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sportsDallas Empire

Winners and losers from Call of Duty League’s Los Angeles home series, including Dallas Empire’s teenage duo

The Empire and OpTic Gaming shined over the weekend, but not everything went smoothly for others.

Winners

A future Empire: Dallas knew what it was getting with CoD stars Ian “Crimsix” Porter and James “Clayster” Eubanks. Those two are proven champions in the industry, known for delivering when it counts.

The question mark for Dallas was always going to be the other guys, but the criticism may quiet down now. The pair of 18-year-olds in Indervir “iLLeY” Dhaliwal and Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro had its most successful weekend. It was the first event that Dallas received consistently strong results from those two, and it resulted in a championship.

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Cuyler “Huke” Garland was a contributor to everything working out. He swapped to a support role for the betterment of his group.

“I’ve never really had a struggle on LAN, but we swapped roles before this event,” Shotzzy said. “I wasn’t really comfortable where I was at. Ever since changing roles I feel like we’ve been well-rounded as a team.”

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The Empire hasn’t even practiced its current setup for long. Huke got just three days of practice as the new objective player before the Empire played in Los Angeles.

This could mean the ceiling only gets higher.

Homestand crowds: Some of the CDL casters were unsure of what crowds would bring to the homestead element flexed during the inaugural season.

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League talent Philip “Momo” Whitfield said cheering was often for or against one specific player or team in the past. The franchising was the biggest difference, and he’s already seen what makes the homestands unique. That actually came over the first weekend in Minneapolis in January.

“Going into an event like Minnesota and expecting a big turnout was kind of crazy. But I showed up, casted some games and noticed the already present home crowd,” Momo told The Dallas Morning News. “You could see that bias towards the whole team, and that’s traveled with us. I think that’s been the most surprising thing, whether it’s been Minnesota, London, Atlanta or here in LA. Some of these LA teams are seen as villains of the scene, but here they are the home favorites.”

OpTic Gaming Los Angeles was booed in Minnesota, but well-received at home. They made an unlikely run to the semifinals behind a key 3-0 sweep of the Minnesota Rokkr.

The next homestead is in Dallas on March 28 and 29. The Empire can make the winners list again with a strong turnout, as it hasn’t been a crowd favorite yet.

Atlanta FaZe: An early exit in the tournament against Minnesota doesn’t mean Atlanta isn’t the best team in the league anymore. The Empire avoided them in the final bracket after losing to FaZe in pool play.

Even the Dallas players know it’ll take more than this past weekend to prove they belong with the best.

“We got to work harder. I really think the narrative is going to be that we didn’t beat FaZe or Chicago and that’s why we won,” Clayster said. “We have to get better and work harder because we are still shaky on a lot of things.”

It may not have been a fluke, but it took a lackluster performance from Atlanta and red-hot Minnesota to make for a five-map match. Atlanta gets to sit out of the Dallas home series, making for plenty of time to adjust.

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Losers

The Chicago Huntsmen: They didn’t play, so objectively nothing was lost. But it means teams get to catch up again. Chicago’s only loss came against Florida, which was swept twice over the weekend, once by Atlanta and once by Dallas.

The Huntsmen remain tied for first place in the league with 90 points alongside FaZe. That may not last after the next homestead, though. If Dallas is on the upswing and teams like OpTic are making fast improvements, it’s only going to get tougher for the teams that started on the backs of veteran talent like the Huntsmen.

Hype Battle: The celebrities who played in the league’s 2v2 gunfight on Sunday were big grabs. Actor Michael B. Jordan, Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley, comedian and influencer King Bach and caster Miles Ross made for quality entertainment.

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But that was only when they were playing.

The game paused repeatedly, wrecking the pace of Sunday’s schedule. Both Jordan and Gurley had issues with the controller disconnecting, and while the celebrities handled the impromptu stoppage time, the event still received some boos from the crowd.

Shotzzy haters: Perhaps nobody on the Empire received more criticism than Shotzzy. He struggled early in the season when he was the player stapled on the hill on respawn maps. He even received some unwelcome nicknames like “Boozy,” but he may have shed those.

Shotzzy was as dominant as advertised in the preseason. His movement put him in positions to make his opponents uncomfortable. That worked for him.

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“For the most part I just abuse my movement to get into my opponents’ faces and catch them off guard as much as I can,” Shotzzy said. “Since I’ve been doing that I think I’ve played super well.”

Shotzzy, iLLeY and Huke may dictate how well the Empire team performs in general. If that’s that case, the Shotzzy critics may have spoken early.

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