Author: Nik Ranger

Scump reaches $1m CoD earnings with record-breaking World Series of Warzone win MLG/ActivisionCall of Duty League star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has become just the sixth player in history to reach $1m earned from Call of Duty, with his incredible World Series of Warzone win on November 17. The World Series of Warzone on November 17 had $300k on the line in a duos tournament and the $100,000 winner-takes-all Solo YOLO tournament. While HusKerrs and Newbz won the duo side of things, Scump defied all odds to take down some of Warzone’s greatest names in an incredible regain and become the $100k Solo Warzone champion. Now, he’s tipped himself over the $1m tournament earnings mark after a decade-long career, becoming the fifth highest-earning player in Call of Duty and the only player to win both a CoD world championship and the World Series of Warzone. Scump hits $1m CoD earnings Scump went on a near-impossible regain to get himself the win. Dropping back in from the Gulag, he just about managed to get a loadout drop and ripped through multiple opponents with just a Diamatti pistol. With four left in the game, he made a brilliant gas mask play to take down duos champion HusKerrs before finishing off Aydan in a 1v1 for the ages. Scump’s reaction to the historic win says it all, jumping up and screaming, amazed that he somehow pulled off one of the most clutch wins in Warzone history. THE KING 👑@scump just clutched $100K in the World Series of Warzone Solos match. pic.twitter.com/Tn579qpXy9 — Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) November 18, 2021 This win makes Scump the fifth highest-earning Call of Duty player of all time, beaten only by multiple-time world champions. There has been a lot of debate about how CDL pros would fare in elite competition in Warzone, and to answer any doubters, Scump’s win has really helped to set the record straight.

Scump ranks Call of Duty’s best SMG players of all time Activision / Call of Duty LeagueCall of Duty’s ‘King’ has already cemented his place among the best SMG players in history, but here’s who Seth ‘Scump’ Abner highlights as his top competition among all-time greats. When it comes to the best players in Call of Duty history, there’s no denying Scump should be in every conversation. The 10-year veteran helped build the Green Wall, secured X Games gold, won a World Championship ring, and took home trophies at dozens of events along the way. Throughout his journey to the top, Scump has filled one role and one role only, that of an aggressive SMG player. While his career will be looked back on as one of the best of all time, who else comes close to matching his presence on any given map? While discussing Cuyler ‘Huke’ Garland’s move to the LA Thieves on the latest OpTic podcast, Scump was quick to praise the “generational talent” now under Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag’s banners. What soon followed was a shortlist of who he considers the best players to ever pick up an SMG. “I consider [Huke] probably Top 3 – Top 4 Sub of all time,” Scump said to kickstart the conversation. Having played against Huke through much of his CoD career, Scump has spent more than enough time in the same lobby to know just how good he really is. While the new LA Thieves star is still fairly young, Scump argues he’s already done enough to position himself among the best ever. “Huke is up there,” he added. Also on the King’s list is former Luminosity Gaming MVP Johnathon ‘John’ Perez. Despite the former World Champ currently duking it out in the Challengers scene, Scump praised him as an all-time great SMG slayer. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before John makes his way back to a starting CDL lineup. Outside of recognizing his own accomplishments, Scump listed two final names to round out his list: none other than Atlanta FaZe’s ‘Tiny Terrors’ duo of Chris ‘Simp’ Lehr and Tyler ‘aBeZy’ Pharris. Just 20 and 21 years of age respectively, the young prodigies burst onto the scene and secured a world championship together early on. They’ll “eventually” go down as all-time great SMG players, according to Scump. Before this elite group hangs up the sticks, there’s still plenty of CoD left to play. New names could emerge and veterans could always turn some heads. By no means is this a definitive list set in stone forever. These are more just the names that immediately stand out to the SMG King. Scump himself is all set to meet up with two of the players mentioned above in the very near future. OpTic Chicago takes on Atlanta FaZe in a matter of days as Dallas Home Series rages on.

Scump proves he’s ‘not done’ with rapid ace on Modern Warfare Call of Duty pro Seth ‘Scump’ Abner stunned his viewers with an incredible Modern Warfare ace while playing in a Search and Destroy tournament on October 26. Widely regarded as one of the best players of all time, Scump made a name for himself in the world of Call of Duty with his aggressive and lethal SMG gameplay. However, fans of the King will have seen him struggle over the last couple of years. Scump has only won one major tournament since the end of Infinite Warfare. He will be hoping Modern Warfare will be a different story, and proved just how lethal he can be while streaming on only day two of the game being available. Scump was playing alongside his new Chicago teammates: FormaL, Envoy, Gunless and Arcitys. It was potentially the presence of his new teammates that helped him show off and annihilate the entire enemy team. Read More: Atlanta FaZe CoD team announces star roster – Playing Search and Destroy on Hackney Yard, Scump is first to enter the warehouse. He perfectly cooks a grenade, eliminating two opponents within the first seconds of the round. Perfectly utilizing the van for cover, he makes a push through the warehouse and eliminates an enemy through a smoke grenade, before finding a fourth rushing to try and trade his teammates. With momentum and confidence firmly behind him, Scump makes a perfect read onto the final enemy and kills him as he makes a desperate rush into the bottom floor. On completing the ace, Scump exclaimed: “Oh my god, somebody clip that shit!” His teammates can be heard laughing, clearly shocked at the hard-carry they just received from one of the all-time greats. He also posted the clip on Twitter later, with the caption “They thought I was done” – clearly signalling his determination to be back on top this season. Scump was using the MP5 for the ace; the main SMG of choice for professional players in the game’s current meta. The team went onto win the tournament in which they were competing – a ‘one and done’ $650 SnD tournament. While it is still early days for Modern Warfare Scump and his teammates will be hoping to see him recreate the clip countless times over the course of the first Call of Duty franchised league season. The setup of the Chicago roster – with acclaimed ARs FormaL and Arcitys – suggests Scump will inherit an aggressive role alongside Envoy, the young SMG star who made his name on Gen.G during the Black Ops 4 season. This will then leave Gunless as the team’s flex player, bridging the gap between aggressive SMG plays like this one, and FormaL and Arcitys’ conservative AR styles.

Scump names his price to “uproot his life” for Call of Duty franchise league CWL / 100 Thieves YouTubeCall of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner is going to be a hot target for future franchised orgs to sign, but the pro says it’s going to take quite a bit to get him to move. Activision Blizzard’s upcoming Call of Duty franchised league has orgs and pros thinking hard about their future since city-based teams are set to rule the landscape in the 2020 season. For players specifically, this could mean they’ll have to completely pack up and move out to their respective teams’ cities. For a lot of players, that’s an easy choice to make, but it could take extra convincing from veterans who’ve already won it all. The full episode for The Courage and Nadeshot Show on September 5 revealed a bit more about Scump’s thought process to this whole franchise Rostermania that’s seeing a lot of pros strut their stuff to get noticed by teams. While he doesn’t foresee pros moving out in the inaugural year of the league, if the day comes when he has to move to a far-away city, he’s going to need to be justly compensated. “Depends what the cash is like,” Scump said on the possibility of moving to a city he probably wouldn’t want to live in just to compete. “If I’m going to uproot my whole life to go move somewhere else, then yeah.” He agreed with Courage’s summation that he’d “have to be paid very, very well” in order to commit to a long term living situation outside of his home in Texas. (Timestamp at 49:42 for mobile viewers) As Nadeshot made a quip about Scump having to get a “supermax” contract in order to move out, Scump went on to say: “I’m getting a bag.” If he didn’t get his named price, he then mentioned that his retirement would be an alternative as he could move into content creation. Contrary to murmurs from pros that Nadeshot has been hearing from, Scump doesn’t think relocation for players will be anytime soon. “I don’t think we’re going to have to live in other cities,” Scump said. “At least for the first year… Year two (or) Year three, potentially, yeah. But Year one we’re not going to have to move.” Regardless, the signing window for CDL teams opened September 3 and teams will be looking to bolster their roster with the best talent to represent their cities. However, even with the window open, not one CDL team has pulled the trigger on signing a player as of yet.

Scump pitches ‘perfect’ Call of Duty League format for 2021 and beyond Call of Duty League[jwplayer N1RFqG2Z]Nearing the end of the inaugural Call of Duty League (CDL) season, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has expressed his disappointment in the current format and outlined exactly what he’d change for 2021 and beyond. CDL Home Series events bring eight of 12 franchise teams together across three days of competition. Players battle it out for bragging rights and prize money, along with all-important CDL points. With just one regular-season tournament remaining before the playoff bracket begins, players have grown tired with the state of the League. While the shift to online certainly hasn’t helped, and controversial rulings leave a lot to be desired, Scump believes the current format itself is in desperate need of change. The Chicago Huntsmen star argued that the current structure “sucks” during a July 20 Twitch stream. “I want to play more CoD,” he said. “If you win every match at a Home Series you play four matches in three days.” When asked how he would improve the structure to ensure more game-time for every team, Scump pitched a format that will be familiar to long-time fans. One that aligns perfectly with how the Call of Duty World League used to play out. “For next year…this is hopeful but I want it to expand to 16 teams and every team be at every tournament,” he outlined. “There would be pool play at every tournament,” meaning that rosters would have to earn their spot in bracket play. With hopes for 16 franchise teams in 2021, it would lend to a perfectly even playing field for “four pools of four teams.” No different from the former competitive CoD structure before the League began, the top two teams would then “come out into a double-elimination, eight-team bracket.” Throughout the course of an event of this scope, there would be far more potential for exciting storylines to emerge. Having every team at every event would truly establish who the best is. Not just that, it would allow pros to “play more matches,” which is something Scump desperately wants to see for the next season. CDL teams are just weeks away from their most important matchups of the year. The 2020 playoffs begin on August 19 with a $4.6 million prize pool on the line. The top two seeds from the regular season advance straight through to the winner’s semi-finals. Currently fourth in the standings, Scump and the Huntsmen are gunning for a top two finish. The Toronto Home Series rounds out the regular season on July 24.

Scump admits he thinks Warzone “just isn’t” a competitive game YouTube: OpTic Chicago / ActivisionDespite the popularity of Warzone, Call of Duty icon Seth ‘Scump’ Abner argues that the battle royale isn’t a good fit for competitive play due to just how much is “left to chance.” The battle royale genre is still relatively fresh in the grand scheme of the gaming industry. While the likes of Fortnite and PUBG before it found their footing with private lobbies for competitive events, Call of Duty’s take hasn’t quite found the same structure. While custom games were introduced not too long ago, a majority of the top Warzone pros have stayed away from them. The kill-race format has become the standard and without having everyone in the same lobby, Scump doesn’t see competitive play being fair across the board. “As much as I love Warzone and would love for it to be competitive, it’s just not,” he said during the December 29 OpTic podcast. “The tournaments are competitive because everyone in the tournament is really, really good,” Scump admitted. With many former pro players and popular content creators often filling out the biggest events. But in spite of the talent involved, “there’s just so much left to chance,” according to the king. “It’s literally RNG.” Everything from the players you find in your lobby, to the loot on the ground, there’s a good amount of luck involved, as with nearly every battle royale. ““It’s literally, are you getting good lobbies, are you getting stream sniped?” “There are so many layers of RNG and so many loopholes,” he added. “You can work the system.” Just recently, players came under fire for accusations of swapping regions to find easier lobbies. Read More: Crimsix and Scump settle their CoD beef – On top of that, but reverse boosting is also a thing. “With skill-based matchmaking layered on top, that just adds another loophole.” Players can tank their performance for a few games before an event. Leading to much easier lobbies in their competitive run. The relevant topic begins at the 11:30 mark below. With all of these factors piling up, Scump can’t see a viable future for competitive Warzone. “I want it to succeed, but those tournaments man…” Read More: CoD League announced 2021 season & format – Perhaps a switch to private lobbies could help the CoD BR find its footing. Though with the feature now readily available, it’s clear no one is all too eager to make that jump. Despite millions in prizing going around every month, Warzone appears a little too luck-dependent for Scump’s liking.

Scump & OpTic Texas confirm Dashy was dropped because of ‘attitude issues’ MLGOpTic Texas have confirmed that Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell was dropped from the roster as a result of continuing attitude problems, with Scump keen to salvage his final Call of Duty League season. CDL Major 1, won by the New York Subliners, has given way to a mid-season rostermania in the Call of Duty League. After weeks of turmoil, fan favorite org OpTic Texas have finally confirmed the acquisiton of Cuyler ‘Huke’ Garland to replace the outgoing Dashy. In a January 12 episode of the OpTic Podcast, the squad finally discussed at length the process of replacing Dashy. Among other things, they confirmed that he was dropped as a result of ongoing attitude problems, the same reasons there was talk of a roster change in the off season. Scump & OpTic Texas confirm Dashy was dropped due to ‘attitude’ Opening the podcast, Scump explained that it was a “team decision” and he “hates” having to drop his friends. However, with the MW2 season confirmed as being his last, it’s understandable that issues have to be quickly addressed. Specifically, Rambo and Scump confirmed Dashy was dropped due to his ‘attitude’. While they did not say it outright, they explained that there are two reasons players are dropped. The first is talent and the second is attitude. Rambo said: “We were going to make a roster change in the off-season. It didn’t happen, we felt like we could move through it. We ended up not being able to do it… the reasons that led us to wanna make the roster change in the off-season is what led us to make a roster change at this point.” Timestamp: 29:45 It has previously been confirmed that Dashy’s “attitude” was the reason OpTic Texas considered dropping him prior to the MW2 season. They ultimately decided to “run it back.” Scump added: “We had a talk at the start of the year and we laid it out on the table. This is what we expect from everybody, this is what we want this year. If we don’t get it there’s gonna be f**king problems. There were problems… That’s why I wanted Ray to say it’s not performance-based, because it’s not performance-based, at all.” Dashy, for his part, has issued a series of responses to the podcast. While live early on January 13, he refuted aspects of OpTic Texas’ reasoning, saying he was no worse as a teammate than anyone else. He even accused Rambo of occasionally skipping scrims to go bowling. Dashy remains unattached after leaving OpTic Texas. The second CDL Major kicks off with Qualifiers on January 13.

