2011, after the main EMS qualifiers and close to the end of the season. During the scene’s busiest months, communities therefore had to adapt rules, configs and tools themselves. [S4, S5, S23]

13.3 — Modes and maps played

13.7 — Anti-cheat and administration

Old match pages mention ESL or ClanBase procedures and anti-cheat files. The surviving details are not complete enough to present one ruleset as valid for the entire scene. Rules from another Call of Duty should not automatically be applied to BO1.

Several factors appear to have shortened the scene’s life: Call of Duty’s annual release cycle, the late arrival of modding tools, constant roster changes and the return of some players to CoD4. Contemporary interviews show that players were already comparing BO1 with CoD4 and waiting for more mature competitive tools. [S4, S5, S20–S23]

14.1 — A transition in three stages

1. 2010–early 2011: an experimental phase with many sign-ups, unstable rankings and competitive rules still being established.
2. February–June 2011: the busiest period, centered on EMS, its qualifiers and national championships.
3. Late 2011–2012: players disperse toward MW3 and CoD4, followed by a handful of surviving BO1 cups before the move to BO2.

15.1 — Examples that must not be confused

Sources: S1, S6, S18, S19

16.2 — Lost media / uncertain or missing information

This section brings together items known by name but still missing in complete form, vanished pages and information too fragile to present as certain.

• Complete BO1 PC rosters for Reason Gaming, H2k-Gaming, webSPELL and Tt Dragons.
• EMS VIII: complete bracket, final match sheet and a PC VOD capable of resolving second place.
• The Gathering 2011 and Gamers Assembly 2011: teams, results, podiums and any surviving PC recordings.
• JEC 2011: complete official bracket, all 16 rosters, MiSt–Soyuz final part 1/3 and the SweEt–Soyuz semifinal.
• South Africa: a full recording of the NGL rAge 2011 final beyond the surviving teaser and report.
• eRevTV: six additional CODBO recordings still require full identification; BeThunderbolt6: item-by-item cataloguing is still required.
• Dead or incomplete ESL / ClanBase pages: brackets, match sheets, line-ups and team profiles.

About this archive

This archive brings together pages, results, teams and players that can still be found today. Some ESL and ClanBase pages have disappeared, leaving several rosters and brackets incomplete. Player testimony and unresolved information are clearly identified. A single old page, screenshot or demo may still be enough to recover another name, team or result.