Two days ago, Team Falcons confirmed its acquisition of the Call of Duty League spot that previously belonged to the Vegas Legion—and it didn’t take long for voices around the community to chime in.
The all-Saudi roster struggled at the recent Esports World Cup, placing top-16 at the event, and the squad also wasn’t victorious in the 2024 EU Challengers LCQ. So, many within the competitive CoD community voiced their displeasure with the decision to place this lineup into the league ahead of other potential players.
“Why did I just see an auto-lock 12th place team enter the league?” former Seattle Surge coach Nubzy said. “Why do orgs keep doing this? I can just send the routing and account number if they want to blow cash.”
With only 12 teams in the league, starting and even bench spots come at a premium. And many think that rushing this particular roster into the CDL is a potential mistake.
“I don’t get why they wouldn’t put them in NA Challengers and if they started looking really good put them in,” former Boston Breach player Beans said. “If not, it’s fine they’ll develop and you could look for putting them in next year. Include Challengers prize pools being lowered every year and its a scary time to be a aspiring CoD player.”
Vegas’ head coach, LewTee, was forced to acknowledge the talk and did so by explaining his goals and aspirations for the squad and the greater CoD community in the region.
“My goals and intentions for this project is to further develop the players within Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East, by creating a ‘Path to Pro’ system for the players with limited opportunities due to there being no Challengers system within that region,” LewTee said in a lengthy statement. “We aim to create an Academy Team with Arab players who will work closely with the main team and compete within NA Challengers next season.”
“The team that will represent us next season in the CDL have been together as a four in Challengers for only four months after picking up Khhx midway through the recent season,” LewTee continued. “Within that time the improvements have been massive which is supported by our online placements, including winning the EU Season 3 Elite.”
The roster of Exnid, Roxas, Khhx, and KingAbody will be thrown into a gauntlet of the top teams in the world very early on in the Black Ops 6 CDL season. They’ll have no better chance to prove themselves than then.