Scump blasts toxic social media following CDL Major exit: “Tired of being a punchbag” Activision / Call of Duty League2021 certainly hasn’t been the easiest stretch for OpTic Chicago in the Call of Duty League and following another difficult loss in the Stage 4 Major, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has opened up on his “rough” mental state. As fan favorites in the CDL, expectations are always high when it comes to OpTic. Despite years of helping establish competitive CoD as one of the most successful teams, 2021 has arguably been the Green Wall’s toughest outing yet. From the very beginning of the Cold War cycle, OpTic has been dealing with ample criticism. Difficult losses piled up over the first three Stages, with back-to-back Top 4 finishes rounded out by their worst placement yet in Stage 3. But with the return of LAN at the latest Major, many believed the narrative was about to change. OpTic’s first offline event in 471 days ultimately ended with yet another Top 4 finish at the hands of Dallas Empire. After this difficult loss, Scump took to Twitter and revealed how the past few months of trials and tribulations have been impacting his mental health. Dominance in their hometown from @DallasEmpire! They #DefendTheThrone, eliminating @OpTicCHI from Major IV! pic.twitter.com/9u70pqeZrP — Call of Duty League (@CODLeague) June 20, 2021 “Sad,” the ‘King’ of CoD said bluntly in his June 21 post. Moments after the Stage 4 Major came to a close, Scump revealed that he’s been struggling with this low feeling for “months and months.” “I want to win so badly,” he explained. “I gave up personal content to try and improve, just to get the same result. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” Even with an impressive lower-bracket showing at the LAN return, pulling out back-to-back wins against Seattle and Minnesota, OpTic couldn’t get past their rivals on Championship Sunday. Empire handed them a 1-3 loss, sending them back to the drawing board ahead of the fifth and final Stage. After falling to another Top 4 finish, Scump admitted he feels “really lost. I never talk about my mental health, but damn it’s been rough recently.” “Tired of being a meme and a punching bag for people,” he soon followed up in response to fellow CoD veteran James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks. He admitted in the reply that he’s been attempting to disconnect from social media but it still finds a way to get to him. “Hours and hours of work to get clowned sucks the life from me.” “Esports is just so different in the form that players actively interact,” he added. Having competed now for the better part of a decade, Scump has seen the highest highs and lowest lows with a public spotlight following his every move. Along the way, criticism across social media “takes its toll.” “Mental health is very important, and communities wither down people,” the CDL star stressed. “Hoping it will change, but it won’t.” Scump’s last taste of success came 13 months ago when the Chicago Huntsmen finished first in Week 8 of the inaugural CDL season. Undoubtedly one of the longest stretches without a trophy in his entire esports career. Now fifth in the overall standings, OpTic Chicago has just one Stage left to right their wrongs ahead of Champs, which will likely be held in mid-August. If you’re experiencing negative thoughts, or know anyone that is, and would like to talk to someone, please reach out and call the Mental Health America hotline 1-800-273-8255 (USA), the Samaritans 116-123 (UK), or Beyond Blue 1300-22-4636 (AUS).

Scump officially announces OpTic Gaming exit with heartfelt statement Call of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has officially announced his exit from OpTic Gaming after almost a decade of service to the organization. Abner is just the latest in a series of departures from the organization, most notably longtime CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez, who left to join NRG following the buyout from Immortals. Scump confirmed that he was leaving the org officially on October 12, and explained that the true “honor was playing for my teammates & the GreenWall.” I never thought I’d ever say this again, but as of today I am no longer a part of OpTic, as much as I loved the logo & what it stood for, the honor was playing for my teammates & the GreenWall. I can’t wait for the new league, the new COD era & my new Chapter.#CODisLife pic.twitter.com/7f0RLqExLq — Seth Abner (@OpTic_Scumper) October 12, 2019 What’s next for Scump? He concluded the statement with the hashtag ‘CODisLife’, making doubly clear that he will continue to compete, but now under a new team. Rumors suggest that he could follow H3CZ to NRG, who owns the Chicago franchise in the upcoming Call of Duty League. It’s also rumored that he will be joined by former OpTic teammate Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper on the Chicago roster, but nothing is confirmed yet. His exit follows that of longtime teammates Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter and Damon ‘Karma’ Barlow, who announced free agency shortly after the conclusion of the Black Ops 4 season. For many, Scump’s departure will be the final item of closure, as he largely took on the mantle as the face of the brand following Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag’s retirement from competing in 2015. He has won twenty-seven tournaments in his career so far, all but two of which he won with OpTic. With CoD now moving to a franchise league format, the future for Scump is as bright as it’s ever been, as the esport he has dedicated his career to takes another major step. You can keep up to date with all the roster moves in the offseason leading up the league starting in 2020 with our dedicated transfer hub.

Scump explains why he’s not buying a PS5 to play Vanguard beta: “It’s not worth it” ScumpCall of Duty pro Scump explained why he won’t buy a PS5 just for extra time with the Vanguard beta, saying that it wouldn’t be worth it in the end. The newest title in the Call of Duty franchise, Vanguard, is hosting an exclusive beta on PlayStation where players can get their hands on the game for the very first time. The PlayStation beta for Vanguard is running from September 10-13 on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Any time a new CoD is in beta, players want to get their hands on it ASAP. Shroud, the pro-CoD player and popular Twitch streamer gave his opinion on picking up a PS5 solely for early access to the beta. Scump on Vanguard beta Scump‘s Twitch chat were wondering if the CoD legend would be picking up a PS5 just for the Vanguard beta, which only lasts for a few days. He responded to the viewer saying, “Minimum 600. So yeah, 300 dollars a day, to play for two days. You know, it’s like, I just… It’s not worth it to me. It might be worth it to somebody else. It’s not worth it to me. And that’s my explanation. That’s just how I do things” $600 is no doubt a hefty price tag for merely two days of gaming, and it’s unlikely many people bought a PlayStation 5 just to play the Vanguard beta earlier. The OpTic veteran no doubt has the cash to buy a new PS5 solely for Vanguard, but $600 for 48 hours of play is too rich even for his blood. Vanguard is getting a full release on November 5, along with a few other opportunities to play the game before release. On September 16-17, Xbox and Battle.net early access beta will go live, along with a free beta for PlayStation players. Then on September 18-20, a free open beta will go live for everybody to enjoy.

Scump & Nadeshot explain why COD 2021 needs to use Warzone engine Activision/YouTube: OpTic ChicagoWith the hype for COD 2021 slowly ramping up, 100 Thieves CEO Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag and OpTic Chicago’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner have said they think future Call of Duty titles should stay on the Warzone engine. Modern Warfare released in 2019 to very mixed reviews. It brought a very new style of gameplay, especially to the competitive scene, with doors and some of the Field Upgrades available in the game. Despite what they felt about the title, however, there’s one thing that Nade and Scump (and many others) agree on about MW2019: the engine. While Call of Duty games are generally similar, the engine used varies every few years, and the one built for Modern Warfare and Warzone has proven incredibly popular. In his appearance on the OpTic podcast, Nadeshot spoke about this, and Scump agreed with him: future CoD titles should stay on that engine. “Here’s what Call of Duty needs to do,” Nadeshot said while discussing COD 2021 and future titles. “With how popular Warzone has become, every Call of Duty title from here on out should be on the Modern Warfare engine. “It’s the best engine,” he added. “Black Ops 2 is still my favorite Call of Duty of all time [but] the Modern Warfare engine is so smooth, the gunplay feels incredible… It’s so good.” Timestamp 20:22 Not too surprisingly, Scump shared a similar sentiment. “I actually agree with that,” he said. “If last year had better maps, it would have been a lot of fun. I love the engine.” With the 2021 Call of Duty title confirmed to be developed by Sledgehammer Games, and heavily rumored to be another World War 2-themed title, it’s unclear what engine will be used for the upcoming game. We should know more about COD 2021 before long, with just months until it releases, so these questions should be answered soon enough.

Scump & more ex COD pros dominate XDefiant viewership in first month Ubisoft/Twitch/Call of Duty LeagueXDefiant launched on May 21, 2024, and became a very popular game among casual players and Twitch streamers alike, but one creator stood out above the rest in the game’s first month: Call of Duty world champion and OpTic Gaming stalwart Seth ‘Scump’ Abner. Ubisoft’s first-person shooter was often referred to as the “COD Killer” before it came out and, while it’s unlikely any FPS could launch and displace Call of Duty at the top of the mountain, the game has certainly developed itself a strong player base. It’s also seen moderate success on Twitch, after becoming one of the highest trending games during launch week and just about every top name on the platform trying it out. Scump was also joined by a number of ex Call of Duty pros at the top of the viewership rankings, with many of the game’s finest players flocking to the new title. Here are the top 10 most watched XDefiant streamers of the first month, according to SullyGnome: As well as Scump, Chris ‘Parasite’ Duarte, Bryan ‘Apathy’ Zhelyazkov, Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag, and Sam ‘Octane’ Larew all sat in the top 10, with countless championships won between them. Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek rounded out the top 10, but with the most impressive hours watched to total hours streamed ratio, and could certainly have been far ahead of Scump if he streamed as much as the ex-pro. Elsewhere, Anthony ‘Shotzzy’ Cuevas-Castro came 20th, Tyler ‘TeePee’ Polchow came 25th, Tommy ‘ZooMaa’ Paparatto came 30th, Anthony ‘Methodz’ Zinni came 40th, Trei ‘Zer0’ Morris came 46th, Josiah ‘Slacked’ Berry came 47th, and Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper came 48th. That’s a lot of Call of Duty heritage picking up some strong viewership in XDefiant.

Scump mocks Nadeshot’s plan to compete in Modern Warfare Popular Call of Duty star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner explained why he doesn’t want to see his former teammate Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag make his return to competition in Modern Warfare. Former Call of Duty pro Nadeshot gained a massive following under OpTic Gaming before announcing his retirement as a competitive player in the Advanced Warfare season and pursuing other projects such as his popular esports organization, 100 Thieves. The 100 Thieves CEO has since revealed that he was considering making his return to competitive Call of Duty, to test his skills once again as part of a challenger team in the new Path-to-Pro system. With the hype of newly-franchised Call of Duty League set to kick off in January, the former OpTic Gaming star revealed his plans to compete at an open event with players such as BoZe and Fero. However, one of his former teammates and CoD world champion Scump explained why he thought it would be a bad idea for Nadeshot to compete on a challenger team after being asked by one of his viewers. “Is Nadeshot playing at an event? I f**king hope not,” expressed the Chicago Huntsmen star,” before taking a jab at his old teammate, “He’s going to seriously take a couple of 18-year-olds with him as hard carries and he’s going to absolutely cost them.” He followed up by claiming that the 100 Thieves founder would have such a bad performance if he was to return that it would even end up costing young players their chance at going pro. “Boom, their shot at going pro goes out the window because they wanted to play with Nadeshot for one event, it’s just not smart,” Scump explained. Although many fans would love to see Nadeshot return to the main stage and compete once again, it would require him to invest a lot of his time to learn the new game and return to his previous form to make the most out of competing once again. It is unclear if he will be attending any future open events, however, his ex-teammate Scump will be competing under the Chicago Huntsmen brand for the 2020 season of the Call of Duty Pro League. Scump is one of the many pro players who has been grinding Modern Warfare since its release and has even discovered some unusual bugs which included him spawning sideways in one of the game’s new maps.

Scump mindblown after winning Warzone 1v1 against insane speed hacker Activision/YouTube: ScumpOpTic Chicago CDL pro Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has taken to being a Warzone streamer during his off-season, and his encounters with hackers are really giving the CoD legend the true Verdansk experience. Scump himself hasn’t been immune to the hacking accusations, with some viewers already believing that he decided to install cheats for his Warzone games. While it’s most likely that Scump isn’t actually cheating in Warzone, he’s definitely coming up against his fair share of them in his matches. Whether it be wallhacks, aimbot or the crazy new speed hack that players are abusing, he’s seen it all — but this one really did leave him baffled. After taking down the rest of the lobby with fellow CDL pros and personalities ZooMaa, Methodz and coach Sender, the four of them were toe to toe with a speed hacker and trying to figure out the best way to take them out. While his teammates all solo pushed to try and make the hero play, Scump played the long game and refused to push him at first, until the circle almost forced him to. Finally, he ran out of ammo and dropped his weapons, looking to settle it with fists only. The hacker obliged, but frequently sped away and skipped across the map before finally letting Scump beat him to death. Scump and his team were clearly hyped about the win, clearly relieved after days of dying to hackers so frequently. By the end of 2021, this shouldn’t be an issue any longer, though. With the release of Vanguard, Sledgehammer Games and Warzone devs Raven Software have promised a new Warzone experience, with a new Pacific map and a robust anti-cheat software to make this a thing of the past. Now, we just have to hope that the rampant hacking issue at least slows down until then.

Scump explains why Microsoft buyout is “exciting” for competitive CoD Microsoft/CDLLegendary Call of Duty player Seth ‘Scump’ Abner is absolutely pumped about Microsoft’s big purchase of Activision Blizzard and what it means for the CoD franchise. The biggest news story of 2022 so far was the announcement that Microsoft would be buying Activision Blizzard, and therefore taking control of all the games under their umbrella. This includes Call of Duty, and OpTic Scump revealed shortly after the news broke that he thinks it could be very beneficial for the series. “Just look at Halo” https://youtu.be/voSFOi2vHwA After telling viewers he had no idea about the deal beforehand, Scump said he wasn’t 100% sure what the deal would mean for Call of Duty, but it could be just what the community has been waiting for. “I don’t know how it’s going to affect like, the development of the games, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the studios,” he admitted. “I would assume there’s probably going to be a little bit more emphasis on certain things that we’ve been waiting on.” Scump pointed to Halo Infinite as an example of what could happen to the CoD franchise once it becomes a Microsoft IP. “Just look at Halo for instance, they came out with an incredible ranked system, a fully polished game – for the most part,” he added. “It’s just really exciting, nobody knows what it means! Nobody knows!” Halo Infinite definitely got a more positive reception from players than Call of Duty: Vanguard did. So, Scump is definitely not alone in being excited about the future of the franchise. Read More: Will Call of Duty still be on PlayStation? – Like Scump said though, the deal won’t go down until 2023, which does seem like a ways to wait. Though, if Microsoft is able to fix the problems recent CoD games have had, it could all be worth it.

