I didn't think a limited-time camo could get under my skin, but here we are. Ever since the Astra Malorum event ended, the pre-game lobby's been a reminder that I came up short. Someone flashes that Shower camo—shooting stars sliding across the receiver—and it's like the game's rubbing it in. I'd been reading threads about BO7 Bot Lobbies and other ways people try to cut corners, but during the event I stayed straight-up, convinced I could earn it the normal way.



What the bracket actually felt like
On paper, the rule was simple: finish the main Easter egg, then place top 5 in your bracket. In practice, it turned into a weird mix of skill and timing. You weren't just fighting zombies—you were racing strangers you couldn't see, in a system that never really explained how it sorted people. I ran Citadelle des Morts over and over, solo most of the time to keep health scaling down. The routine got almost robotic: push quest steps early, don't waste ammo, keep the pace. It wasn't "fun" after the first day, it was just clocking in.



My loadout, my route, and the gut-punch
I leaned on the XM325 for clearing lanes and kept a Ray Gun variant in my back pocket for anything chunky. I'd finish the core quest fast, then park myself in a training loop—courtyard laps, tight turns, and conversions when Doppelghasts showed up so the multiplier would spike. My best run landed at 58k. With a couple hours left, I was sitting 4th and finally exhaled. I stepped away for food, came back, and I'd been bumped to 7th by someone pushing 62k. No warning. No grace. Just the bracket updating like it had been waiting to embarrass me.



After the event, the grind looks different
Missing Shower made the usual mastery path feel extra slow. Gold and Nebula in Zombies are still a haul—headshots, elites, picky weapon-specific chores—and public matches don't always help when teammates are hoovering kills or sprinting the spawns you're trying to hold. That's why you hear people talk about bot lobbies and controlled setups: fewer variables, predictable pacing, and you can bang out base camos without the chaos. I get the appeal now, even if I'm not thrilled that the game nudges players toward "efficient" over "earned."



What I'm hoping Treyarch changes next time
If they run another bracket event, it needs clearer matchmaking, better transparency, and a way to stop the last-minute leapfrogs from feeling so random. Let the score chase be sweaty, sure, but make it feel fair. Until then, I'm stuck watching that star animation on other people's rifles and trying not to tilt. And if I do decide to speed up the regular camo grind later, I can see why folks look at marketplaces like RSVSR for things such as game currency and items to round out their loadouts without living in one mode for weeks.

RSVSR's where BO7 players actually talk strats, not hype. If the Astra Malorum bracket grind for the rare Shower animated camo had you sweating rounds and still missing top 1–5, you're not alone. We break down score routes, quest timing, exfil multipliers, and the loadouts that hold up when RNG's being rude. Catch what's trending and what's proven right now at RSVSR: https://www.rsvsr.com/call-of-duty-black-ops-7 Then get back in, play smarter, and keep the grind fun again.