With $500,000 On The Line, Competitive Call Of Duty Major II Is Starting Today - Here's What You Need To Know
Let's take it from the top here - if this is your first time being introduced to competitive Call of Duty, welcome! If you're a fan, I hope you're pulling for OpTic this weekend...we stan the Green Wall here.
Starting today will be the second Major for the 2022 Competitive Call of Duty season. This year will feature 4 Majors, with a grand finale "Super Bowl" type event known as "CoD Champs." Last year, TJ and I covered Champs (blogs will be linked below).
In Major I, OpTic won in legendary fashion in front of their home crowd, click the blog below to hear more about it:
Major 2
This year has been one of the most chaotic years in recent competitive Call of Duty history. Use these pictures below as a reference:
On the left, we're looking at the CDL Standings going into Major I and on the right are the current standings going into today's competition.
The only team that's kept their same seeding is the London Royal Ravens. Seedings are determined by 5 qualifier matches prior to each Major event. If you win a series, you get 10 CDL points - the max amount of CDL points you can get throughout one qualifier is 50 points. The tie breaker for these seedings is determined by your map win-loss ratio. For example, if a team wins 5 games and their map count is 15-0, they'll be ahead in seeding by a different team that won 5 games with a map count of 15-2.
The better seeding, the better your placing for the Major. Think about it like March Madness - 1 seeds get the easiest matchup (in theory) and so on. Below is the bracket for Major II - any team with a seeding 8 or higher will be in the "Winner's bracket" and have double elimination.
Storylines
Boston Breach
As you could imagine with so much mix up in the league, there's been a ton of drama and chaos happening within the CDL.
One of the best stories has been the Robert Kraft CDL team, Boston Breach, led by Veteran competitive CoD player, Anthony "Methodz" Zinni:
Boston Breach were the last team announced into the CDL and with that, you'd expect them to not have the best year since most players were already signed to other teams. Boston Breach started off slow, went 2-3 in Major I qualifiers and finished Major I Top 6, right in the middle of the pack. However, they've looked like a completely new team in Major II. They're 4-1 after qualifiers and have the #3 seed heading into the tournament. Rookie Capsidal has been absolutely popping off for the team and their chemistry has been completely on point.
I'm expecting a Top 4 weekend of out the boys in Major II.
Breach plays LAG for their first match on Thursday at 4:30pm EST.
NYSL
The New York Subliners - I wish there was better things to say about this team this season, but thankfully they've been making a full 180 and performing much better.
Coming into the season, this team had very high expectations and they continued to underperform. After a roster change which subbed out Clayster (competitive Call of Duty Icon) - the team added PaulEhx who was a very promising young prospect.
Since being added to the team, NYSL has looked like an entirely new team.
NYSL has improved from 11th in the league to 4th.
Note: Qualifier matches are played online which means everyone has a different internet latency or connection to Call of Duty servers. The true test for CoD competition is LAN (or in-person) which Major II will be. Teams could look entirely different on LAN as opposed to online. I hope this weekend NYSL can show they mean business whether it's online or on LAN.
NYSL will play FaZe for their first matchup on Thursday at 6pm EST - this will be an extremely tough matchup and a true test for the updated NYSL roster.
OpTic Gaming
We touched on this briefly in a blog linked above - OpTic is coming off their first Major win after 1139 days. A long ass draught for the Green Wall, but the boys are back and better than ever before.
Shotzzy, iLLeY, Scump and Dashy are currently in top form going into Major II. The teamwork looks unbelievable and they're meshing on all cylinders.
Their first matchup will be against Seattle Surge at 7:30pm on Thursday.
Toronto Ultra
Unfortunately, this is one of the CDL teams that haven't had a good journey throughout the 2022 season. After finishing 2nd last year in CoD Champs and having a strong start to the season, they haven't been able to get that same mojo back. This team features an all European roster in Bance, CleanX, Cammy and Insight.
After finishing 4th in Major I, they've placed 11th in qualifiers for Major II. Ultra is one of those teams that's DEADLY on LAN and I expect them to shock the world and make a deep run in the loser's bracket.
Their first match will be against the loser of Boston and LAG on Friday at 4:30pm.
Los Angeles Thieves
Similar storyline to Toronto Ultra, but even worse. After a 4-1 start to the season, LAT had a disappointing Major resulting in a Top 6 finish. LAT came into Major 1 with high hopes as they were the #3 seed. Since then, they have yet to win another series of competitive Call of Duty. One of the worst fall from graces we've seen in a minute.
Their first match is Friday at 6pm, facing off against the loser of FaZe and NYSL.
My Prediction
I'll be giving out picks each day for the Major.
My top 4 are:
OpTic, London Royal Ravens, FaZe, Boston Breach
We'll be boots on the ground at the Minnesota Major tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited.
The Minnesota Rokkr team have went above and beyond in preparation for this event - they'll even be featuring a Challenger's tournament!
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