Overview of the Call of Duty League (CDL)

Have you heard of or played Call of Duty? Would you like to watch professionals play the game and learn their forms? Let's talk about the Call of Duty League (CDL). The CDL is a professional Esports league that currently consists of 12 teams. These teams compete against each other during a qualifier and four major tournaments, followed by a postseason. The qualifiers are viewed as a regular season that leads up to each Major. The matches occur with every team member being in a room together, competing remotely versus another team. The qualifiers determine the ranking that each team will receive when they are headed to each major. They carry a full-season ranking and a separate ranking for each major. So if a team is in second place for the first major, they could come in ninth for the next major. This gives an outlook on the CDL as a whole and how the league flows. 

The regular season started on December 8th, 2023, and goes the entire season. The four Majors are done in Boston, Miami, Toronto, and North Carolina, where the teams are all in one place. Each major is hosted in a location by a team that is in the CDL. The Boston Breach Major went from December 8th to January 28th. The winner of this major was Toronto Ultra, who beat Atlanta Faze in the Grand Finals. Going into the bracket, Toronto was ranked second, and Atlanta was ranked first. Within a major, the teams placed 1 through 8 get a chance at double elimination. Teams placed 9 through 12 only have one chance; if they lose, they are out. These tournaments last a long weekend and create an intense environment for people to come and watch.

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Let’s dive into the basic rules and views of the CDL. Each matchup is the best of five games (during the regular season and early rounds of major). Matchups go to the best of seven games in the finals and Grand Finals of majors. Three game modes are played: Hardpoint, Search and Destroy, and Control. [If you want to dive deeper into restricted weapons, maps, and more, go here.]. Each mode has a different goal that they are looking to reach. For example, Hard Point is completed when the first team reaches 250 points and respawns are allowed. Search & Destroy is when the bomb goes off, is defused or all players are killed before the bomb is placed since there are no respawns. The flow of the matches tends to be Hard Point, Search & Destroy, then Control. Then the order repeats if the match needs more game modes to continue. The overall goal is for the team to win the best out of 5. So they could go 3-0, 3-1, or 3-2. Teams are looking to win more regular-season games to achieve a better ranking for the major. This gives them a stronger chance to win it all. 

Overall, the CDL has many changing pieces, rules, and rosters that can make it hard to keep up with. If you are looking for something new to get into, the CDL could be a good place to start. Also, if you are someone who likes to gamble on sports, Esports has the same possibility. Check out DraftKings or Bet365 for platforms that tend to have odds for all CDL matches. Be on the lookout for the next major, which occurs in Miami at the end of March (the weekend of March 24th).