“Soon Enough, We Won’t Be Losing Anything” — Atlanta FaZe’s Major 2 Outlook

What do you do when your best efforts continuously fall just short under the brightest lights? The same thing you’ve always done: stay calm, stick to your principles, and do a little bit better every day. Atlanta FaZe’s coach James Crowder knows that’s the only way to cross the gap. That’s why his team isn’t panicking after falling to Toronto Ultra in the Grand Finals at Call of Duty League Major 1.

Mastering the minutiae isn’t optional in a league as tightly contested as the CDL. Less than 20 points decided both Hardpoint maps in the season’s first Grand Finals matchup. Additionally, FaZe’s win on Invasion Control was partly decided by a Cellium triple kill that Insight was a bullet or two away from stopping. One moment of hesitation, a whiffed shot, or a blown callout is the difference between greatness and grief, and Crowder points to the Grand Finals Karachi HP as a perfect example

“We’ve played Toronto a lot in scrims and practice, and either we win a majority of the maps or they do, but they’re all pretty close,” he pointed out. “They’re all 20-point games. It all comes down to who can make that play to close everything out. When we played them [in the Grand Finals], we had some moments to take over those games, and we didn’t take advantage and capitalize on some of those mistakes they made.

“We got three or four [Ultra players] dead, and one of us was in position at the end of P1 to spawn kill them instead of pinch towards the hill…Sometimes when you have to capitalize on those plays, that’s what you have to do to beat a team like that… if you let those guys come off spawn and group up, they’re probably going to win.”

Those kinds of momentum-changing moments are nearly synonymous with FaZe. They understand how crucial it is to deflate a team when there’s virtually no skill gap between them. Taking a close map sets the winning team up to keep rolling. Ultra’s 6-2 Search & Destroy win was the next pin to fall, and it put FaZe on a backpedal they ultimately couldn’t overcome.

No one would ever believe this team is content with falling short, though. It’s antithetical to the message it sent the CDL by signing Zack “Drazah” Jordan this offseason. The community expected FaZe to be world beaters thanks to his ruthless playstyle, and even if it wasn’t a storybook ending, the makings of something great still sit in the dust of the last event.

“2nd place is not what [Atlanta FaZe] plays for, but at the same time, I do think Toronto is an incredible team right now,” Crowder said. “We expected them to play in the Finals because of how good they are, and we fell a little bit short with a lot of smaller mistakes.”

Part of fixing those issues is getting the team on the same page, and while they’re all individually brilliant Call of Duty players, it’s not as easy as joining the lobby and letting theirtalent do all the work. Every season is a long road, and no matter how good you are, getting things right takes time.

“It’s also our first Major together, too. We’re still forming a system that everyone fully trusts,” the former World Champion coach revealed. “It’s a big thing, getting [all four players and the coaching staff] to fully trust in what we want to do. When you’re a competitor in those big moments, your training will kick in, and if you go one way and your teammate goes another, you’re going to have some [frustrating] moments.”

Those corrections will make or break this season, but this team is uniquely suited to making them. The six World Championship rings between them are a testament to their capabilities. Inexperienced competitors might dwell on the near-misses. For this group, Major 1 is fully in the rearview. All eyes are on the road ahead: Major 2 and mastering the latest version of the game, which means getting some experience with the current CDL patch.

New Hardpoint spawns and rotations arrived in a late January update, and every team in the League is racing to master them. The pros said goodbye to Terminal Hardpoint and Skidrow Search & Destroy in favor of playing both modes on Rio instead. Unsurprisingly, Simp believes his squad has only benefited from it all.

“I feel really confident in all of the maps we play, to be honest,” he said. “Our worst map is a super close match [with most teams] if we lose it, and on every other map, I feel like we’re going to blow people out. At this moment, our map pool is godlike. Soon enough, we won’t be losing anything.”

While there’s a lot to learn and plenty of hours left to put in on the sticks, there’s also work to be done out of the game. Unlike titles such as Smash or StarCraft, Call of Duty is a team-based esport, and when you spend so much time practicing, traveling, and competing with each other, a close-knit bond can be just as crucial as your chemistry on the map. It’s an aspect that Crowder says is underrated, and the team is taking it more seriously than ever this season.

And before the season began, there was reason to question the chemistry. Drazah’s former team, the Los Angeles Thieves, was one of the biggest rivals to FaZe. Drazah and Simp have met in some of the most heated series in Call of Duty history, including a World Championship decider, back in the Vanguard days. It’s only natural for competitors of such a high caliber to bump heads. But, Simp and Crowder confirm that past rivalries bear no weight on current chemistry.

“It was super easy to laugh off. There are still jokes thrown around about random things that were said prior,” Simp said. “ When we first picked up Zack, it was super easy to move past anything there. It was all just online, I guess.”

“[Drazah] is also a nice person in general, which is funny,” Crowder adds. “He just talks confidently, which is kind of what you need to do… it really is as simple as being able to communicate with each other and seeing if there is something crazy there.

“I think it was more heat of the moment. Emotions are always high. You’re very confident. Win or lose, you always respect how good [your rivals] are at the end of the day."

In our last chat, Simp claimed he wants his team to be remembered as the greatest team of all time. Yet, he doesn’t carry those lofty expectations on his shoulders every day. Neither does Crowder. They talk about the day-to-day, the building blocks, and only taking things one map, match, or Major at a time. That signature blend of relaxed swagger, combined with a gold-medal level of confidence, makes it easy to believe FaZe will find a way back atop the mountain.

It’s hard not to be excited at their prospects. Every piece is in place. They’re as good at Modern Warfare 3 as they’ve been at any other title. If all goes right, Call of Duty’s most recent dynasty could kick its feet up a little while longer.