Atlanta FaZe become the first CDL team to qualify for Champs 2022

Call of Duty League Major III ended yesterday, with the Seattle Surge taking home the victory (and $200,000 in winnings). They also earned 65 CDL Points to vault themselves into third place in the league standings, right behind Atlanta FaZe and OpTic Texas. Atlanta FaZe finished second at Major III, this tournament being their third consecutive silver in 2022. While they may not have claimed victory at the tournament, they did win themselves a tentative spot in the CDL Champs bracket.

CDL Champs is the end-of-the-season event that has only cemented its status as a Call of Duty tradition. Before the CDL was established in 2019, Champs was a huge tournament with dozens of teams fighting for their chance at glory and a world championship. Teams are still fighting for that in today’s CDL; but today, only eight teams are allowed into the Champs bracket. This was an intended decision by the league, as they feel excluding four teams from the bracket gives more meaning to the season’s regular matches. The Champs bracket only takes the top eight teams from the CDL standings following the Major IV tournament.

Right now, Atlanta is the only team that has mathematically secured their spot in the bracket — even if FaZe were to lose every match the rest of the season, they would still have a seat at Champs. Teams like the Paris Legion and New York Subliners, who have 20 and 70 points respectively, must win a majority of their matches, including any at Major IV, to secure their spot.

Next closest to securing their spot at Champs is OpTic Texas, who just need one more win to get in. That seems extremely likely, given the fact that OpTic plays both Paris and New York during the qualifiers. Outside of Atlanta and Texas, no other team is truly close to securing a spot, with Atlanta currently at 260 points and Texas at 225. The next closest team in points is Seattle with 175; every team outside of Paris and New York is within 65 points of Seattle, which means seeding is still up in the air.

Teams around the eighth spot will need to be careful so they don’t get jumped by a bottom-four team. If a team like the LA Thieves underperform at qualifiers, they could find themselves out of the Champs bracket.

Major IV qualifiers start on June 24, with the New York Major beginning on July 17.