Scump & Methodz worried CDL could be trying to “soft launch” full YouTube switch YouTube: OpTic Audio Network/Call of Duty LeagueFormer Call of Duty League pros Seth ‘Scump’ Abner and Anthony ‘Methodz’ Zinni have revealed their concerns with the CDL’s announcement that it will stream on both Twitch and YouTube going forward, suggesting it could be a move to go to YouTube permanently. In February, Dexerto reported that the Call of Duty League was in talks with YouTube over a renewed three-year exclusivity deal, similar to what had been in place for the first three seasons of the CDL. The report was widely met with anger from fans, especially due to the increasing success of the CDL on Twitch this season, with watch parties from the likes of Scump and Thomas ‘ZooMaa’ Paparatto amassing thousands of extra viewers. Because of that, Major 3 saw the CDL earn its highest viewership ever. Following weeks of speculation online from fans, the CDL announced on Thursday, April 6, that fans are now able to watch the league on YouTube as matches will be streamed on both platforms starting from April 7. While the news has left many fans excited, Scump and Methodz aired their concerns about the move. “The one thing I hope that doesn’t happen from that, I hope that this isn’t them trying to make peace with the community,” Scump said. “Trying to make it seem like they’re on the community’s side, then [make] a full switch to YouTube.” Methodz agreed, saying that it’s “Like a soft launch. They’re soft-launching YouTube,” he said, with Scump echoing that sentiment, adding that they could be “buttering us up.” Whether this is actually the case remains to be seen, but it will be interesting for fans, players, and the league itself to see what the YouTube viewership looks like throughout Major 4, especially for the crowning LAN event in Columbus, Ohio.

Scump & Methodz call out Call of Duty League over ‘unfeasible’ $25m franchise fees Call of Duty League/Twitch: MethodzRetired Call of Duty League stars Seth ‘Scump’ Abner and Anthony ‘Methodz’ Zinni have criticized the ‘inappropriate’ fees that franchises have had to pay to join the league following reports of yet another team planning to pull out at the end of the season. On February 23, it was reported that the Los Angeles Guerrillas will be looking to sell their CDL spot at the end of the current season, and if no buyer is found, they would simply dissolve operations and move on. While nothing has been confirmed by the organization as of yet, it came as The Guard laid off multiple non-competing staff the day prior, the biggest yet in a wave of layoffs affecting a number of esports companies. While discussing the report, Methodz and Scump spoke on some of the issues that organizations may face in the CDL. The pair ultimately said that the $25m buy-in fee was one of the key problems. Methodz said: “That number is not feasible. A $25m buy-in is not appropriate for the size of our league. And now, if they’re talking about going back to YouTube, it’s even less of a reason to pay that money. “I’m sure there’s an organization out there that would love to be in the Call of Duty League for a more appropriate price. There are plenty of cool organizations and sports owners who would probably love to be in the Call of Duty League. But not for a $25m price tag.” Scump echoed that sentiment, though he worded it a little differently, saying that he would “cut his balls off” before paying $25m to join the CDL. Methodz also added that on top of all of the other ventures that the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment group runs, they allegedly spent a lot on their NA Challengers Valorant team, and the LA Guerrillas are well-known for spending a lot on their Call of Duty players. This includes a reported record buyout from Atlanta FaZe for Alec ‘Arcitys’ Sanderson in the offseason. With yet another organization contemplating backing out of the Call of Duty League, it remains to be seen whether the CDL will make any changes to its franchise entry fees going forward.

Scump makes a bold claim about the old OpTic CoD lineup OpTic Gaming’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner was part of arguably the most dominant roster in the history of Call of Duty – and claims that it will never be done again. After recruiting Damon ‘Karma’ Barlow to the OpTic roster in mid 2015, the OpTic roster went on to win 13 championships together, plus 4 runner up finishes, completing the run with a win at the 2017 World Championship. The roster fell apart midway through the WWII season in 2018, leading to the departure of Matt ‘FormaL’ Piper to Luminosity, and Karma stepped off the roster, staying with the organization. Their run from 2015-2017 is only rivalled by the legendary coL/EG dynasty, but many argue that OpTic’s was more impressive given the level of competition in the two periods. But, Scump believes that the level of competition has now elevated so much that such dominance will never be repeated again. In a preview for the upcoming episode of OpTic H3CZ’ Eavesdrop podcast, Scump said: “That’s the highest it’s ever going to go. That will never be done again, in my opinion, in Call of Duty. That run will never be done again. There’s so much competition now, and it’s spread so thin across so many different teams.” Preview of the 4th Episode of #TheEavesdrop Podcast w/ @OpTic_Scumper “”That run will never be seen again in Call of Duty”” What do you think? pic.twitter.com/HbLEGjA2XU — Hector Rodriguez (@OpTicH3CZ) October 6, 2018 He goes on to explain that when OpTic were on their run, they were far and away the best players, but others have now caught up. “There are so many good players now, and everyone’s at the highest level,” he says, “when we were on our run, we were those guys, but now, ‘those guys’, there’s like two of them on every team.” He refers to the WWII season, where even the best team over the season, Rise Nation, placed top 16 at champs. But, Scump does think Black Ops 4 could be different, saying that WWII “didn’t have that much of a skill gap”. We will find out if OpTic can start another run at the first event of the 2019 CWL season, on December 7-9, with their new five man roster.

Scump claims leaked Modern Warfare 2 DMZ mode could “save CoD” by following Escape From Tarkov YouTube: OpTic Nation / ActivisionCall of Duty icon Seth ‘Scump’ Abner believes the leaked Escape From Tarkov-style mode known as ‘DMZ’ for the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 launch, could help “save” the franchise. As the cycle begins anew for another year, hype is quickly starting to build ahead of the CoD 2022 reveal. While we know for certain that Modern Warfare 2 is just months away, no concrete details have been made official just yet. That hasn’t stopped a wide range of alleged intel from slipping through the cracks, however. From returning maps to early campaign tidbits, we’ve seemingly heard a great deal already. Perhaps capturing attention more than anything else though, are reports of a new Escape From Tarkov-inspired game mode. Referred to as DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), leaks suggest this ambitious project will present a unique experience with exclusive features never before seen in the CoD franchise. If these reports hold true and MW2 does indeed launch with an EFT style mode, it might just “save” the series, according to Scump. Reportedly taking heavy inspiration from EFT and games of that ilk, DMZ appears to be a “more tactical” offering, according to prominent leakers. What equipment and loot you take with you into each round of action, can potentially be lost in the high-risk high-reward mode. “If they do that right… It could save CoD,” Scump claimed during the latest OpTic Podcast. “If they do that right… Oh my God. Escape From Tarkov, CoD style, with skins…” Read More: Everything we know about Warzone 2 – Speaking to the latter point, the latest batch of leaks suggest ‘tradeable items’ will arrive in CoD through the DMZ experience. A virtual marketplace will allegedly allow players to purchase and trade everything from weapon skins to entire weapon blueprints. It’s through similar in-game systems that EFT garnered such widespread popularity as every successful run could amass a certain degree of wealth. With Activision seemingly eager to replicate this style with MW2, Scump just “[hopes] they do it right.” “If it’s an Escape From Tarkov type game… Those games are addicting! Just trying to build your balance, going in killing people, taking their sh**, that’s such a good feeling. “Killing enemies that have higher tier loot. It’s such a thrill. It’s so fun.” Scump discusses MW2’s leaked DMZ mode at the 37:00 timestamp. While he ultimately isn’t “getting [his] hopes up” just yet, as plenty can change between now and launch, Scump believes the new mode could get the storied franchise back on track. Read More: Top 20 highest-earning Warzone players – While the CoD IP itself is far from struggling, recent Vanguard sales marked a notable decline for the series. Perhaps with MW2 and the release of this leaked DMZ mode, CoD might bounce back in a big way. Scump certainly thinks it’s possible.

Scump lays out what would make Black Ops Cold War the “perfect” CoD game YouTube: Call of Duty League / Activision[jwplayer VwDa3xvd]Competitive veteran Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has put together a new wishlist of everything he wants to see from Treyarch’s upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in order for the game to be “perfect.” With the 2020 Call of Duty League Championships coming to an end this weekend, all eyes are pointed towards the future. Treyarch is next in line for the annual FPS franchise and a grand reveal of Black Ops Cold War is right around the corner in Warzone. While the community waits with bated breath to see what the beloved developers have in store, Scump has voiced his requests for the 2021 title. We already know that the Chicago Huntsmen star wants to see some major shakeups to the competitive League. But what does he desire from the next game itself? From basic adjustments to a change in team size, Scump has rattled off his own personal “wishlist.” Here’s everything he outlined in an August 25 sitdown with his former head coach turned mega-popular streamer Tyler ‘Teepee’ Polchow. When asked what he most wants to see from the “future of Call of Duty,” Scump was instantly ready with a list of requests. “I want 4v4 Call of Duty,” Scump replied without hesitation. 2018’s Black Ops 4 saw the series jump from standard eight-player lobbies up to 10 instead. This carried through to Modern Warfare in 2019 as the first game featured in the CDL. It’s clear that this is the first thing Scump would revert for future games. He continued by listing off a number of key factors that he wants added or removed in 2021. “We need good maps… and no squad spawns, please. Predictable spawns. No headshot multipliers. We also need a little bit of a higher time to kill.” We’re still a few months out from the release of Black Ops Cold War, and Scump’s main wishes for the year are rather simple in his eyes. “Call of Duty is Call of Duty at the end of the day. We just need good, traditional maps, three lanes, 4v4, good spawns, good guns, good game modes, that’s really all [it] is.” No advanced movement from previous iterations was another of Scump’s requests. No “jetpacks [or] wall-running,” he explained. Just regular “4v4, boots on the ground Call of Duty” would appease the self-proclaimed ‘King’ in 2021. The relevant section begins at the 29:20 mark below. While Scump touched on the key gameplay changes he wants to see, he also mentioned one extra feature he wants reverted in 2021; the prestige system in multiplayer. Infinity Ward ditched regular prestige rakns, instead choosing to cap players at level 155 instead. If Black Ops Cold War is to keep players grinding, however, Scump believes it needs the old prestige feature back. Only time will tell how much Treyarch is able to deliver on this wishlist. Luckily, Scump and the CoD community won’t have to wait much longer to find out: Black Ops Cold War is set to be revealed in Warzone on August 26, followed by another reveal during the Gamescom Opening Night Live event on August 27.

Scump, Karma, ACHES, and JKap share weird conspiracy theory about CWL London MLGSeveral prominent professional Call of Duty players have started to float around a curious conspiracy theory about the recently concluded CWL London major tournament. The $325,000 pro tournament at CWL London took place May 3-5, with 100 Thieves defeating eUnited 3-1 in the Grand Final to secure their first ever major championship. As usual, the Grand Final and some of the other major matches were all played on the main stage, and a few pro players were quick to notice a pattern of results based on which side of the stage the teams played on. Team Envy’s Patrick ‘ACHES’ Price pointed out that all of the teams that played on the right side of the stage on Championship Sunday – Mindfreak in the Open Bracket Grand Final, 100 Thieves twice, and eUnited twice – all won by a combined map count of 18-2. “So 18-2, only maps won were Search and Destroy?” he tweeted. “Pretty crazy coincidence. Never seen that in my playing days. Congrats 100 Thieves on the win!” So 18-2. Only maps won were SnD? Pretty crazy coincidence. Never seen that in my playing days. Congrats 100T on the win! — Patrick Price (@ACHES) May 5, 2019 OpTic Gaming’s Damon ‘Karma’ Barlow and Seth ‘Scump’ Abner also chipped in with their own experiences after getting swept in the final of both the Winners and Losers Brackets, against 100 Thieves and eUnited respectively. In both matches, OpTic sat on the left side of the stage, and in both matches, they failed to win a single map, all after going undefeated and dropping just three maps in their previous five matches of the tournament. Evil Geniuses’ Jordan ‘JKap’ Kaplan, who has been around the CoD esports scene for a long time, revealed his theory that the game feels different sometimes. I don’t understand why or how but I swear sometimes the game feels different. Been a believer in this since BO2 — Jordan Kaplan (@JKap415) May 5, 2019 Upon seeing this conspiracy theory discussed on Twitter, many longtime fans brought up the name of veteran competitor Adam ‘KiLLa’ Sloss, who was known to have brought up similar theories in the past. However, all this said, there is definitely the chance that the players were simply annoyed with not coming out on top at CWL London, and decided to vent their frustrations by trolling social media with a conspiracy theory about the tournament main stage. 100 Thieves win CWL London Fortunately, CWL London will not be remembered for any conspiracy theories, but rather for 100 Thieves having finally won their first major tournament as an esports organization. The team cemented themselves as arguably the best team currently in the CWL, knocking out rivals OpTic Gaming and eUnited to hoist the prestigious trophy.

Scump issues message of support to H3CZ amid fight to save OpTic Gaming MLG/Instagram: OpTicH3czOpTic Gaming’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner issued a message of support to Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez in the wake of reports regarding a potential sale of the iconic esports brand. OpTic fans across all of social media were sent into a spin when reports of a potential sale to Immortals, once again, reared their head on May 14. Speculation has been piling up to such a level where many believe that the Green Wall could be toppled and no longer exist – with fans, and players, left in the dark about the outcome. However, there had been reports that H3CZ, the former OpTic owner and current CEO, was Call of Duty squad dispatched of UYU in their final CWL Pro League match of the week by a 3-1 scoreline – giving themselves a clean 4-0 result for the week. After the game, Scump took up the mantel of the post-game interview, issuing a brief message to his long-time friend about the situation. “I’m feeling great. We just got a great win over UYU,” started the OpTic Gaming captain, before moving on to explaining the outcome of the match and his own performance in general. He went on to note that his team’s performance in the Control game mode could be better before issuing his brief but poignant message to H3CZ. Scump added: “Feels great to get the win but now we’re just hoping for Hector to get a win on the other front for us.” It remains to be seen what the outcome of OpTic’s future is, as the potential sale has been up in the air since the initial reported interest from Immortals. While all of the OpTic teams seem to be in the dark about what’s happening, not fielding a Call of Duty team would be an unprecedented scenario for a team so closely linked with the esport, especially with Activision Blizzard revealing a franchising model starting in 2020, with the iconic squad not included in the first batch of organizations who have acquired a spot. There has been no confirmation of whether or not Immortals or H3CZ has secured the purchase of the historic esports brand and just what the future holds for the Green Wall either way – nevermind solely in Call of Duty. Disclaimer: Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez is a minority shareholder in Dexerto Ltd.

