Call of Duty League Preview: Dallas Empire to continue to their winning form?
In recent Call of Duty news, the CDL is back and moving online. Having been postponed in recent times due to COVID-19, the most entertaining esports league is brought to you on the comfort of your own couch, with players also on theirs. To keep in the loop, you can view our CDL Dallas Home Series hub here.
Will the lack of home advantage affect the Dallas Empire?
With the series going online, Dallas Empire will lose the home advantage which has proven important for teams such as Atlanta FaZe so far. Atlanta Faze, Chicago Huntsmen and Dallas Empire are all pretty much neck and neck at the top after winning a home series each, with just 10 points between them. We’ve seen players such as James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks and Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter thrive off home advantages and atmospheres in the past, so it will be interesting whether the fact that the games are to be played online away from them will affect their gameplay and overall hype. The Dallas Empire can top the table if they win the series, at the expense of the non-present Atlanta FaZe. Although Chicago Huntsmen lie in their way.
Does form go out of the window after the COVID-19 break?
Minnesota Rokkr and OpTic Gaming will be the two teams most upset by this current pandemic break. OpTic reached the semi-finals in the Los Angeles series, much further than anyone had tipped them for. Brandon ‘Dashy’ Odell switched from his usual M4A1 to an MP5 submachine gun, and this caused an absolute nuisance for the opposition. Causing havoc in close engagements, Dashy allowed for the other players to push further up the maps in hardpoint and domination, giving OpTic more control of map positioning and respawns. But with the month break in between fixtures, this may have allowed teams more time to analyse Dashy’s movement and put a tactic in place to pick him off from a distance. OpTic will definitely be looking to pick up from where they left to try and push themselves up the leaderboard. Minnesota will also be looking to kick on from the Los Angeles series where they were narrowly defeated by Dallas in the final on map 5. Showing that they can mix it up with the best, Minnesota will still be on the hype from the map 4 comeback, which has been the best play of the season so far. Alex ‘Alexx’ Carpenter has been instrumental in his SMG play for Rokkr, consistently clutching when it means the most.
Will Chicago and Dallas struggle with communication?
Both the Dallas Empire and the Chicago Huntsmen have been seriously impressive so far this season and have excelled in each game that they have played. But will playing online effect their communication? Being newly formed teams, both teams have been focusing on nailing down their comms but playing online is much harder. Not being in the same room to strategize, analyse and prepare for a game will certainly take a toll on the early stages of the games. Will both teams be able to get themselves hyped up for the start of the games and will Seth ‘Scumpy’ Abner and Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper feel the effects of not having their pre-match hype with Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez.
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Image via Crimisix | Twitter https://twitter.com/Crimsix/status/1237167038017265664