In this edition of the Call of Duty League Power rankings, it is a discussion of the biggest riser in the rankings and the fall of two teams that didn’t look their best at Major I. This will be the teams in ranks four through six. I ranked the first three teams in my previous article.
With the first Major over and the top dogs established in the CDL, let’s discuss the potential six-team league that could be coming for the rest of the year.
Insert gif of Paul Rudd saying “Hey, look at us.” The Heretics went into Major I as a bottom-four squad in the Call of Duty League and left Madrid in third. Not many saw the Heretics making a run like this, except for this writer. The term ascension isn’t for show as the Heretics were one of the worst teams to start the year before finishing third at Major I.
The Heretics fought hard and upset OpTic Texas in game five to start their tournament. Miami would be swept by the LA Thieves in their next match, forcing the Heretics to face another scrappy squad in the Minnesota RØKKR. The Spanish squad would win another game five to get a top-four placing at a minimum. They would face the Carolina Royal Ravens to try to secure the top three and the Heretics would beat the Ravens 3-1 before getting swept by the Thieves again.
The reason they made their deep run is because they went 5-3 in Hardpoint and won a crucial Search-and-Destroys (SnD). A lot of their series layouts would have them winning either one or both Hardpoints and a SnD to close out a series. That was the recipe for the deep run the Heretics had, just be consistent in Hardpoint and win one SnD. While that was the case for this Major, they still have to work on SnD as they are 8-13 overall in the mode. The Heretics still need more from Adrian “MettalZ” Serrano and Alejandro “Lucky” Lopez overall, but especially in SnD.
If the Heretics can keep the momentum up heading into the Major II qualifiers then they could be one of the scarier teams in the Call of Duty League as they are a top-five Hardpoint team and have shown grittiness to win series.
This was a squad that could have made a deep run solely because they were the best SnD team in the Call of Duty League.
The Squirrels (their logo is a squirrel) from up North started off strong sweeping the Vancouver Surge in their opening match of the Major before having to face the Atlanta FaZe. Ultra would be swept by FaZe leading to a lower bracket match with the Carolina Royal Ravens. Toronto would go down 0-2 in that series before waking up taking the Control and second Hardpoint. The Ravens would then shut them down in the game five SnD forcing Toronto to leave Madrid earlier than expected.
This Major was a weird one for the Ultra as no one really underperformed and they even had two of the best players in the tournament in Tobias “CleanX” Juul Jønsson and Ben “Beans” McMellon. The team was just not as situationally sound as they should’ve been. That is the main reason they went 1-3 in SnD in Madrid. This Ultra team isn’t built to make deep tournament runs if they lose SnD consistently and need to look to iron out the kinks in that mode. It also wouldn’t hurt them to be a little better at Hardpoint or Control as they are average at both of those modes.
The floor and ceiling are high for this squad and they had a good start to the year. Once the SnD gets on track at Majors and they become a little better at one of the respawn modes this team could win a Major sooner rather than later.
OpTic looked like a whole different team coming from the qualifier to the Major. They were the best Hardpoint team in the Call of Duty League coming into Madrid only to go 1-5 in the mode at the tournament. Texas started their tournament playing the Heretics and lost in game five. OpTic would then play the LA Guerrilla M8s and go to another game five, but winning it this time. The next opponent OpTic would face was the Carolina Royal Ravens and they came out looking better taking a very close game one hardpoint 250-248. However, they would lose the next three games to leave Madrid as a top-eight team.
There is a ton to say about this tournament for OpTic. The biggest thing is you can’t lose your best mode that many times and expect to win. OpTic only beat LAG M8s because of SnD and even then many could argue LAG M8s had a great chance to win the series if they didn’t make mistakes in SnD. No one on the roster played their best with early season MVP candidates Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro and Brandon “Dashy” Otell having really bad performances.
OpTic’s best player in the Major statistically was Cuyler “Huke” Guyton, but he also had some key mistakes. A lot of mistakes of varying degrees for this squad led to the early exit and a roster change.
OpTic brought back Amer “Pred” Zulbeari after his mental break to start the year. This move was probably going to happen either way and Huke was a temporary replacement. Getting the core four of last year’s Champ roster back together is the best move for the Greenwall. In this writer’s opinion, it sucks seeing Huke get dumped off OpTic, again, but this move is needed to get the respawns back on track. OpTic needs to show that they can adjust and overcome a terrible Major by their standards to be considered one of the top teams.
These squads all have major flaws holding them back from the top spots, but you could see them at the top sometime this year if they make adjustments to their games. The next three squads, however, are an interesting pack of squads. More on them next time.
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