Scump in disbelief as bizarre Warzone bug puts gas in the Gulag ActivisionOne of the all time Call of Duty greats, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner, was left absolutely speechless after a bizarre Warzone bug put him in the thick of the gas – despite the fact that he was in the Gulag. It’s fair to say that Scump has just about seen it all throughout his Call of Duty career, but even he simply couldn’t believe what was happening as this strange glitch cost him a Gulag win in Warzone. The new battle royale game has faced a number of bizarre bugs in the past, but this has got to be one of the weirdest that players have seen yet. While coming up against Scump in the Gulag is a pretty daunting prospect, his opponent this time got very lucky as the bug did half of the work for him. As you can see in the clip below, there appears to be some confusion as Scump is pulled into, let out from and once again dragged back into the Gulag. If that wasn’t enough, when he is finally allowed to fight for redeployment, the gas is actually in the Gulag and swiftly eating away at his health. His health was already diminishing before the buzzer even went off to start his 1v1 fight, and he actually nearly got the better of his opponent before being taken out. By the looks of it, the gas wasn’t affecting the enemy player at all, giving them a significant advantage from the offset. A wide-eyed Scump could do nothing but scream “What was that?” as his team was forced to gather the $4500 needed to bring him back – hopefully, this time, bug-free. This bug likely isn’t completely unique, but we can’t say we’ve ever seen anything else like it in Warzone. Infinity Ward will want to pay close attention to this to make sure it doesn’t happen again, because it could become seriously frustrating if it becomes more common.

Scump hits out at people downplaying OpTic Gaming’s CWL 2K wins OpTic Gaming’s Call of Duty captain Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has fired back at people who are downplaying the importance of their back-to-back CWL 2K tournament wins. While Scump was celebrating his team’s victory in the CWL 2K, a viewer in his Twitch chat made a comment about the tournament being played online, and that Abner shouldn’t be that excited about OpTic’s victory. “It’s only online,” yelled Scump as he paced around his setup. “You can’t be fucking happy that we won something? Jesus man, bunch of fucking haters.” Still unhappy with the comment from the chat, Scump kicked his chair, before deciding that he would show his stream that they didn’t just win online tournaments. The American put on the song ‘Trophies’ by Drake and proceeded to run down the OpTic Gaming studios to grab trophies that he had won for the organization, bringing them back to his desk and propping them up so his viewers could see them. Scump and his OpTic Gaming squad won the second CWL 2K tournament of the Black Ops 4 season, beating eUnited in the finals to secure their second successive victory in the tournament. During the first week of the online tournament, OpTic Gaming won the competition without dropping a single map. This time, OpTic ended up dropping just two maps throughout the entirety of the tournament. While the Greenwall have looked extremely impressive in online competition, fans of Call of Duty will have to wait until CWL Las Vegas on December 7 to see how they perform in a LAN environment.

Scump hits out at “bias” CDL pros deciding GAs over M4 meta drama CDL/ActivisionCall of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner aired his frustrations with his fellow CDL pros amid the controversy surrounding the gentlemen’s agreement for the M4. After weeks of waiting, the Call of Duty League’s Modern Warfare 2 season finally kicked off on December 2, as teams took part in the annual Kickoff Weekend event for the Major 1 qualifiers. Even though practices have been streamed by some teams, fans were eager to get a look at how some squads are shaping up and how the early meta is going to play out. While it went smoothly for the most part, with Boston Breach and London Royal Ravens catching the eye early, the event came with its fair share of controversy. Aside from OpTic Texas’ forfeit against Minnesota Rokkr, the meta for the event revolved around the M4. The powerful assault rifle was being used by up to three players on most teams rather than the typical two AR, two SMG split. Scump bashes CDL pros over M4 GA drama Following the event’s conclusion, a number of pros have attempted to crack down on the M4, limiting its use per team. Though, some wanted to get rid of it altogether, and it appears that side has won out. OpTic’s Scump, though, hit out at his fellow pros for how things went down. “Yes, it is GA’d. They GA’d it mid-stage as if it’s not my last year,” he told former teammate Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper on his December 6 stream. “I lost full bro. I actually found my rhythm and they took it away. Like, why are we allowing pro players to use their own biases to create GA’s? I don’t understand. Teams are changing their decisions after the first (event), like, what’s going on here bro? We’ve got a major in a week.” The CoD icon, who is retiring after this season, ultimately said he wasn’t “worried at all” about the change despite being annoyed with how it played out. With the M4 out of pro play, players will start experimenting with other options in scrims, with the Scar a possible option moving forward.

Scump hits back at critics after OpTic’s CWL Pro League upset Call of Duty / TwitchOpTic Gaming Call of Duty captain Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has responded to criticism following the team’s shock defeat at the hands of Midnight Esports. Playing with Tommy ‘ZooMaa‘ Paparratto on loan from FaZe Clan, while issues with Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell being unable to attend are resolved, OpTic were dominated by the league newcomers. Midnight Gaming already impressed at the Pro League Qualifier, going 6-0 in their group and beating the likes of 100 Thieves and Gen.G, but taking down the CWL Las Vegas champs was their most impressive feat yet. But, it was the dominant fashion in which Midnight dispatched of OpTic which surprised fans the most – and caused some to become hyper-critical of Scump and his teammates, after only their first match of the league. With ZooMaa filling in for Dashy, and not being a direct role equivalent, Scump explains that there were guaranteed to be teething problems. On top of having one less Maddox player and one more SMG player, OpTic’s specialist composition is now off, with ZooMaa not practiced with Dashy’s usual pick of Tempest. We have three subs on our team atm and people are acting like it’s an easy switch. Anyone that runs the Maddox doesn’t usually do it. imagine picking up a new role 4 months into the game lmao. I’m heated. Also our specialist situation is off — Seth Abner (@OpTic_Scumper) February 5, 2019 The day one loss is far from the end of OpTic’s uphill battle with the role changes, as Dashy will be ineligible to play for the next three matches at least (substitute players must fill in for a minimum of one week, to prevent teams abusing the system and effectively having six players). Next up for the Green Wall is a match against UYU – a team not expected to challenge the Vegas champs greatly, but after the performance from Midnight, anything is possible. Keep up to date with all the Pro League action on our dedicated coverage hub.

Scump hits back at CoD fans who criticize him for playing Fall Guys Scump Instagram / Fall Guys[jwplayer gKJAL7Ti] After taking some breaks between practice sessions to enjoy Fall Guys and Warzone, Chicago Huntsmen’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has had to put critics in their place after they questioned his dedication and preparation ahead of the Call of Duty League Playoffs.[jwplayer gKJAL7Ti] There will be $4.6 million on the line during the CDL Playoffs and Championship Weekend, so it’s not surprising that all 12 teams are currently hard at work practicing for the biggest CoD tournament ever. But no one can prepare for 24 hours a day, and some players like Scump and his Huntsmen teammates choose to wind down after intense scrims with some Fall Guys, something which they’ve been criticized for by some fans. But the King isn’t having it and has hit back at those sending such complaints: “Imagine practicing CoD for 4-5 hours DAILY for the past YEAR, then getting told not to jump around as a hotdog for a few hours with the boys.” Imagine practicing cod for 4-5 hours DAILY for the past YEAR then getting told to not jump around as a hotdog for a few hours with the boys. — OpTic Scump (@scump) August 12, 2020 Fall Guys released on August 4 and has quickly risen in popularity as a silly distraction fit for goofing off with friends. So, it’s not hard to see why some CoD pros are choosing it as their game of choice when cooling down. However, a lot of concerned Huntsmen fans have taken to Twitter, Twitch chat, and wherever else possible to complain about the jelly bean game’s infringement on Scump’s practice time. They’ve even directly asked Chicago’s CEO, Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez, to rein in his players’ Fall Guys hours. https://twitter.com/TheIndigoTheory/status/1293012921669230592 Huntsmen veteran Alec ‘Arcitys’ Sanderson took a more sarcastic route in his reply to the criticisms, while OpTic Gaming LA substitute Martin ‘Chino’ Chino was quick to remind fans that Scump enjoying other games doesn’t have to mean he’ll “forget how to shoot.” you cant go to the gym either strictly cod no grocery shopping only cod — Alec? (@Arcitys) August 12, 2020 People think you just forget how to shoot because you enjoy other games ?? — Cheen ⛈ (@MJCheen) August 12, 2020 There’s also the very legitimate concern of burnout, as Arcity’s explained in another tweet, that there’s a chance “overplaying” a game could result in a dip in performance. In response, a ton of professional Call of Duty players chimed in — many expressing that it is possible to train too hard and burn yourself out, This timely discussion demonstrates that Chicago’s players aren’t concerned about playing Modern Warfare too infrequently, but are instead intent on breaking up the monotony of rigorous practice with chances to relax and have some fun on games like Fall Guys. What’s ignored by the fans, in this instance, is that their favorite team is still grinding, they just happen to be engaging in some more casual team bonding as well. And it just so happens that Fall Guys has hilarious effects on camaraderie. The Huntsmen are the fourth seed heading into the CDL postseason and will play their first game on Friday, August 21. They will either face the New York Subliners or London Royal Ravens, depending on who wins that first-round matchup. Until then, expect to see Scump and co spend most of their time practicing but also loosening up a bit after on Fall Guys.

Scump hits back at CDL fans criticizing OpTic’s Search & Destroy struggles Call of Duty League / ActivisionWith OpTic Chicago struggling to find a run of form in their Call of Duty League Search and Destroy maps, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has hit out at the team’s critics over their performances. Across their opening three matches of the CDL 2021 season, OpTic have won just one of their first four Search and Destroy maps, which came in their opening matchup against Paris Legion. Since then, they’ve shown clear weaknesses, including a 6-0 loss in their second map against Atlanta FaZe — a map in which Scump himself failed to register even a single kill. That said, Scump doesn’t seem too concerned right now — and is a little confused about why others are so concerned about their record in these early days of the season. Following another S&D loss, this time 6-4 to Toronto Ultra, Scump took to Twitter to speak to his followers and, ultimately, discuss the major talking point. Read More: Why Clayster flipped off CDL on-broadcast – “Improving on a game mode isn’t an overnight thing,” he said. “People expect us to just magically practice and become insane at SnD. It’s our third match.” He added that they were also a top 3 SnD team during the Modern Warfare season but people were still insistent that they struggled, clearly somewhat confused at how people are perceiving their matches. Improving on a game mode isn’t an over night thing. People expect us to just magically practice and become insane at snd. It’s our third match. We were a top 3 snd team last year too, but people say we sucked at it I don’t get it. — OpTic Scump (@scump) February 25, 2021 It’s true that during the 2020 CDL season, the Chicago side were very good at Search and Destroy, but there is perhaps the overhanging stigma of the former OpTic teams, which were very strong respawn sides but struggled in the one-life game mode. Needless to say, OpTic won’t be too worried right now. At the time of Scump’s tweet, OpTic has a 2-1 record with their only loss against an incredible Atlanta side. If their Search game does become comparable to their Hardpoint or Control, they’ll be serious championship contenders.

Scump hits back after Crimsix appears to criticize ex-OpTic teammates Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has hit back at Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter after a tweet implying that his former teammates – Scump included – would frequently complain about practicing too much. In a tweet posted on November 11, Crimsix said “3 scrims per day and not a single teammate has bitched about how much we’re playing. This is new.” In this tweet, Crim is implying that his former teammates didn’t take so kindly to that many scrims – most likely pointed at his OpTic Gaming team from Black Ops 4, where it has been said before that practice wasn’t always easy to get through. 3 scrims per day and not a single teammate has bitched about how much we’re playing. This is new. — Empire C6 (@Crimsix) November 12, 2019 After being asked by his chat on Twitch whether he had seen the tweet, Scump replied: “I did. Holy sh*t, emotional. Literally carried, I don’t want to hear it. [Carried] For a ring.” After his teammates began laughing, Scump ramped up his roast. “Where the f*ck was my team, huh? They weren’t late for practice. They were late to Sunday at Champs!” he called out. “F*ck me, that’d be my second ring. There’s my tweet.” Although it seemed that Scump and Crimsix were mostly on good terms with each other following the split, with some back and forth jokes between each other, Crim has been very outspoken about the issues they faced as a team, as well as the things that caused the eventual implosion of the team. Needless to say, whether they’ve been on good terms or not, neither are holding any punches when it comes to letting people know what they really think of each other – and it’s setting up for a fantastic rivalry for the inaugural season of the franchised Call of Duty League. So far, Crimsix’s Dallas Empire team has won a majority of the online tournaments they’ve played in and have been looking very comfortable in scrims, seemingly the team to beat as it currently stands. That said, Scump’s Chicago Huntsmen are also looking frightening in the early days of Modern Warfare, so it may be that we see these two competing against each other for the number one spot throughout the duration of this season.

Scump highlights his crucial mistake that cost OpTic win vs LA Thieves at CDL kickoff YouTube: OpTic/Call of Duty LeagueOpTic Texas star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has revealed a crucial mistake he made at the CDL Kickoff Classic that ultimately costed his team the all-important victory over Nadeshot’s LA Thieves. OpTic Texas are tipped to be one of the best teams in the game during the 2022 Vanguard CDL season, but they were eliminated in their first matchup of the CDL Kickoff Classic by an LA Thieves team looking to prove themselves. The two hugely popular teams met in the quarter-finals of the event, with OpTic getting a one-round bye and LA Thieves having to fight off pressure from Paris Legion in the opening match. While many tipped OpTic to beat LA Thieves, they ended up losing 3-1, with the final map being a very closely-contested hardpoint on Tuscan. A few days after the event, Scump booted up his Twitch stream and decided to watch their match back and give a bit of an insight. As it turns out, that map 4 loss might actually fall on his shoulders, by his own admission. With scores close at 220-226 in LA Thieves’ favor, OpTic took control of the Hardpoint and, by all accounts, could have closed out the game there, as Scump explains. He then points out the major mistake he made that ultimately resulted in their loss. “I probably shouldn’t have watched pinch from so far back,” he explained, pointing out that while Envoy eventually went there, he wasted a lot of time when he probably should have been helping his teammates. To round out the map, Scump also points out at one point that they should have pushed the point slightly differently and cut into LA Thieves’ time. Whether it would have worked, however, and resulted in an OpTic win, will forever be a mystery. Needless to say, Scump and the rest of the team will be watching these back together and learning from their mistakes going forward, especially if they want to really hit the ground running when the CDL 2022 season starts.

