CDL Championships 2024: Bright Lights and Texas Heat

For the CDL, the last grain of sand has fallen from the regular season hourglass. Now everything comes down to Call of Duty Championship Weekend. After an incredibly tight race between the league’s best teams, every score will be settled in a four-day spectacle in the summer heat of Allen, Texas. 

Modern Warfare 3’s competitive cycle started with a bang when Toronto Ultra bounced back from a stinging defeat at last year’s Championship, and the stories only became more explosive from there. We witnessed titans of the League add new notches to their belts and bright young stars emerge from the dust. A cutthroat season down to the very end, let’s take a look at the field, and figure out what to make of the aftermath. 

Atlanta FaZe ended the regular season the same way it has four years in a row - alone atop the standings. Three Grand Finals appearances, a Major 2 victory, and the poise of four World Championship players mean they’ll again be top dogs in the Winner’s Bracket. A near 70% series-win percentage tells the whole story for this squad. Every other team at this event will fight tooth-and-nail for their tournament lives when they run into FaZe. The core trio of aBeZy, Cellium, and Simp have never lost an opening-round matchup at Champs. They’ll look to keep a spotless record when they meet Miami Heretics in Round 1. Both teams move at light speed around the map, so expect a fast-paced, high-kill affair. 

FaZe’s Control efficiency has been a difference-maker all year long. Backed by the unrivaled confidence of Zack “Drazah” Jordan, FaZe finds a way to battle out of tough situations without taking crippling losses. This means even their worst performances can flip in the blink of an eye. No lead is ever safe when dealing with such a composed unit. 

For Coach Crowder, it comes down to being prepared for anything. “We have learned a lot throughout this year. Especially having a new fourth this year with Drazah. Every Major is a lesson learned whether we won or lost. Sometimes it’s making sure all game modes are prepared and other times it’s how to respond to certain situations (good or bad) to make sure we know what to do, no matter what happens at Champs.”

Scrap and Toronto Ultra are a year removed from the worst loss in Champs Grand Finals history, so it’s easy to forget how strong that squad looked for the rest of the event. They were practically perfect until that fateful NYSL matchup, and as they showed the world back at Major 1, a well-prepared version of this team may very well be untouchable. Their Hardpoint record sits at 52-19 on the year, and Karachi HP has been their bread-and-butter. Every single respawn will be a grueling test when dealing with Scrap and CleanX, and few players in CDL history have ever been as clutch as Insight or Envoy. This team isn’t afraid to gamble their fate on a risky decision, and with all the chips on the table, that could be their X-factor. 

Even with such a capable team, overlooking any team at this event could be fatal, and Toronto knows that all too well. 

“The field being wide open isn’t anything new in COD. Winning is always hard, it requires us to bring a high level of performance and intensity into every matchup. Every team that qualifies for champs poses a threat so we can’t afford to take anyone lightly.”

The New York Subliners, in their typical fashion, are fresh off their best event of the season. Like last year’s final Major, NYSL scorched through this year’s Major 4’s Lower Bracket, stunning every squad they played en route to the Grand Finals. A valiant effort from FaZe wasn’t enough to stop them, either. Paco "HyDra" Rusiewiez leads the way for this squad, putting up stats akin to a classic Wayne Gretzky performance every time he loads into a map. However, he doesn’t do it alone. KiSMET is the ultimate dirty-work player, Sib provides raw slaying power and unrivaled confidence, and Skyz is the steady hand watching over them all from the AR role. 

A perennial Top 4 squad in the standings, there was no doubt these four players would find their footing eventually. Especially given their knack for finding their form at the perfect time of year. How do they manage to peak in the waning days of the season? By keeping a short memory, according to a team representative. 

“Nothing changes, preparation is always the same. You look forward, in most cases. The only time you look back is for reflection on what you could do better or need to improve.

“One of the biggest takeaways from this season is how small the margin for error had been between the Top 4 teams. Between the teams were usually the finest margins, that proverbial 1%. Each map and mode played felt like art or a fine dance. Teams countering other teams in the micro. You had to be at your best, every single time, to be able to beat the other. It was rare to catch a team on a bad day, and even then, it would be a fight.”

They’ve got a date with Sib’s previous organization, the Seattle Surge, to kick off their weekend, marking a new notch in the grudge match storyline which has delivered fireworks all season long. 

A grudge match isn’t the only story here, though. The young Seattle squad has improved nearly as fast as the Subliners. Roster changes, role changes, and unlucky breaks hampered Surge’s chances at every turn but they still found a way to 5th-place in the regular season, and with two strong Major cycles now behind them, they’re a veritable dark horse heading into the final stretch. Their best chance at making noise at this event is to steal away an upset win over NYSL in Round 1 and ride the momentum they’ve been chasing all year. That’s no easy task, but with Abuzah’s emergence as a top AR in the League, the sky is the limit. 

Coach Rambo is confident his boys are ready for the task. “We've played with much more confidence as the year went on. [The team] started understanding that our system works really well with being more aggressive as a team, which isn't always the easiest thing to do when the pressure is on the line.” 

Of the remaining competitors, OpTic Texas poses the biggest threat, despite tripping over their feet to end the regular season. A brutal Major 4 qualifier was bookended by a heartstopping loss to Miami Heretics that drained any momentum from their Major 3 victory. Still, all four OpTic players have been superstars at one time or another, and cannot be counted out. Likewise, their first-round opponent, the Los Angeles Guerillas, has leveled up at every LAN they go to — and can’t be ignored either.

As for the Los Angeles Thieves and Miami Heretics, it’s all about untapped potential. Both units will have to dig deep to make a run. For Miami, LAN play has been an issue all year. The South Beach soldiers have squeaked into Winner’s Bracket multiple times but failed to capitalize on that advantage. They’ve been fighting from the middle of the pack for most of the season, and the lack of a true breakthrough makes it even more brutal to meet the Ultra in the opening round. 

Still, the lights are never brighter for any competitor than on this stage and any team can wind up blinded or woken up by the pressure. No matter how the last four Majors went, all eight teams have the same chance at glory. The same chance to be a Champion. All the Majors and the history points to one of the perennial powerhouses taking the win over another. But maybe a true underdog will break through and shock the CDL. Either way, the matches are made, and the cameras are rolling. The only thing left to do is make history. 

Tune in on the 18th, on Twitch or YouTube, to see how this chapter of the CDL closes.