Three things we learned from CDL Major III week three qualifiers

Week three of the Call of Duty League Major III qualifiers featured thrilling matchups, last-minute substitutions and eye-opening performances.

As always, there are several takeaways from the matches. However, in week three, there were more lessons about the CDL as a whole this year rather than ones about individual teams or players. Here’s a list of the top three takeaways, below.

1. OpTic Texas is far and away the top team

Despite OpTic Texas only being second in the overall CDL standings (Atlanta FaZe have five more points), they should be considered the best team in the league by a substantial margin. During the weekend, OpTic once again beat FaZe without much trouble. Atlanta have yet to beat Texas in five tries this season. Although, this latest iteration of the rivalry saw OpTic with Byron “Prolute” Vera instead of their usual star Indervir “iLLeY” Dhaliwal.

iLLeY also wasn’t present at the Pro-Am Classic, where OpTic took down FaZe with another substitute, Jordon “General” General. With OpTic seemingly having FaZe’s number this year, there should be no doubt about who is the top team heading into Major III.

2. There’s no third-best team in the CDL

Piggybacking off the first point, OpTic Texas and Atlanta FaZe are miles ahead of any other team this season. To make matters more intriguing, there also doesn’t appear to be a third-best team in the league. There’s a number of candidates for the spot, with none of them having a better claim than the team next to them.

The London Royal Ravens are the third team in the CDL standings, but they’ve fallen off mightily compared to where they were at the start of the season. Boston Breach have looked solid at times, but they’ve also been inconsistent. The Minnesota ROKKR are 4-0 this stage, but they still haven’t faced much top competition. Finally, the New York Subliners and Toronto Ultra have come on as of late, but they still don’t look like top-team material. It’s a blood bath below OpTic and FaZe and no team has come out ahead yet.

3. LA Thieves need a roster change

Last season, the LA Thieves capped their inaugural season in the CDL by making a total of eight roster changes. They were a constant meme throughout the CDL community, essentially having a revolving door of players at every stage. In 2022, the story is completely different. LA have made no roster changes and only one role change.

While the Thieves seem committed to not changing their roster this season, maybe because of what happened last year, it feels like they should. This current roster has underperformed, and they currently sit at 1-2 in the Major III qualifiers. Even with a role change, LA is nowhere near a top team this year, despite what goes on in scrimmages. If LA want to make a run at Champs this season, or make it at all, they will need some kind of change. What that could be is anyone’s guess.