The Call of Duty League’s Opening Weekend 2021 marked the beginning of the 2021 season. LA Thieves and Atlanta FaZe are now top of groups A and B after finishing the weekend unbeaten.
There were plenty of highlights, from upsets to impressive plays, that made it a weekend to remember. Current champions Dallas Empire suffered an unexpected defeat to Minnesota Rokkr whilst Atlanta FaZe took down a menacing OpTic Chicago.
The second weekend is right around the corner where we will get a better idea of what teams are ahead of the pack.
LA Thieves top Group A
Nadeshot’s LA Thieves faced Minnesota Rokkr in their first match of the weekend. They started the series off hot but Rokkr bounced back to level the series at 1-1.
Thieves then took over the series and closed it out 3-1, starting their CDL campaign on a high. They then met Clayster and the New York Subliners on Saturday in what was expected to be an exciting match-up.
The series really had it all with flashy plays being made left, right, and centre. In map one, Thieves’ Kenny found three Subliners players in his line of sight when the scores were tied. He cleaned up all three which turned the odds in LA’s favour as they won the map.
Search and Destroy often provides the best highlights and that was true of the second map. Kenny pulled off the first 1v3 of the season to win the round. Subliners rookie, Diamondcon, then completed a 1v2 of his own in a thrilling map that was won by Thieves.
LA closed out the series 3-0 which placed them at the top of Group A.
Atlanta FaZe fight off OpTic
FaZe made light work of the Guerillas in their first match, but the one that had everyone talking was the match of the weekend versus OpTic Chicago.
Chicago were slight favourites heading into the series following Atlanta’s defeat to the Mutineers in the Kickoff Classic.
OpTic was in the driving seat after map one as they closed out the Hardpoint 250-225.
However, Atlanta bounced back with a vengeance and levelled the series with a 6-0 victory in the Search and Destroy. In what was a back and forth series, OpTic won a tightly-contested third map to go 2-1 up but FaZe forced the map five after aBeZy ran rampant in the second Hardpoint.
Atlanta’s aBeZy took over the fifth map and guided his team to an enthralling series victory that topped off a great weekend of matches.
What was your favourite moment from the Opening Weekend 2021?
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