Scump says he feels helpless over OpTic’s CDL slide: “How do you even fix it?” Call of Duty LeagueOpTic Chicago’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has opened up on the “frustrating” 2021 Call of Duty League season, questioning how his team can “even fix” its issues after challenging Major losses. There’s no denying it’s been a difficult year for the King and his teammates at OpTic. Despite constantly assuring fans the squad “doesn’t suck,” they’re still yet to realize their full potential. Following a rough Stage IV loss, Scump even took to social media to reveal his mental health struggles after yet another Top 4 finish. “Really just lost at the moment,” he said back in June. At the time, OpTic had ‘given up’ on streaming to focus solely on the CDL grind. Weeks later and all members of the team have been live on Twitch once again. Whether it’s grinding Warzone tournaments or casually enjoying their free time in Cold War lobbies, the team has been far more active online. Even though this balance has been restored, Scump still finds himself in a “tough scenario,” he admitted on July 2; he’s struggling with OpTic’s front-facing issues, and how hidden their real progress has been due to hidden scrims. “All the time we put in every day, scrimming, playing off-stream, then we go to a tournament and we fall short,” he explained. “It feels like every loss we’ve had at a Major this year has been the exact same. That is what is mentally draining.” Without streaming their practice for the world to see, Scump argues there’s “no validation for the work [OpTic is] putting in.” Despite their losses at the highly anticipated LAN return, practice has been going “well” throughout the year, he stressed. In fact, scrims have been “pretty much perfect,” over the past few Stages. “We do work hard and we keep losing, we keep shooting ourselves in the foot,” the CDL superstar continued. “How do you even fix it at that point? It’s really frustrating. Our year’s been pretty sh***y in the ways we’ve been losing.” Moreover, Scump has grown tired of criticism aimed at him directly. While he’s been playing well and helping lead the Green Wall back to some degree of success, he still gets “hate” for his Black Ops Cold War gameplay. The star said: “I get most hate for gameplay which is what pisses me off because I’ve been playing f***ing great and I still get hate. I’m not even playing bad and I’m still getting sh** on. What can I do?” Currently fifth in the overall standings, OpTic has just one Stage left to turn things around before Champs. While some may argue they’re already in need of a roster change, OpTic can prove the doubters wrong and prove themselves right in one fell swoop if their scrim results can soon translate in official games.

Scump hasn’t closed esports chapter for good yet, teases possible CoD return Twitter: ScumpAlthough Scump formally announced his retirement on January 17, months ahead of his initial target, there’s still a scenario that could see the King of CoD returning to the sticks once again in 2023. Before the Modern Warfare 2 season got underway, OpTic veteran and face of the CDL, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner, announced his plans to retire. Initially, he outlined a roadmap that would see his competitive career end with the 2023 Champs event, giving fans one more season to watch the King fry. However, amid role swaps, roster shuffles, and general CoD chaos, Scump uprooted that plan and announced his sudden retirement ahead of schedule on January 17. In a teary video shared on Twitter, Scump made it official. His legendary career had finally reached its end after 12 years of legendary moments, iconic content, and dominant performances. In his place, we now see Dashy returning to the startling OpTic Texas lineup next to Huke, iLLeY, and Shotzzy. But shortly after this emotional announcement went out, Scump couldn’t help but tease a possible scenario where he actually plays again. In fact, it doesn’t seem all that far-fetched either, as the King confirmed he’s still listed as OpTic’s substitute player for the 2023 CDL season. Jumping into ZooMaa’s Twitch chat soon after the announcement, Scump added some extra details. “I’m a sub,” he confirmed. “I might be back. If they need me.” So while his career as a starting player is officially in the history books, there is still a possibility, in an extreme situation, where Scump does grace the CoD league with his presence once again. Obviously, there’s no guarantee this happens. In the more likely scenario, Scump’s final game was a 3-2 win over Boston Breach on January 15. But in the off-chance something goes awry in the OpTic camp this year, Scump would be all but required to step back in. We’ve seen similar situations in recent years, even in relation to OpTic. With iLLeY’s ongoing hand issues in the 2022 season, we saw Prolute having to fill in on the AR role. Anything can happen through the year-long competition so the door remains open, for now, on a possible Scump return.

Scump & H3CZ protest rumored CDL swap from Twitch to YouTube: “Out of line” YouTube: OpTic Audio NetworkOpTic legends Scump and H3CZ aren’t too thrilled by the possibility of the Call of Duty League swapping back over to YouTube after recent success on Twitch in the 2023 season. When the Call of Duty League kicked off in 2019, restructuring the competitive scene into a franchised system, it did so with an exclusive broadcasting deal. Every match over the first three seasons was streamed on YouTube, with no watch parties allowed on rival platforms. While occasional marquee matches still climbed into six-figure territory, overall viewership generally dipped from the previous era. As a result, we saw mega-stars like Nadeshot willingly giving up their Twitch partnership in order to co-stream on YouTube and help the League amid its early struggles. To kickstart the 2023 season, the CDL announced its pivot to Twitch, much to the delight of the community. Early events have already soared with record-breaking viewership, select games even clearing 300,000 live viewers. However, this newfound resurgence comes amid new reports from Dexerto’s own Jacob Hale that the League is in active talks with YouTube over a new deal. One that could see competitive CoD move back to the Google-owned platform in an exclusive capacity for another three years. As this news broke, H3CZ immediately lashed out, claiming the 12 partnered CDL organizations hadn’t been consulted on this possible deal. “I don’t think that rumor is true,” he said at the time. “I don’t think that the League would not talk to their partners who paid a bunch of cash to be a part of this franchised league.” Now, in the February 9 OpTic Podcast, H3CZ and Scump went in-depth on the possible shakeup, further venting their frustrations in light of major success on Twitch. “If that is not the League looking at this thing and saying ‘we really don’t care’… I don’t know what is,” H3CZ stressed. “If they would have checked with owners… and they didn’t. They didn’t call me, I didn’t get an email, they didn’t check with any of the owners, of course not. “Let us be a part of that conversation and see what the financial gain is for the organizations too. But to just make a decision without checking in with your partners, that is just completely out of line. We should have a say.” H3CZ & Scump discuss the CDL x YouTube reports at the 53:55 timestamp below. Outside of the main CDL broadcast itself, collaborative watch parties have also been thriving on Twitch in recent months. With the likes of Scump and ZooMaa helping lead the charge, collective viewership is surging like never before. As a result, H3CZ is adamant that staying on Twitch in the long-run is vital to the League’s continued success. “For me, staying on Twitch is not only important, but it’s imperative that we do for the betterment of Call of Duty as a whole. Them allowing watch parties to happen was just step one.” “We broke records,” Scump chimed in, addressing the 300K+ fans that tuned into the recent Major 2 event, a feat the League never quite accomplished on YouTube. “What the f*** are they gonna get on YouTube? Not that,” he added. “The teams have bought into this. For them to make decisions that hurt everyone’s investment, and they didn’t tell anybody about it…I mean… For it to just keep flip-flopping, it’s insane to me. We’ve done everything to build this.” Obviously, for the time being a deal is yet to be struck. While talks are reportedly ongoing, it’s unclear if the League officials may have changed their stance following record-breaking success over Major 2 weekend on Twitch. We’ll be sure to keep you posted with any further developments, but it’s clear not everyone is onboard with the idea of moving back to YouTube.

Scump gives his honest verdict of Warzone 2 and it’s not great Call of Duty LeagueCall of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has given his honest initial rating of Warzone 2 after his first games, and it’s not looking too good for the CoD battle royale title. Warzone 2 and DMZ officially launched on November 16, 2022, with thousands of players leaving Caldera and dropping into Al Mazrah to get their fix in the Call of Duty world. While the game wasn’t smooth sailing off the rip, with server issues locking players out and problems with inviting friends to your lobbies, those who did manage to play have been sharing their thoughts far and wide, whether they love it or hate it. With a whole bunch of new features and some major changes from the original Warzone, the pros are on a serious grind, and now CDL star Scump has shared his thoughts too. Scump gives his day one Warzone 2 rating After a short stint playing the new game, facing several issues throughout, Scump was honest in his assessment of the game in its current state. He said: “So far, I’m not going to lie. After playing duos, I’m giving Warzone, like … Dude, I don’t even know right now. I don’t even know what I would give it right now. We might be talking, maybe a 4…” When one viewer went on to joke that he would have to pay a fine for that, Scump simply said that he can’t be fined since it’s Warzone, so it’s not technically the pros’ game. This came after frequent complaints regarding the UI, something many have moaned about in Modern Warfare II, as well, and a rough ending to a duos match with OpTic Texas teammate Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell. While things will hopefully smooth out over time with Warzone 2, the game hasn’t managed to immediately sell itself to one of the CoD greats.

Scump gets an MW2 nuke while taking the Pringles® Can Hands challenge PringlesScump may be a legendary Call of Duty player, but can he remain as dominant with one hand stuck in a Pringles® can? #Ad Ever since QTCinderella decided to try a cooking stream with one of her hands in a Pringles can, other streamers have followed her lead by seeing how well they can play their favorite games while taking the Pringles Can Hands challenge. We’ve seen players struggle through battle royale games like Fall Guys and single-player campaigns such as God of War, but we have never seen a professional esports player take on the challenge in their game of choice. Luckily, OpTic’s Scump was more than willing to take on the challenge. Scump gets two nukes during Pringles Can Hands challenge With one hand in a Pringles can, Scump set out to conquer Modern Warfare 2’s challenges. Initially, he started out small, just trying to win the first Domination game he was dropped into. But as Scump began racking up kills with ease, he began to set his sights on a bigger prize: the fabled nuke scorestreak. “A Pringles can nuke has never been done before,” Scump explained. “I’m trying to make history.” And it didn’t take long for him to begin flirting with that mark. “I am getting one. You heard it from me first, I am getting one today.” Eventually, and incredibly, Scump was able to secure a nuke in MW2 while one hand was inside a Pringles can. With one nuke already in his pocket (which he was sadly not able to detonate before the match ended), Scump wasn’t satisfied. It wasn’t long after getting the first nuke that he was able to get a second during the challenge. Holding his arm aloft, he triumphantly announced “calling it in with the Pringles can” before managing to call in the MGB. Truly, there’s nothing that Scump can’t do in a game of MW2, including getting a nuke with one hand in a Pringles can. Each streamer had moments throughout their streams to give their chats the chance to win free Pringles, and the giveaways are still live here from now till Jan. 12. Official rules can be found here (no purchase necessary)!

Scump further hints at possible AR role switch in future CDL seasons YouTube: ScumpSeth ‘Scump’ Abner is one of the longest-standing pros in the Call of Duty League today and possibly the greatest SMG of all time — but now he’s hinted once again at a potential switch to an AR in the future. The idea of Scump maybe switching to an assault rifle role isn’t a completely new one; it’s one he’s hinted at over the years, and one fans have wanted to see for even longer. We’ve seen plenty of players switch roles over the years, be it can be dependent on the meta or what they personally feel most comfortable with. During the 2021 Cold War season, for example, we saw Kenny go from an SMG to an AR for LA Thieves and have even more impressive showings. So, could Scump do the same? Fans will have seen Scump pick up an AR on occasions during the season from an opponent, or even in team scrims and 8s lobbies over the years, but he’s never fully committed to actually being an AR player. In a new YouTube video posted on October 17, however, Scump revisited the topic ahead of the 2022 season. “A lot of people have been telling me to switch over to the AR because I’m kind of getting into the latter years of my career… or so people think,” he explained. “I think if I needed to switch to an AR in the upcoming years then, you know what, it might just be in the cards.” While it could be possible in the future, if the CDL roster leaks are anything to go by, he won’t have to switch for the 2022 season at least. If the rumored OpTic Chicago and Dallas Empire merger team becomes a thing, with both iLLeY and Dashy on the team, there’ll be no need for Scump to pick up an AR. In the future, though? Clearly, it’s something Scump has thought about and refuses to completely write off.

Scump & FormaL share funny stories of Envoy “scumbagging” people in the past OpTic ChicagoOn a recent OpTic Chicago podcast, Scump and FormaL shared just how controversial young star Envoy’s history is — including surprising stories of confrontations with people he “scumbagged” as an amateur. It’s common knowledge that Dylan ‘Envoy’ Hannon used to cheat in online matches by using a mouse and keyboard instead of a controller. Years later, the young talent cleaned up his act, gotten on the sticks, and joined the Call of Duty League on a pedigree Chicago roster alongside renowned veterans. But in their time with Envoy, the vet duo known as “T2P,” Seth ‘Scump’ Abner and Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper, have come to learn just how spicy the 21-year-old’s past is. From old stories to recent, heated confrontations with former foes, the duo shared just how many bridges Envoy has burnt. And it all started because OpTic content creator Nick ‘MaNiaC’ Kershner asked the two if Envoy used to cheat, to which FormaL responded “yeah” and Scump, a more emphatic, “oh, yeah.” Joking about how troublesome a talent Envoy is, FormaL broke down just how colorful the submachine gunner’s past is: “Dylan’s been trying to make it for like eight years … he’s burned every bridge along the way and he somehow made it to us. If we get rid of him, he’s not going to get picked up again.” As Scump explained that “He’s got a lot of skeletons … too many to count,” the vet duo dove into some of the more illustrious examples. FormaL kicked it off by telling a story about how Envoy knew someone had bought a GameBattles account, waited until he was about to play him at an event and then “told on him” to get the opponent kicked out. And Scump has a good sense of how that guy probably feels about Envoy’s patient sabotage: “He wants to throw hands with Dylan … he hates him.” The wildest story is probably the one FormaL shared about Chicago’s time in London. Sitting at a casino, someone randomly tapped Envoy on the shoulder and told him “yo, where’s my f**king 10 pounds? … You scumbagged me back in AW [Advanced Warfare], where’s my money?” Laughing about Envoy’s grudges dating back to 2014 AW beef, FormaL explained that “Dylan has random demons and skeletons in his closet.” Apparently, Envoy was a dangerous force to be reckoned with well before his 2020 CDL MVP nomination and current OpTic Chicago stardom.

