Players and viewers alike can all rejoice in the fact that online Call of Duty: Vanguard is now over in the Call of Duty League. From unstable servers to high pings for players throughout their matches, it’s safe to say the CDL teams are thrilled to only have LAN matches in the 2022 season. The final slate of the Major IV qualifiers was the longest period of matches in the CDL’s history. There were multiple hour-long delays and several series that went to five maps.
From all of this Call of Duty played and with Major IV coming in one week, we have a few talking points from the weekend of qualifiers.
1. Major IV is truly anyone’s event
To summarize the standings from the Major IV qualifiers, London and New York are the top seeds, all three previous Major winners are in the losers bracket and Atlanta FaZe are the fourth seed. This is perhaps the strangest major event yet, with everyone but a few teams being considered contenders (sorry, Paris). It’ll be interesting to see how some of these upstart teams, like Boston and NYSL, perform on LAN after dominating online. It will also be worth watching the losers bracket with OpTic, Seattle and the LA Guerrillas all starting there. It seems at least one of them could likely make a deep run, but all three teams looked inconsistent at best during the qualifiers.
Major IV is up for grabs like no other major event before it, and the 12 teams in attendance know it. This, paired with the fact that Champs placements are on the line, should make for an explosive and entertaining tournament.
2. Vanguard is the strangest Call of Duty game in years
While there are some outliers, most in the COD community agree that Vanguard is among the worst titles in the long-running franchise. From the start, the game has been littered with bugs, glitches and strange decisions that make competitive series a toss-up. This was on full display over the weekend as the Vanguard servers caused several delays.
However, despite all of this, the matches that were played were extremely entertaining. Whether it’s because of the inconsistent nature of the game or teams being more competitive this year, Vanguard has been the foundation for some truly intense matches this season. This makes watching the CDL in 2022 tolerable, but most fans and players will be happy to move on to Modern Warfare II after Champs concludes.
3. NYSL need a miracle to make Champs
Despite going 4-1 in the Major IV qualifiers, the New York Subliners still didn’t make up much ground in the CDL standings. They currently sit in 11th place, the exact spot they started in, and are 35 points behind the eighth-place team (LAG). They, and any other team, need to be in top eight after Major IV ends in order to make the Champs.
With the current standings, New York needs to finish in the top three of Major IV to possibly crack their way into the top eight. This is a daunting task, even for the second-seeded team in the tournament. Perhaps having a home-field advantage at Major IV will help propel NYSL to make a deep run at the event. However, the odds are not in the Subliners’ favor.
