Dominant Faze Leads CDL into Stage 4 LAN Major

Stage 4 Pool play matches wrapped up on Sunday without too much in the way of surprises. The top two seeds from each group are Atlanta Faze and Toronto Ultra, with the Minnesota Rokkr, Optic Chicago, New York Subliners, and Dallas Empire rounding out the franchises starting in the Winner’s bracket for the first LAN tournament this season.

Top Tier Teams Fared Well

Atlanta Faze continued their dominance of the Call of Duty League, going 5–0 in pool play including three sweeps as they prepare to win the first LAN event in the eSport since March 2020.

Faze’s two main challengers held firm throughout pool play, with Stage 3 Major runners-up New York Subliners posting a 4–1 record in Group B. However, Toronto Ultra finished with a 4–1 record themselves, losing their first match of the pool to Florida 2–3, before rattling off four straight sweeps, including one over the Subliners to take the top spot in the group. Despite the 3–0, these two teams gave a preview of what could be a monumental match between two of the top three squads in the CDL if they face each other during next weekend’s major. That being said, New York might be without Asim due to travel issues, but as of this writing, the details are not confirmed.

The Challengers had their Ups and Downs

Optic Chicago looked dominant to start the pool, defeating Rokkr 3–0 in a no contest series. They were quickly humbled by Faze, who easily dispatched Optic in a sweep themselves. In all three game types, it looked like Optic was getting outplayed and outstrategized. They split their matches against Paris and Seattle, winning the former and losing the latter, before ending their pool play by wiping the floor in their last two games over the Los Angeles Thieves. Chicago will start in the Winners bracket and come into the LAN on fire.

The Rokkr returned to something close to Stage 2 form, with the new roster going 3–2 in their pool play matches. After getting blown out by Optic in their first match of the pool, the roster settled down and won 3 straight matches before (unsurprisingly) dropping to Atlanta.

Dallas Empire was able to go 3–2 in pool play with new addition Vivid on the roster and will start in the Winners bracket at the Stage 4 Major. Empire notably defeated the Mutineers 3–2 and gave Subliners a run for their money in a 2–3 loss. Dallas still sits in 4th place in the regular-season standings, meaning if they can put together a run at the major, they still have a chance to position themselves favorably as we creep closer to this season’s World Championship.

The Mutineers got a big win over Ultra to start pool play and carried the momentum over to their next match where they swept the Royal Ravens. However, they ended up dropping two of their next three series in five games against Subliners and Empire. Still, Florida had arguably their strongest pool play of the season and will start in the second round of the Elimination bracket this upcoming weekend.

Back of the Pack Continued to Struggle

Seattle finally won a control map after a 10 game losing streak and followed that up by breaking their 10-match losing streak, both against Optic Chicago. It was their first match win since April 8th. That was where the good ended for the Surge, however, as they lost their four other matchups.

Paris Legion had a solid pool play performance despite only going 2–3. After losing their first two matches, they were able to go 2–1 over their remaining three and won at least one map in all five matches they played.

Thieves have been all over the place this season, with this pool being their second 1–4 performance of the year. While their lack of roster continuity has to be taken into account, and anything could happen at the major and over the remaining months of the year, it’s beginning to look more and more like a lost season for Los Angeles.

The Royal Ravens regressed from the last major to now. London went 1–4 across their matches, only beating the lowly Guerrillas. Three of their losses were sweeps despite boasting one of the best players in the game in PaulEhx. As the only team to go winless during pool play, things just get worse and worse for the Los Angeles Guerillas. Though they still sit in 9th place in the regular-season standings, they might be transitioning into the League’s worst team.

First LAN Kick-Off

The Call of Duty League will be hosting its first LAN in over a year starting Thursday, June 17th at 3 pm ET. The confirmed matchups going into major include:

Winners Bracket:

Subliners vs. Rokkr

Optic vs. Empire

Elimination Bracket:

Thieves vs. Guerillas

Royal Ravens vs. Surge

Will Faze continue its dominance over COD? Will LAN bring out the best in some of the CDL’s lower-tier squads? Who do you think will win the Stage 4 Major? Let me know in the comments!