Crown them king — Call Of Duty League Champs 2021 Grand Finals takeaways

The 2021 Call Of Duty League season is officially over, but what a playoffs we’ve been treated to. Every team in the top 6 seemed to throw their heart and soul into every match, and it showed as we witnessed some of the best Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War play we’ve seen all season. This was admittedly for the glory and a bunch of coin, not to mention in front of all the fans in the environment we expect to see Call Of Duty played in, so the stakes were as high as you’d get. The Grand Finals was the last piece of the puzzle, and it was on display as the two best teams in Call Of Duty, Atlanta Faze and the Toronto Ultra battled it out on the main stage.

• The bois finally did it. After a rough Modern Warfare inaugural season where it felt like they just couldn’t break through, they decided to make a change, brining in Arcytis and shipping MajorManiak and Priestahh off to Minnesota. It certainly seemed to work, with Faze breaking through in the Major tournaments, but after an awful showing in Major V, leaving without a win, you could wonder if the combination of that and fans cheering for their downfall had broken their spirit. After dispatching both New York and Dallas in 3-0 fashion it was fair to wonder if anyone could even come close to beating them in the Grand Finals, but if there was anyone that would put up a fight, it was Toronto, who pulled Major II from their grasp. I’ll be honest, Faze got absolutely punched in the mouth in the first map, in a 250-175 Moscow Hardpoint that was not nearly as close as it actually was, and the new League MVP Simp going 10/26. But real champions crack their fingers, pick up the controller, and go right back at it, and that’s exactly what Atlanta did, fighting back to win a really close Express S&D (one of their weaker maps), and going up 3-1 via one of the fastest Controls you’ll see, a lead they would never relinquish, along with an insane comeback in a Garrison Control they probably had no right to win. While they did lose two more Search rounds, a Miami that was never in question and a Raid that was as close as the Express, Cellium pulled out his nerd spots for a final time on the Apocalypse Hardpoint, which proved to be the final map. I also want to give myself a little credit, as I said yesterday Faze would win 5-3.
• Toronto, with the exception of Major II, has had the same kind of year Faze did last year minus the expectations, plenty of being the bridesmaid but never the bride. That does not discount anything the team has done however, with a top 3 finish in every event since adding Insight, who is one of the best main ARs in the game. Toronto really came out swinging the first map, and it made you wonder if Faze had it in them to bounce back. But Faze didn’t go down and took it right back at them, even if Ultra had a little bit of bad luck when Bance was literally a millisecond late to diffusing the bomb on Express S&D, as well as blowing being up two on Garrison Control. They didn’t stop even when they went down 3-1 however, beating up Faze on Miami S&D, and Cammy going absolutely ballistic on Raid S&D to help them be in position for the round 11 win. In the end, it just wasn’t enough, but I doubt any other team would’ve even taken more than a map off of Faze with the way they were playing. This team wasn’t even expected to be in the running of anything at the beginning of the year, so what they have done has certainly defied all expectations. My hat is off to the kings of the North.

And that wraps up a crazy season! Check out the finishing bracket above. If you want to go back and watch any of the events, or even the entire CDL 2021 season, you can follow the league both live and after hours on the official Call Of Duty League YouTube channel right here. If you want to jump into the game, check out CallOfDuty.com, and if you want to know more about it first, check out our review right here.

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