Scump & FormaL mock CoD Vanguard’s ridiculous Exploding Rounds Activision / Call of Duty LeagueWhile the Call of Duty Vanguard Alpha is just an early glimpse at this year’s title, competitive legends Seth ‘Scump’ Abner and Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper both agree that Exploding Rounds already need to go. It’s been a dizzying week in the competitive CoD scene with teams falling apart and organizations reportedly joining forces, but all through the chaos, players have finally had their first chance to test out Vanguard. Scump has been active on Twitch since the Alpha test kicked off, grinding through Champion’s Hill for hours on end each day. While he’s racked up his fair share of wins, The King isn’t all too pleased with one thing in particular: Exploding Rounds. When these bullets hit you — or even just hit the air around you — it becomes increasingly difficult to see and thus, fight back. Both Scump and his former T2P duo FormaL took to social media to express their disdain for this year’s controversial feature. “Exploding rounds make me frown,” Scump said in an August 29 clip. Having made it through to the final round of a Trios match, there was just one team left in Scump’s path to victory. Before he even got a chance to secure the win, exploding rounds came into play. “I can’t even see,” he said mere seconds after spawning in. “I can’t even see this dude, I can’t see him.” As Exploding Rounds connected from across the map, damage piled up and Scump’s screen turned almost pitch black. “What the f*** is that?” he yelled. “What is this?” Read More: Vanguard leaks reveal new Gunsmith – “Yep, good year to skip,” FormaL joked in the replies, one day after from announcing his retirement. Exploding Rounds come as part of the Death Machine unlock in Champion’s Hill Buy Stations. They appear to deal more damage with each hit but also apply lingering damage as well, wounding foes over time. With Vanguard’s release still a few weeks out, there’s every chance this could be tweaked prior to launch. For the Alpha at least, it’s clear Exploding Rounds are a huge gripe.

Scump & FormaL claim this amateur squad would beat CDL pro teams YouTube: OpTic ChicagoSeth ‘Scump’ Abner and Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper are arguably two of the biggest names in Call of Duty history, and they’ve now explained why they think the WestR Challengers team could seriously compete in the CDL. WestR — formerly of Atlanta FaZe Academy — consists of Thomas ‘GRVTY’ Malin, Paul ‘PaulEhx’ Avila, Carlos ‘Venom’ Hernandez and Alex ‘Zaptius’ Bonilla. After being a dominant force during the 2020 Challengers season, they’ve carried their momentum into 2021 and have won the first four Challenger cups of the season, making short work of much of the competition. While you might expect most teams’ good fortunes to eventually run out, but Scump and FormaL actually think differently, saying they believe WestR will dominate all season — and could go much further. During the January 20 episode of the OpTic Podcast, the group was discussing how New York Subliners can prepare for their season without ZooMaa following his injury-provoked retirement, when the topic of top amateurs came up. While they agreed that WestR are a really good team, FormaL said that how Challengers teams work is bound to keep WestR on top. He said: “The other teams that aren’t winning the cup, they’re just swapping players. Every week they’re just beating up on new rosters over and over again.” Scump agreed with FormaL’s sentiment, but did also reiterate that they’re a very good team, while reminding everyone that there are only very few players who come up from Challengers each year and make a big impact. Topic starts at 15:44 The gas didn’t stop there, though, as they went on to explain that they think they would be pretty successful in the Call of Duty League, too. FormaL said: “If WestR came up together and got put in the pro league, they’d be a good team.” Scump agreed, adding that he would expect them to be a “top 6 to top 8” team. While this is a big co-sign from some legends of the game, the team certainly look set up for success, and some even argue that they should have been signed by Paris Legion in the CDL. Needless to say, when they do make it into the league, they’re going to want to make an impact.

Can Scump & FormaL take down Atlanta FaZe? It’s OpTic Chicago vs Atlanta FaZe — the clash of Call of Duty’s titans. As FaZe suffered a shock loss during CDL’s Kickoff Classic, Replays called into question his team’s arrogant mindset heading into season two. The Greenwall T2P duo is primed to destroy Chris ‘Simp’ Lehr and co. in the opening weekend, with Seth ‘Scump’ Abner and Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper looking on top form yet again. Needing to step up from their Kickoff Classic showing, Atlanta FaZe shuffled their stars around to attempt to further their chances at winning the championship heading into 2021. Despite this, the T2P pairing is a fearsome distraction for Atlanta FaZe. After a break of playing together in 2018-2019, Hecz’s Chicago Hunstman brought them together again, with the pair winning duo of the year in 2020. Now, The Greenwall is primed to upset the hosts during the Atlanta FaZe home series. The young team evidently plays arrogantly, as showcased in their replays following a pre-season loss to Florida Mutineers. But now, unless coach James ‘Crowder’ Crowder can get his team in line for the plays ahead, they might be in for another wakeup call. For all Call of Duty news and events, stay tuned over at our dedicated hub.

Scump, FormaL, and H3CZ explain why there’s no rivalry with OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming – LA / Huntsmen / UnsplashDespite all of the storylines involving Chicago Huntsmen and OpTic Gaming LA in the Call of Duty League, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner, Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper, and Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez don’t believe a rivalry exists between the two CDL franchises. Coming into CDL Launch Weekend, one of the most highly-anticipated matchups was the January 26 meeting between Huntsmen vs OpTic Gaming, which Chicago won 3-1. Many assumed that a natural rivalry would form between the two franchises, since Chicago featured three of the most iconic names in OpTic history – Scump, Formal, and, of course, H3CZ, the man who built the Green Wall. However, when speaking to Dexerto after their victory, all three maintained that there was actually no rivalry between the organizations. Scump, who led OG to nearly a decade of success, said he has no hard feelings for anyone on their new roster. “I wouldn’t really say there’s a rivalry at all,” he explained. “Rivalries are bred out of dislike and hatred; it’s all love with them, so I wouldn’t call it a rivalry at all. It’s very important, obviously, to win the match but, at the same time, it’s a fun time to play against them and prove who’s doing better so far this year.” 👀 @Huntsmen captain @scump on @Crimsix’s complaints about the MW patch at #CDL2020 “”I always say it’s better to sit down and play instead of complaining.”” w/@GFuelEnergy | #GFUELCOFFEE pic.twitter.com/7zMZmyqPoO — Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) January 26, 2020 As for FormaL, he featured for OpTic from 2014-2018 and played an instrumental role in their “Dynasty Roster,” winning over a dozen major tournaments and the org’s first World Championship in 2017. Despite having such deep-rooted ties with the Green Wall, he mirrored Scump’s explanation when asked about the potential Huntsmen-OGLA rivalry. “No, there’s not really a rivalry between the players, we’re all really cool,” he said. “Seth and I will troll them but, at the end of the day, we’re all friends. There’s not really hate there, it wasn’t really their fault with everything that went on, but we know that it’s not the real OpTic anymore, for sure.” 😳 @Huntsmen veteran @FormaL on the pre-event hype for Empire ahead of #CDL2020 “”It was obvious what they were trying to do, they were scared of us.”” w/@GFuelEnergy | #GFUELCOFFEE pic.twitter.com/5PGqQIy7DQ — Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) January 26, 2020 Of the three, the shortest and most direct answer came from H3CZ, who, of course, spent well over a decade as the leader and face of OpTic Gaming, building the organization into arguably the biggest brand in esports. “No,” he said when asked about whether there was a rivalry. “Next question.” 🗣️ @Huntsmen CEO @H3CZ explains why it’s important to have @garyvee in the #CDL2020 “”We need people like Gary, a literal internet superstar, we need a fresh pair of eyes.”” w/@GFuelEnergy | #GFUELCOFFEE pic.twitter.com/kHT3g5SW37 — Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) January 26, 2020 Who is Huntsmen’s rival? While there clearly isn’t any special layer of competition between Huntsmen and OGLA, not the same can be said of their relationship with Dallas Empire, whose rivalry with Chicago is probably the fiercest right now in the CDL. There was a lot of trash-talking both leading up to and following their highly-anticipated matchup to start off Launch Weekend, which Huntsmen actually dominated and won 3-1. After the victory, both Scump and FormaL had a very demonstrative reaction towards Dallas, including making some comments specifically aimed at their teammate-turned-rival Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter. Keep up with all of the Call of Duty League action by visiting our dedicated CDL Launch Weekend hub.

Scump fires back at eUnited and Clayster for roasting OpTic on Twitter It has not been a festive Halloween to say the least in the world of Call of Duty esports, as eUnited and OpTic Gaming’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner had a strong back-and-forth on social media. Earlier in the day, eUnited had posted a picture of their logo but with the classic green, black and white colors of OpTic’s branding. In the original tweet, which was deleted and re-posted, they wrote: “Very spooky! We are dressing up as Top 24 Champs team this year! What are you being for Halloween?” – clearly a dig at OpTic’s shocking 17-24 placing at the recent 2018 CWL Championship. “All good, a ghost is the same as your LAN wins last year too!” he tweeted. “Invisible! Zero! Pathetic roast for attention!” While some may have thought the Scump was joking in his tweet, he doubled down in a response to eU’s James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks, who had thrown his own sarcastic response into the mix. “What a lame cheap shot by an org,” Scump tweeted at Clayster. “I’d be embarrassed to rep that child shit.” However, Scump retorted with his own comment, saying that the criticism he’s willing to accept comes from his pro player friends, “not an organization of people I don’t know.” Those are pros, my friends. Not an organization of people i don’t know. — Seth Abner (@OpTic_Scumper) October 31, 2018 It’s clear that Scump took eUnited’s social media banter more seriously than they had expected, and this war of words on Twitter could end up laying the foundation for a spicy rivalry between eUnited and OpTic during the upcoming Black Ops 4 season. Both teams will look to open the season strong during the CWL Vegas event in December, which will kick-start what should be an exciting campaign. Disclaimer: OpTic CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez is a minority shareholder in Dexerto Ltd

Scump fans in disbelief after Activision strikes down CDL watch party Scump / Twitch“Free Scump” began trending just moments after Scump’s CDL watch party was taken down by Activision, with many of his fans blasting Activision for their decision and standing with the creator. When it comes to Call of Duty, Scump is a man who needs no introduction. He’s had one of the most prolific careers out of any pro within the CDL and remained one of the best players in the league for several years. There’s a reason he’s been able to maintain a massive audience even after his retirement, remaining one of the most influential voices in the scene and a well-respected figure in the space. His good standing with the community and history as a pro player made it all the more shocking when Activision decided to strike down his CDL watch party. Scump fans slam Activision for CDL watch party takedown In the era of co-streaming, getting the rights to re-stream esports matches is a rare thing. And, while some companies like Riot will give out co-streaming rights to their most esteemed creators, not everyone is so lenient. With the CDL renewing their exclusivity contract on YouTube, Activision specifies that watch party streams can only be held on YouTube. This means that Twitch, a platform that has a much larger audience when it comes to streamers, misses out on the action. So, rather than going by their Watch Party rules, Scump circumvented this stipulation the same way many other streamers have; by showing only him and his friends reacting to the content without showing any of it. However, Activision suddenly decided to take down his stream despite it not showing the CDL matches whatsoever. Scump’s chat started spamming “f*ck Activison” once they noticed the YouTube stream got a copyright strike from the CoD developers, and he was forced to take down his Twitch stream a short time after. This news hasn’t gone over well within the CoD community, with creators and fans alike standing with Scump and claiming that Activision is “killing the CDL” with these sorts of decisions. Some Tweets made light of the situation and tried to make it better, but others were incredibly critical of Activision’s stance toward CDL watch parties and those trying to see the game through the eyes of their favorite creators. Scump’s fans then went over to the official CDL stream’s chat to voice their distaste with Activision’s decision. Activision have yet to comment on Scump’s stream being taken down at the time of writing.

Scump fans demand Pat McAfee interview after OpTic & Faze shoutout Call of Duty League/YouTube: Pat McAfee showSeth ‘Scump’ Abner is one of the most celebrated esports pros in the world, as a Call of Duty legend in every sense of the word. Now, fans are demanding he gets an interview on the Pat McAfee Show, after the former NFL star mentioned him, as well as both OpTic Gaming and FaZe Clan on the show. McAfee, the former Indianapolis Colts punter, retired in February 2017, and since then has gone on to become a huge media personality with his Pat McAfee show. While most of the conversation usually revolves around football, various other topics come up, including other sports or, in this instance, gaming. Pat and his peers started discussing esports on the show, with Pat himself clearly a little confused by it, when Scump was mentioned — and Pat got his name brilliantly wrong. They got onto the topic with Pat mentioning that his friend and former NFL quarterback Matt Hasselback is a FaZe Clan fan, before asking what other teams exist. Former Call of Duty League franchise Chicago Huntsmen were mentioned (they went on to become OpTic Chicago and now OpTic Texas), and naturally, Scump came up as a result — but Pat thought he was called ‘Scum,’ and couldn’t believe it. Scump corrected McAfee on Twitter, who had said that he “couldn’t help but respect” somebody being the best in the game “and calling themselves ‘Scum.’” As the biggest name in the Call of Duty world, Scump’s fans quickly caught on and demanded McAfee give Scump an interview or a cameo on the show. Saying that the CoD star is a “legend of the esports scene,” there were numerous tweets following the above exchange, with many of Scump’s 2.2m Twitter followers trying to get him on the show. Pat I love both you and @scump, please get him on your show. Dude is a legend in the eSports scene. — Uncle Larry (@Konzo_) May 23, 2022 Pat even apologized for not knowing about Scump before, saying that he “will be better next time” — hinting that something happening between the two could actually be on the cards. Scump, I apologize.. I am just now learning of your greatness. I will be better next time. — Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) May 23, 2022 With traditional sports and esports continuing to merge ever closer, it’s definitely not impossible that we see Scump appear on the show — and there aren’t many better placed to show just how big esports is.

Scump explains why you can stream scrims in Modern Warfare Chicago Huntsmen star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has explained why he doesn’t think streaming scrims leaves teams at a disadvantage – despite popular opinion to the contrary. Streaming scrims has become a strongly-contested issue among the Call of Duty esports community in recent years. Once upon a time, all pro players would stream their scrims and it would be a great source of entertainment and getting eyes on the product. As competition heated up and the scene became more professional throughout the years, creating content – and especially streaming scrims – started to be placed on the backburner in order to better accommodate practice and getting the best results possible. Scump, however, doesn’t see the issue. After being asked by a viewer in his Twitch stream whether he thinks streaming scrims is putting the Huntsmen at a disadvantage, Scump said: “Considering there hasn’t been anything worth playing yet, not really. We’ll see how the year ensues, but so far, no, I don’t see a problem with it.” He goes on to explain his reasoning a bit more, claiming that as long as you don’t broadcast how you setup at the start of matches, you shouldn’t face too many issues, saying: “I’ve never really seen a problem with streaming scrims, besides doing your break off, every team is going to be playing the same. It’s a matter of how well you can get your teammates and everyone on the same page. It’s not so much knowing what to do, it’s how well [pro teams] can coordinate in-game.” He goes on to offer a bit more balance, stating that streaming scrims “can hurt you” but, as long as you’re not “scrimming [Search & Destroy] and doing your main strategies,” pro teams should be fine. The streaming scrims debate has raged on for a couple of years now, but Scump has always seemed to be of the opinion that it’s not an issue – after all, some of his greatest successes in both content and competition came at a time when streaming practice was the norm for them. Whether this attitude and outlook is reflected in his results once again this year, we will find out in due course, with the franchised Call of Duty League running its first year throughout 2020.

