Logan Greifelt knew there was a chance when he was one of 10 players left. He had good positioning and the items he needed. He didn’t get nervous or slow down. The realization that victory was possible, in fact, kept him going.
Then he eliminated the other remaining player, and at the World Series of Warzone, Greifelt was number one.
A River Forest native, Greifelt plays and livestreams the shooter video game series Call of Duty professionally. In September, he came in first place for the solo competition at the World Series of Warzone, a gathering of Call of Duty’s best players competing in the game’s popular battle royale mode.
In Warzone, 150 players, either in small teams or individually, drop in to a round, aiming to eliminate opponents and be the last team or player standing at the end. In front of 3,000 at London’s Copper Box Arena (and with hundreds of thousands more watching online), Greifelt won the individual bracket, titled “Solo Yolo,” at the World Series event. He earned $100,000 for the victory.
“I was just shocked, to be honest,” said Greifelt, who goes by the moniker “Skullface” while playing. “When I first won, I didn’t really know how to react. Just like ‘What? Did I just win?’ So it was more shocking. Then realizing, it was just pure excitement. It was like cloud nine. I couldn’t believe it.”
The path to holding an oversize check under a rain of confetti at the World Series of Warzone began at a young age for the 21-year-old Greifelt. He was first introduced to Call of Duty when his older brother Jake got an Xbox console. They would switch turns playing. Greifelt has a passion for video games. Playing them is what he loves to do.
“To be able to play video games professionally as a job is really a dream come true,” Greifelt said. “It’s amazing.”
As a student at Oak Park and River Forest High School, Greifelt played four years of hockey, a game he grew up with and loves — like Call of Duty. In 2020, he signed to play with a junior hockey team, the Chicago Cougars. Soon after, the pandemic hit. Under lockdown and with nothing else to do, Greifelt started livestreaming as he played Call of Duty.
“No practices,” Greifelt said. “No nothing, so I started streaming. And it’s like ‘Okay, the streaming thing is working out.’”
Greifelt was at one point also taking classes at Triton College, studying business. He stopped to pursue streaming and competitive Call of Duty. Now, Greifelt tries to stream daily. He usually plays Call of Duty, although other games and livestreams of weightlifting and workouts are mixed in.
“It’s pretty much like a nine to five job,” Greifelt said. “I just try to get eight hours every day. Whenever I wake up and play.”
To reach the team and solo tournaments held at the World Series of Warzone, Greifelt and his teammates, “Hisoka” and “Mayappo,” competed in qualifier rounds, where they eventually placed fourth in the North America grouping.
Greifelt plays a “third man” position in the trio. Drawing on a calm and observant playstyle, he stays behind his teammates, providing help when needed.
“If there’s another team behind us, or if there’s some kind of route we can take, I can call that out because I’m in the back,” Greifelt said. “I’m in the gunfight, but I’m observing it too.”
In London, the team participated in the trios event, where they placed second, netting $80,000. That came before the solo tournament in which Greifelt won $100,000.
With the earnings, Greifelt said he plans to buy anything he needs for gaming and invest the rest.
The World Series was also Greifelt’s first time playing in front of a live, in-person audience. He got over the nerves after the first round of the team competition. His background in sports helped.
“Whenever I played sports, you always want a packed crowd,” Greifelt said. “So, I kind of had the same mentality. It’s like, okay, let me show off. Let me show these people what I can do. I was very confident in the tournament.”
Greifelt sat next to his teammates, with small walls separating teams. He couldn’t hear opposing players. Competitors played with an earbud that supplied the audio of the game and a headset that poured in white noise to block out the crowd.
But Greifelt could still hear the fans. After a big play or moment, “the crowd would go insane,” he said.
“It’s definitely not like playing at home,” he said.