Breaking Down CDL Los Angeles; What Did We Learn?

Call of Duty League Los Angeles concluded with the Dallas Empire taking home the victory. Of course, this isn’t the outcome that everyone expected with the Atlanta FaZe in attendance. Getting knocked out by the Minnesota Rokkr in the semifinals, FaZe showed their first sign of a weakness in the CDL. Will this be exploited in future events? And will OpTic Gaming keep up their recent hot streak? Today, we answer these questions in our CDL Los Angeles recap. 

Does the Atlanta FaZe Have a Weakness?

It seems the once-unstoppable roster of Atlanta has a bit of a weakness. While they’ve only lost 7 maps combined in the CDL, 5 have been against the Minnesota Rokkr. This isn’t a coincidence, as the Rokkr seems to match up extremely well against FaZe. 

The reasoning for this isn’t too clear, as Minnesota is more full of assault rifle players compared to FaZe’s dominant submachine gun players. However, the Rokkr does have a great SMG in Alex “Alexx” Carpenter. Although, this still doesn’t explain why FaZe has such an issue with the Rokkr whenever they go head-to-head. 

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Maybe we’ll see why in the future, but for now, Atlanta needs to figure out why they struggle so mightily against Minnesota. Conversely, the rest of the CDL needs to hone in on those issues and exploit them for future matchups against FaZe. Previously, it was thought that Atlanta was simply too fast and too strong for anyone to beat them in a best-of-five series. However, we now know that’s not the case. 

Atlanta doesn’t play the next homestand in Dallas, so we’ll have to wait until April to see them in action again. 

Is OpTic Gaming For Real?

One of the most surprising aspects of CDL Los Angeles was the hometeam OpTic Gaming making it to the semifinals. Of course, they were defeated by eventual champion Dallas but still, they made it farther than anyone thought they would prior to the event.

Most cite the role change of Brandon “Dashy” Otell as the reason for the sudden success. Dashy moved to an MP5 submachine gun after playing with an M4A1 assault rifle all year. With Dashy flying around the map, getting into engagements, it made it easier for the other players on OpTic to focus on the objective and slaying when they got the chance. 

However, there’s now tons of footage on OpTic and their new playstyle. While OG has the talent to be a great team, it’s fair to wonder if teams will figure them out the same way they did prior to the role change. Of course, OpTic now has all of March to practice more and improve with the roles in place. 

OpTic Gaming obviously has the talent to make a run in the CDL standings. Although, there are some great teams ahead of them and they need to prove they can beat the squads at the top of the league. If they can’t, OpTic will need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a different strategy. 

 

Images via OpTic Gaming on Twitter