Scump explains why Vanguard was the “dagger” that pushed him to CoD retirement CDL / ActivisionOpTic Texas’ Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has explained how Vanguard was the “dagger” that pushed him towards CoD retirement, following his emotional confirmation that the Modern Warfare 2 season will be his last as a professional player. The announcement that esports legend Scump will hang up the sticks following the Modern Warfare 2 Call of Duty League season was both a surprise and expected. The King has been hinting at it for a few seasons but, being so integral to Call of Duty esports, it also felt like a moment that might never come. While the announcement video certainly tugged on the heartstrings, it didn’t delve into the specific reasons behind the decision. However, in the 3 November OpTic Podcast, Abner explained that his retirement is down to a lack of “passion” for recent CoDs, stating that it’s been harder and harder to play them when he hasn’t actually enjoyed them. Scump reveals Vanguard was the “dagger” after announcing CoD retirement When asked whether his retirement was comparable to Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper’s, who recently won the Halo World Championships after moving away from CoD esports, Scump confirmed that his decision was also down to a lack of “passion” for recent titles. Specifically, he pinpointed the lacklustre Vanguard season and the game itself as the “dagger” that pushed him towards retirement. “Nah it’s 100% passion,” he said. “I said on stream yesterday, there’s only so many CoDs that you can go through where you don’t really love the game until like, it’s old. Hopefully I love this game… Vanguard I’m not gonna lie, that might have been the dagger. Vanguard plus our season was a dagger.” Timestamp: 18:20 The Vanguard season was rough for OpTic Texas. While they won Major 1 it was downhill from there, crashing out of Champs in fourth. The game itself was widely criticized by pros and the community alike. While Modern Warfare 2 has received more positive feedback to this point, Scump explained that he hopes it’ll be a return to form for the franchise. He finished: “We had MW, Cold War, Vanguard. So it’s like we had BO4, great. Then we had MW just sets us back. We’ve had good game bad game good game bad game good game bad game… so hopefully this is the cycle where it’s a good game again.” Only time will tell how the MW2 CDL season goes but Scump and OpTic Texas will be doing everything they can to ensure it’s a successful send off for one of the greatest CoD players of all time.

Scump explains why there’s “no way” for a good CDL format YouTube: OpTic Chicago/ActivisionThe Call of Duty League has had its fair share of critics in the two years since it came to fruition, but OpTic Chicago’s CoD legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner thinks fixing the CDL format is easier said than done. The format has been one of the main complaints of the CDL’s fans and critics. Gone are the days of MLG’s gauntlet open events, with teams having to fend off a vast array of teams to be named winners. This format simply isn’t viable anymore with the introduction of franchising, with a 12-team league that doesn’t face off against Challengers teams. So, while many old fans miss these Open events, the CDL has been tasked with the unenviable challenge of finding an optimal format — but Scump isn’t sure it’s even possible. On the OpTic Chicago podcast, ahead of the final Home Series of the 2021 CDL season, Scump got to chatting about the CDL format with CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez, Davis ‘Hitch’ Edwards and Marcus ‘Mboze’ Blanks. “If we don’t f**k up, we’re first seed,” Scump explained. “We only win one match and we’re top three. Best placing of the year. So, the format’s got to change man.” Mboze went on to discuss the old Open Bracket tournaments, which Scump called “gruellers,” which got Scump thinking. “I’ve only got to win one match and we’re in winner’s finals” he reiterated. “Even if it was just group play at the tournament, based off of the seeding… but that wouldn’t work… There’s no way to have a good format.” Timestamp 48:30 H3CZ explains that it’s still only the second season of the CDL, adding that “everything’s going to evolve,” so it will be interesting to see how the league adapts in the coming seasons. There may not be much significant change in 2022, but H3CZ makes a valid point: the CDL now likely looks very different to how it does in 10 years’ time. What changes they end up making, though, remains to be seen.

Scump explains why slide canceling won’t be an issue in MW2 YouTube: OpTic Nation / ActivisionSlide-canceling has dominated competitive CoD for years, but Seth’ Scump’ Abner doesn’t believe it will be an issue in Modern Warfare 2. Modern Warfare 2 hits shelves on October 28, and we got our first taste of gameplay during the open beta. It was impossible to formulate an opinion on the game’s meta with just four maps and a handful of weapons at our disposal during the beta. However, there were a few noticeable differences from MW2’s predecessor. Slide-canceling is a powerful movement mechanic that unintentionally reared its ugly head in Modern Warfare 2019. The slide-canceling exploit, when mastered, became essential in Warzone and competitive CoD. Will slide-canceling be overpowered in Modern Warfare 2? Players discovered a way to use the overpowered technique in the Modern Warfare 2 beta, despite Activision claiming it was removed. Players praised Activision when they said they were removing the mechanic from Modern Warfare 2. Still, it didn’t take long for CDL pro-Shotzzy to discover a method of slide-canceling in the Modern Warfare 2 beta. Using the Tactical Sprint multiple times in quick succession allows you to move at an increased speed across the map. Doing so gives more mobility for traveling long distances and finessing around enemies in gunfights. During the OpTic Podcast on October 14, Scump said, “people think that slide-canceling is good, but it’s not good.” Scump continued, “when you are slide canceling, you are trying to press too many buttons, and the guy is just pre-aiming you with a gun that kills you in half a second.” The CoD veteran believes Modern Warfare 2’s fast-time-to-kill will be a rude awakening for players that attempt to play as aggressively as they did in Vanguard. “This game, if you take a bad challenge, you insta die. This game will punish a lot of people for ego challing.” Based on beta feedback, Modern Warfare 2’s loud audio encourages players to sit and camp. If this holds true, competitive CoD and slide-canceling will look much different than in previous years.

Scump explains why Ranked mode is needed to save Warzone vs Apex & Valorant Activision/Call of Duty LeagueA ranked mode is something that has evaded Warzone for years, now, despite pleas from players from the top down — and Call of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner thinks it could be the reason other games are starting to take over. While Warzone was once one of the biggest games in the world, it has slowly been losing its luster in the eyes of players. Activision reported that between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022, they lost 50 million players, attributing it to lower premium sales of Vanguard and reduced interest in Warzone. It’s true that in recent months, many players have switched from Warzone to other titles, and notably top streamer NICKMERCS made the move to rival battle royale Apex Legends, in which he’s attempting to forge a professional career. One common sentiment that has been echoed around the community is that the game is in dire need of a proper ranked mode — and now Scump believes the lack of one is contributing to the game’s decline. Read More: Is a ranked playlist coming to Warzone? – During his appearance on the OpTic podcast, Scump spoke about the issue with fellow OpTic members Nick ‘Maniac’ Kershner, Marcus ‘Boze’ Blanks and CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez. After H3CZ said that Apex and Valorant’s ranked modes help them excel, Scump agreed. “Ranked games are… that’s it. That’s what people want to play,” he said. “Ranked equals longevity of just desire to play. Because you want to stay in the top rank and if you’re in the top rank, you get to play against streamers in the top rank. Then you’re getting your name out there.” Timestamp 36:30 Scump isn’t the first person to say this, and he definitely won’t be the last, with a ranked mode being highly desired by the wider Warzone community. While developers have said they are interested in adding ranked to Warzone, their focus right now will likely be looking ahead to Warzone 2, which is expected to arrive around the same time as Modern Warfare 2 at the end of 2022.

Scump explains why OpTic Gaming’s CoD dynasty roster fell apart MLGIn the series premiere of ‘The Campaign,’ a mini-documentary series on the Call of Duty League YouTube channel, Chicago Hunstmen’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner gave some insight as to why the iconic OpTic Gaming dynasty roster collapsed and how that affected his relationship with Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper. OpTic’s dynasty roster of Scump, FormaL, Damon ‘Karma’ Barlow, and Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter was arguably the greatest CoD esports has ever seen. From 2015-2017, the quartet won over a dozen major tournaments together, including delivering the Green Wall their first and only World Championship in 2017. However, things fell apart as badly as they could have during the WWII season, which resulted in FormaL leaving for Luminosity Gaming and Karma, the fan-favorite three-time World Champion, dropped from the squad. Discussing their split in the first episode of The Campaign, Scump explained what exactly went wrong that ultimately caused such a dominant group of players to no longer mesh. According to the former OpTic captain, the collapse of their dynasty roster was the result of clashing egos and a sudden downturn of their quality of play and results at events. “The OpTic dynasty and it’s collapse was I’d say a big mashing of egos and some people, we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye with each other,” he explained. “We were winning for such a long span of time, and then right when we started losing, the whole world just collapsed. We imploded from the inside and everyone started butting heads.” Scump on his relationship with FormaL: “We hated each other” As a duo, Scump and FormaL were revered by many in the competitive Call of Duty scene, who referred to them as T2P because of their “Time to Pound” motto. When FormaL left OpTic after nearly four years of dominance with the Green Wall, many of the headlines described their relationship as resentful and embittered, which Scump has since admitted to being true. “Me and Matt, were the two best players on the team,” he said. “We fell off the tracks and then our friendship obviously suffered because of that. We weren’t winning anymore. We both hated each other for a while.” “There’s friendship in this, but then, at the end of the day, it is a business and it is work and you want to win.” As for how they reunited, the Huntsmen star revealed that he reached out to FormaL instantly after OpTic’s disappointing third-place finish at the 2019 CWL Championship, which had him “fuming” because of his teammates’ letdown performances. Now, not only are the two back together on the same team, but they’ve also rebuilt the iconic T2P, and turned it into a brand with its own line of merchandise. (Segment begins at the 5:20 mark for mobile users) Thanks to their star-studded roster of Scump, FormaL, Arcitys, Gunless, and Envoy, the Chicago Huntsmen are regarded as one of the best teams in the newly-formed CDL. Their first competitive action together will be at the Launch Weekend January 24-26, where they are set to face Dallas Empire and OpTic Gaming LA in what are two very highly-anticipated matchups. Written with contributions from Scott Robertson.

Scump explains why he’s keen for Call of Duty’s “stale” offseason to end The new-look Call of Duty League is set to begin with a historic opening weekend at the end of January, but that’s too long for Seth ‘Scump’ Abner, who says he wishes Modern Warfare’s “stale” offseason was ending much sooner. The King has admitted he’s looking forward to getting into the CDL grind, and playing competitive Modern Warfare again in 2020, after slogging through “one of the more stale” offseasons he’s experienced in his near-decade long career. It’s not been a bland experience for CoD fans, of course, who have seen the game’s entire competitive ecosystem turned on its head with the introduction of a franchised league, bringing with it city-based rosters and a raft of player moves. For Scump, however, the pre-CDL buildup has been “most boring” because the 24-year-old has been stuck managing admin, organizing the beginning of his life with the Chicago Huntsmen, and generally preparing for the next CoD era. “This offseason has been kind of stale, it’s probably been one of the more stale ones for me, because … a bunch of team things happened to me as you can imagine,” Scump said in the Huntsmen’s new Meet the Players series. Offseasons are often filled with throwback tournaments and interesting pro-ams, Scump explained, and while the end of 2019 had hosted Hitch’s time-winding Black Ops 2 comp, and a pro-am Abner entered, he had barely had time to enjoy it. “I didn’t get to go to Hitch’s throwback tournament, which would have been fun to play in… I did do the pro-am, but apart from that, and that one I missed, there wasn’t really much, and I haven’t really been doing anything,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get a lot of my in-real-life things sorted, so when the game drops I can play it lots. I’ve just been trying to get everything sorted, but it means it’s been the most boring offseason for me personally, so it’s been really slow.” That said, there’s is one positive Scump has taken from the fact that he’s barely touched video games, and missed out on one of the two offseason tournaments: he’s chomping at the bit to get his life in the Call of Duty League started. “I’m really, really excited to get started,” he admitted. “This is probably the most excited I’ve been for a new game in a while because of the sheer boredom I’ve endured in the past couple of months. I’m ready for the change of pace.” The King pointed to new locations like Chicago, New York, and Toronto as places that would be experiencing live competitive Call of Duty for nearly the first time, and said he was keen to “see different fans” and immerse himself in the roadshow. There’s also another reason Scump is eager to start the CDL’s regular season, though it’s another rewinding of the clock to his days with the Greenwall. For the first time since their explosive separation at OpTic Gaming, Scump and the other half of the iconic T2P duo Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper will once again be dropping into games together, and Abner said he can’t wait to see how it goes. “T2P is back, yes, it’s very exciting for me personally because I felt like on our old dynasty team it was me and Matt that were the heavy-hitters, and Ian and Damon would do the dirty work and pick up when we weren’t performing,” Scump said. “Nothing’s really changed. I talked to him after we lost at Champs, and I said ‘Listen, this is childish what we’re doing, there’s no reason to be mad at each other,’ and I said I didn’t know why we had ended on such bad terms in the first place. “We hashed things out, and got to the root of the problem, and shared what we expected of each other going into next year. To be on good terms and have him back on the squad is super exciting, and motivating. We used to do some real damage together, so I’m looking forward to continuing that this season.” For mobile readers, the related segment begins at 2:56. Now, first up for Abner, Piper, and the rest of the star-studded Chicago roster, is a reunion with their former organization, OpTic, now turned into the CDL-styled Los Angeles OpTic Gaming. They meet in the very first week of the league. While many esports stars tap into their feelings when coming up against the old banners they used to play under, Scump believes LA’s green-soaked team isn’t enough like the old Greenwall to even feel like he’s facing an old friend. “[Our time at OpTic] is something we hold very dear to our hearts, but this point now, we’re moving forward, it’s much more than a logo,” Scump said. “To the fans at the Greenwall, which is no more—it’s there in theory, but it’s not necessarily there—we played for the name. It’s much more than that though, it’s a family we’ve built. I’m not going to tell people to root for us [instead], but we played for that logo and idea. We still have the same love for you guys.” Scump and the Huntsmen take to the field against OpTic on the weekend of January 24-26, in the CDL’s historic opening round. All twelve teams will be playing at The Armory in Minneapolis. The round will be hosted by the RØKKR.

