The Call of Duty League (CDL for short) has returned from the holiday break with the first-ever Minor tournament. The tournament offers teams a way to earn CDL points, which are needed to advance to the Championship (Champs) at the end of the season. The winners earn $20,000 and 30 CDL points, second place earns 20 CDL points, and third/fourth earns 10 CDL points. With the Minor, all settled and the first portion of the season over, let’s rank the team and see where they stand at this point of the year.
The birds rocking the Carolina blues have the CDL world in the palms of their hands. A team that didn’t qualify for Champs last season, the top eight teams qualify for Champs, is now the top dog in the league. The roster starts with the previous season’s Rookie of the Year Isaiah Gwinn who has put himself in the early season MVP talks. He is followed by long-time Call of Duty pros Austin “Slasher” Liddicoat, Thomas “TJHaLy” Haly, and Reece “Vivid” Drost. On paper, that team doesn’t exactly shout the best team in the CDL, but they have come out firing. Gwinn has been the early season MVP being ranked top-10 in all game types for K:D, Slasher has turned back the clock and looks like a top-5 AR, and TJHaLy has been one of the best search-and-destroy (SnD) players in the league. The only issues they face currently are Vivid’s slow start to the year as he sports a 0.9 K:D and their hardpoint record being 7-6.
The story of the offseason was the Thieves heist of the century acquiring Thomas “Scrap” Ernst, Paco “Hydra” Rusiewiez, and Dylan “Envoy” Hannon. Throw in Daniel “Ghosty” Rothe and the team is built for every situation in COD. Last season they would place fourth at Champs and second at the Esports World Cup with a roster of young guns. Ghosty is the only returnee from last year, but early on the Thieves have meshed well getting off to a 4-1 start to the season. Hydra and Scrap are playing like the superstars they are as they both sport K:D’s above 1.05 while Ghosty and Envoy have looked like some of the better objective players in the league. They are one of the better hardpoint teams in the league at 7-3 and that has been enough for them early, but they are 3-3 in SnD and 3-2 in Control. For a team that could handle every situation, they haven’t looked the most polished at times and look to “out-talent” some teams.
For as long as the CDL has been around the Toronto Ultra has been a good team. Last season they placed third at Champs and in the offseason, they would lose Scrap and Envoy to the LA Thieves. With that happening, the long-time duo of Jamie “Insight” Craven and Tobias “CleanX” Juul Jønsson had to find a new duo to team with. They would acquire Joseph “JoeDeceives” Romero and Ben “Beans” McMellon to round out the team. This is an interesting team as CleanX and Beans are some of the best control players in the league while JoeDeceives and Insight are great at SnD. The hardpoints are where some thought they wouldn’t be as strong and early on they would be correct. Ultra is 5-4 in hardpoint so far on the year and combining that with a 2-3 control record some questions need to be asked. While being a good respawn team is nice, a saying that has followed the COD esports scene is “SnD wins championships.” This team wins SnD a lot early on this year as they are the best SnD team in the league at 7-1.
The fan-favorite CDL team has gotten off to a good start coming off a Champs win last season. That roster returned to start this season looking to do something that the CDL hasn’t seen a back-to-back Champ. The team consisted of Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro, Amer “Pred” Zulbeari, Kenneth “Kenny” Williams, and Brandon “Dashy” Otell. This roster would play the first weekend of the year going 1-1 before Pred stepped away for personal reasons. To replace him, the team picked up Cuyler “Huke” Garland. The team is currently 5-2 on the year and looks solid in every mode to start. Shotzzy is a clear MVP favorite to start the year and he has produced a ton of clips in league play already. Dashy has looked like the best AR player this year and could go toe-to-toe with Shotzzy in the MVP talks. Huke has looked solid for the team and helped solidify their SnD after going 1-2 in the mode to start the year. The negatives this year have been their Red Card hardpoint and Kenny. OpTic is currently 0-3 in Red Card hardpoints and should look to veto that one as it is the only map they have multiple losses on in that mode. Kenny is off to a slow start sporting an 0.89 K:D to start the year, but once he gets on track OpTic has a chance to go back-to-back.
Another year and another season of FaZe being the best team to start, wait that isn’t the case this year. It has been an interesting start to the year for FaZe as they started 1-3 and looked behind the curve early on. They faced three of the top teams to start the year, which isn’t ideal, but for a team that has the amount of talent they have it was shocking for many CDL fans. The roster of Chris “Simp” Lehr, Tyler “ABeZy” Pharris, Zack “Drazah” Jordan, and McArthur “Cellium” Jovel is one of the best rosters constructed potentially in CDL history, so the slow start stunned many. After the holiday break, however, they came out with a vengeance in the Minor tournament. They would march through the bracket to face the Carolina Royal Ravens in the finals and wipe them off the map to win the tournament. Their saving grace early in the year has been their hardpoints as they have gone 11-4 in the mode. On the other hand, however, they have been average in SnD at 5-5 and just bad in control at 2-6. A team that has the trio of the “Tiny Terrors” (Simp & aBeZy) and Cellium should be a lot better and SnD and control, so once they fix those modes they will be scary again.
The RØKKR are an interesting team as they are a team of younger players with much to prove. Every one of their players hasn’t fully shown their potential, but they show plenty of flashes of it, especially early this season. The team consists of Justice “Estreal” McMillan, Giovanni “Gio” Webster, Dylan “Nero” Koch, and Paul “PaulEhx” Avila. On paper, this roster is a boom-or-bust team that could beat any of the top teams on a good day, but also lose to anyone. So far this year, however, they have shown they can compete taking teams to game fives in five of seven matches. What’s even better for the RØKKR is that they have won four of those game fives only losing to FaZe in game five. The team excels in SnD and control to get to game fives going 7-5 and 5-2 respectively, but their hardpoints are terrible at a paltry 4-10. For a team that has the slaying power they have, they should be better at hardpoint, but the fundamentals haven’t been great. Outside of that, the team is well-balanced and has the clutch factor. Sometimes that is all you need, is to get to game five.
That’ll do it for the top six, it is a long season so these will change a ton as the season goes along. Tune into the matches on YouTube on the CDL channel this weekend. Also, if you are looking for both more information, stats, or even fantasy COD leagues, Breaking Point is your place and how this writer sourced most of the info presented. Next will be the bottom six teams rankings.
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