Match Day!

Whoop whoop it's that time of the week again when we cover our favourite Esports team's matches!

The Call of Duty League has just wrapped up its first weekend of matches for Modern Warfare 2. It was not only the start of a new game, but the first look at most of the revamped teams – and the action was non-stop.

Atlanta FaZe managed to secure their first win in their 2023 Call Of Duty League campaign on Sunday, beating the current defending champion Los Angeles Thieves. The game was best of 5 and both of the teams were meeting for the first time since the Los Angeles Thieves bested FaZe in the 2022 CDL Championship final.

Where the Thieves claimed a 5-2 victory to clinch the $1.2 million prize money, while FaZe took home $650,000 as the runners-up.

The first map featured "Hotel" with the game mode - Hardpoint, and McArthur “Cellium” Jovel played a dominant role in helping FaZe win the map. He registered 30 kills in total on the map, with Faze finishing the game with a 250–216 scoreline. Tyler “aBeZy” Pharris also played a big role with 29 kills.

Los Angeles Thieves bounced back, stepping up their game for the second map. The defending champions bested FaZe on Hotel (Search & Destroy), closing out the map in the 11th round. Kenneth “Kenny” Williams stood out from the crowd and played well.

Following this, the two teams divided the next two maps, with FaZe winning 3-2 on Al Bagra Fortress (Control) and the Thieves getting up 250-169 on Hydro (Hardpoint), respectively.

Having defeated FaZe on Search & Destroy maps numerous times in the 2022 regular season, there was an expectation that the LA Thieves would do the same in Taking the. While they had lost to the LA Thieves in the first S&D map of the series, it appears Atlanta was not willing to suffer another defeat.

FaZe took an early 5-2 lead on the map, and LA Thieves managed to reduce the gap to 5-3 but found it difficult to make their way back. Atlanta seemed too hot to handle as all of their players finished the map with a positive rating. Cellium led the team, having secured the highest kill-to-death ratio (9-4).

On December 10, FaZe will be going up against the Las Vegas Legion in their next outing, who have yet to win a matchup.

LA Thieves will be taking on the Florida Mutineers on the same day but at a later time. Both teams have posted a 1-1 record thus far, but the defending champions will be expected to be the better team.