It’s official: the first weekend of the 2023 Call of Duty League season is over, and what an opener it was. From the 2nd to the 4th of December, every team in the League poured their best efforts into making an impact as early as possible, and while it worked for some, for others, it proved to be a miserable weekend. With the aid of Twitch drops and a more popular platform, the new season saw much better numbers than last year’s opening weekend, and the drama is already running rampant.
Now, the tone for the rest of the stage has been set, and with a massive Call of Duty event arriving in little more than a week, there’s lots of work to be done. These opening fixtures will determine the seeding for the first Major of the 2023 season, and it’s already proving to be a make-or-break year for competitors, organisations, and even for the fans themselves. It’s no secret that the Modern Warfare II platform has seen its fair share of issues, and if the drama continues, it’ll leave a dent in the League.
Here’s everything you need to know about the CDL 2023 opening weekend.
What Are You SAE’ing About The Drama?
Memes began flying around as fast as the accusations following Rokkr’s slip-up.
Firstly, heads were turned and jaws were left hanging when Boston Breach burst into the season by handing Atlanta FaZe a 3 – 1 loss. Then, just one day later, the team beat Seattle Surge, again with a 3 – 1 scoreline. It was a phenomenal performance that was replicated by just two other teams: the Royal Ravens, and Minnesota Rokkr. On the subject of Rokkr, the organisation became a hive of intense drama this weekend following a very unfortunate situation during the team’s series against OpTic Texas.
In the first fixture of the year for OpTic Texas, the team made the decision to forfeit following a dire set of circumstances. The scoreline was 1-1 and OpTic Texas was seconds away from making it 2-1 when Cammy of Rokkr accidentally triggered a GA’d killstreak that kicked off a bug. Then, owing to the rules of the League, OpTic Texas were forced to replay the round. They couldn’t bear the injustice, so they opted to just forfeit.
Elsewhere, the New York Subliners plummeted to the bottom of the table, winning just one map across the entire weekend. There are already whispers rising up regarding the internal state of the Subliners team, so it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on that situation and see how it develops. They might be some of the best Call of Duty players in the world, but that doesn’t mean they’re not prone to bad chemistry and infighting.
We’re In For a Good Season
As the viewership on Twitch peaked beyond 120,000, fans looked back at the peaks during the last season. During Vanguard’s opening stage, there was a peak viewership count of just 79,753 users, according to escharts.com. As Modern Warfare II is statistically the fastest-selling Call of Duty game in history, it makes sense that many more viewers are eager to tune into the action as it unfolds.
It looks like this is going to be a highly competitive season, studded with special events and some classic Call of Duty esports drama. Also, throughout the next few months, all eyes will be on OpTic Texas’ Scump, as after more than a decade in the business, this is his final competitive season. Can he lift a trophy one more time before he retires?
It all begins here.