Scump explains why he thinks some pro players “don’t respect” OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming’s longest serving player, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner, was asked during a recent live stream why some professional players “don’t respect” the OpTic organization, and he gave two possible reasons. OpTic has the largest fan base of any organization in Call of Duty esports, thanks largely to their focus on content creation when other org’s somewhat neglected it, and of course being the winningest organization. They may have struggled throughout the WWII season, failing to win a single event and going through a tumultuous roster change, which saw the roster of over 2 years finally split, but still remain among the favorites heading into Black Ops 4. They have added two young players in Thomas ‘TJHaLy’ Haly and Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell, with the return of Damon ‘Karma’ Barlow completing the five man roster. But, there is a perception among fans that some professional players hold a feeling of discontent towards the organization, or more specifically the fanbase, who can be passionate to say the least. In response to the question of why some pros “don’t respect” OpTic, Scump replied “Jealousy, mostly”, before adding “and the fans piss them off, or that’s what people say. But it’s all good.” Certain portions of OpTic’s fanbase have been called out in the past by both other pros and even the OpTic organization itself, for somewhat toxic behavior, including booing other teams as they walk out on stage to face OpTic. And when OpTic lose or are eliminated from a tournament, there is certainly a section of fans who will lather abuse on the players, perhaps taking their criticizm to extremes. But, the majority of fans, the same with any team, are simply passionate and care about both supporting and defending their favored players. As for Scump’s assertion of ‘jealousy’, it is undeniable that some players will be envious of OpTic’s larger fanbase, but generally having such a large and passionate contingent of fans only benefits Call of Duty esports overall.

Scump explains why he “hates” the CDL format ActivisionFollowing their heartbreaking loss in the Stage 2 Major, OpTic Chicago’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has said that he hates the current Call of Duty League format. As it stands, CDL game weeks are spread over multiple days. For regular season matches, they take place from Thursday to Sunday, while Majors see games take place from Wednesday to Sunday. Fans are somewhat divided about the format, wanting to see more than two or three matches per day, and it appears players might be feeling the same way. While the current format is slightly different to that of the 2020 season, including Majors as bigger events more akin to the old CWL tournaments, Scump still isn’t a fan. During the OpTic podcast after the Stage 2 Major, the team ended up discussing their performance, the surprise winners in Toronto Ultra, and, ultimately, why the format just doesn’t work for them. “The CDL format sucks, I hate that sh*t,” Scump said. “They just need to condense it. I don’t know why it’s four days a week. I don’t know why the Major is five days.” Teammate Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell agreed with Scump, saying: “I don’t like playing one match a day. Think about it from FaZe’s standpoint. They won the Winners Finals and then sat there cold, watching a team win two series before.” Timestamp 8:10 The point is reiterated further by Dylan ‘Envoy’ Hannon, who said: “By the time we’re done scrimming, the matches are already over. The other day, it was two 3-0s and it was a two-hour stream. It’s two hours of CoD, you can’t even get into it.” Read More: CDL announces long-awaited return to LAN – This is something that fans have complained about with the current scheduling, with not enough matches to really sit down and get into. Additionally, CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez said that “You need to be invested in the entire tournament and the path to the championship, as opposed to watching one hour of CoD.” That, in itself, seems to be where much of the problem lies.

Scump explains why he has no plans to stream full-time and stop competing OpTic Gaming/Activision/TwitchSeth ‘Scump’ Abner is no doubt the biggest name in Call of Duty and one of the most well-known in the entire esports space, but after years of retirement rumors, he’s explained why he hasn’t called it quits on his career yet — and why he isn’t massively interested in a shift to full-time streaming. Scump is one of the oldest players in the CoD League, approaching 27 but not showing any sign of slowing down. While retirement rumors have followed him for some time now — especially because of how big his content channels are and the inevitable success streaming would bring him — the King remains one of the most talented players in the league. During a recent video for OpTic Gaming, Scump spoke about retirement, streaming, and ultimately why he’s still around. In a recreation of the ever-popular Hot Ones online series from First We Feast, Scump sat down with OpTic creative director Davis ‘Hitch’ Edwards for an interview while eating hot wings, with some more serious conversations littered between the jokes and hot wing-induced suffering. Read More: Scump calls for CDL to revert to CWL format – After talking about how much he loves the camaraderie of having a team to hop on with and “go to battle,” Scump explained why he doesn’t think content creation would feel quite the same. “Me and Zinni [Methodz] were talking about this,” he said. “Once we go to content, everything’s going to be steady. There’s never going to be a high, there’s never going to be a low … It’s just a steady baseline, and he was like ‘You’re going to get so bored if you retire.’” Timestamp 3:26 Scump went on to insist that he wouldn’t want to end his career on a low point, such as the win-less Cold War season in 2021, but he wants to go out on a high without falling off. It’s fair to say that Scump’s eventual retirement will shock the Call of Duty community no matter how long we prepare for it — some fans have even suggested it would be bigger than NFL GOAT Tom Brady’s retirement.

Scump explains why Dallas Empire dominating scrims “doesn’t matter” Star Call of Duty pro player Seth ‘Scump’ Abner isn’t taking rival Dallas Empire’s dominance of online scrims too seriously, explaining that such a thing “doesn’t matter” until teams face each other on LAN. With the regular season of the newly-formed Call of Duty League set to kick off in January, most of the teams have been practicing against each other and amateur sides in online scrimmages. It’s no secret that Dallas Empire, one of the best teams on paper, have been the most dominant team in these scrims. They have repeatedly made the competition look a lot worse than they probably are. Chicago Huntsmen CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez asked one of his star players, Scump, about how well the Empire have been showing out in scrims, but the former OpTic Gaming captain replied by claiming that scrims aren’t taken as seriously as fans may think. “Nobody cares right now, everyone’s in the actual scene,” he said. “You can’t blame the people watching because that’s all they’ve had to base off of, you can’t blame them. People place stock in all that scrim stuff.” Scump doesn’t think Dallas Empire should be crowned the best team yet While admitting that the Empire are a very strong team, Scump explained that their dominance in online practice sessions doesn’t mean they’re the best team in the CDL. “They’re really good, they’ve been the best online team and that’s a fact, no question,” he admitted. “All the professional players know that they’re really good. But everyone’s like ‘wait until LAN, wait until LAN,’ and they’re saying that for a reason.” “They’re very hard to play against online. Their five based out of one state with very good internet. Texas has always been known for super-good internet. They’re very, very good, but, at the end of the day, it’s proven on LAN.” What makes LAN so different from online? The 2017 World Champion listed off some of the factors that separate competing live and in-person versus playing in an online environment. “All the pros that actually play the game every single day and play on different hosts and different connections against these pro players, we know best,” he explained. “That’s why a lot of people always say online doesn’t really matter and LAN is where everything counts because everyone’s on a level playing field, people can get nervous, there’s a lot of different factors.” (Segment begins at 6:27 mark for mobile users) Call of Duty League kicks off soon Not much time is left until the Call of Duty League regular season starts and this scrim conversation gets thrown by the wayside in favor of more serious levels of competition. The CDL Launch Weekend, taking place January 24-26, will feature all 12 franchises coming together for the first time, including both the Huntsmen and Empire. For more information about the inaugural season and all of the teams involved, make sure to check out the full CDL 2020 match schedule and offseason RosterMania tracker.

Scump explains why Black Ops Cold War’s SBMM needs changes Huntsmen / Activision[jwplayer QkvtNtzX]As the SBMM debate continues, Chicago Huntsmen’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has delved into his reasons for wanting Treyarch to dial it back before Black Ops Cold War is released to the public. It’s about that time of year where Call of Duty fans begin to look forward to the next iteration in the franchise. After the multiplayer reveal looked promising, many were eager to get their hands on the Cold War Alpha when Treyarch announced they’d be flicking the switch live between September 18-20. But while certain aspects of gameplay — such as sniping — were raised as a cause for concern throughout the Alpha, skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) stole the show. Scump and other CoD pros were vocal about their distaste of its inclusion. In a September 19 Tweet, Abner wrote: “SBMM does not belong in Call of Duty.” There should be a ranked playlist for people to sweat in.” And Scump expanded upon this in a recent video, where he laid out what Treyarch needs to do to make the game more enjoyable for pros. SBMM does not belong in Call of Duty. There should be a ranked playlist for people to sweat in. I’m not trying to play Scuf wielding game fuel chugging demons with szn in their psn on Miami TDM. Also, to the noobies that are gonna cry about this tweet, hold this choppy gunny. — OpTic Scump (@scump) September 19, 2020 Scump: Ranked & SBMM tuning are needed Scump was eager to get in some game time on the Alpha, in early preparation for the Call of Duty League 2021 Season. But after merely one day of playing, the ‘king’ of Call of Duty went right back to Warzone. Why? SBMM. According to Abner, the level of competition while playing public matches during the Alpha was comparable to playing the CDL Playlist in Modern Warfare. And because of the impact it had on his Cold War experience, Scump planted his flag firmly in the camp that wants SBMM to change. The 2017 World Champion believes that a solid ranked playlist — where SBMM is in full effect — would be a better implementation. But Scump doesn’t want to get rid of SBMM in public matchmaking altogether. Instead, he believes that it needs to be “tuned” or dialled back, to ensure that skill level is still evenly distributed throughout the lobby. Incentivizing a ranked play system is a solution which streaming megastar Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins is an advocate of, saying that it would “deter” those looking to pub-stomp on beginners. Of course, Scump is biased to give his opinion from a content creator’s standpoint, with the CDL pro saying that it can sometimes take two to three hours just to record the perfect gameplay for YouTube. It’s for this reason that Abner trolled and ‘reverse-boosted’ in a bid to be matched up against less skilled players — something which he claims he’s never had to do before in his Call of Duty career. Another solution that Seth put forward would be for Treyarch to adopt connection-based matchmaking, with a hint of SBMM. “I don’t want to play against the bottom 10-30% of players, but I also don’t want to play against the top 5% of players all the time.” But of course, this would require the Cold War devs to fine-tune the matchmaking algorithm further, which might actually impact on the speed in which matches are found. What would be your perfect balance? Be sure to have your say on our Twitter poll.

Scump explains what went wrong for OpTic in Black Ops 4 and CoD Champs Treyarch / YouTube: 100 ThievesOpTic Gaming veteran Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has explained what went wrong for the team following their underwhelming Black Ops 4 season, and third-place finish at CWL Champs. OpTic’s 2019 season got off to the best possible start as they won CWL Las Vegas back in the first event, around a monster MVP performance from Dashy. They struggled after though, and placed no better than third for the remainder of the season. Going into Championship Sunday at CWL Champs, OpTic were in an ideal position: in the Winners’ Final against eUnited. However, a choke on Payload Search & Destroy saw them capitulate and lose five straight maps, first falling to eUnited and then 100 Thieves. Appearing on the CouRage and Nadeshot podcast, Scump was presented with a list of his achievements. “Are you kidding?” he laughed. “We should have won Champs this weekend too. People decided to not show up on Sunday.” While Scump shone on the final day of Champs, his teammates almost unanimously struggled, meaning a lot of OpTic’s maps were lost comfortably. Nade went on to ask what happened after the win at CWL Vegas, explaining that his 100 Thieves roster took down OpTic at all but one of their matchups. “I don’t even think we won maps against 100 Thieves,” Scump replied. “Which doesn’t make sense because I felt like we were nasty.” “I feel like it was a lack of motivation,” Scump continued. “And chemistry, after a certain point. Everyone started bickering again after we started losing. People were on each others’ nerves a lot. Arguing in scrims: people saying let’s take scrims more seriously and I’m over here like “come on, let’s have some fun.” OpTic’s CoD team has had issues in the past over teammates being at each other’s throats. When the dynasty roster struggled in WWII, the subsequent break up was largely put down to toxicity between players, particularly Scump and FormaL. Scump said it got so serious that “we (OpTic) couldn’t have fun anymore”. It certainly sounds like there were some personality clashes over the course of Black Ops 4, with Karma and Crimsix getting frustrated with Scump’s attitude. “Ian doesn’t take losing for anything,” said Scump. “He would start yelling and getting mad at us and we’d start laughing at him… He gets so mad. I feel like it was a lack of motivation. We lost the hunger.” He explained that there was a definite desire to prove people wrong at CWL Las Vegas, but that fell off over the course of the year. At CWL Champs he describes his performance positively, while his teammates struggled. However, he’s quick to point out he also had his bad events this year, so he does not hold it against “one or two people”. Similarly, he pinpoints the loss of the Payload Search & Destroy versus eUnited, with the map being described as the “momentum swing” by CouRage, an ex-CoD caster. Up 5-3, the Greenwall lost 3 straight rounds to see the series tied 1-1. This momentum shift seemingly killed OpTic, as they lost the next two maps convincingly. They were then eliminated by 100 Thieves 3-0. It sounds like a mixture of factors prevented the roster from hitting the heights of previous years and, with franchising just around the corner, the future of all the team’s members is currently up in the air.

Scump explains OpTic Texas’ Major 2 struggles amid Vanguard spawn controversy Envy / OpTicCall of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has explained OpTic Texas’ struggles at the CDL Major 2, which saw the fan-favorite roster eliminated in 5-6th despite coming in as favorites to make it back-to-back tournament wins. After a poor year under the banner of OpTic Chicago, many Greenwall fans have found exactly what they’re looking for in the start of the CoD: Vanguard season. The new-look OpTic Texas roster of Scump, Dashy, iLLeY, and Shotzzy took CDL Major 1 back in March, meaning they went into April’s Major 2 as firm favorites. However, things didn’t quite go to plan for OpTic, losing 3-0 to Seattle and then 3-1 to Florida to see them eliminated top 6. Now, Scump has explained what he thinks went wrong. Speaking in April 15’s episode of the OpTic Podcast, the King pointed to some questionable spawns as a major reason for their loss to Florida, stating that they were too slow to react when the unexpected happened. “This was the first time I’ve nerd raged off stage,” Scump said. “Whenever I lose I’m usually like ‘they just played good whatever’, not this time. I’m walking down the stairs backstage and I’m just raging… [It was] horrible spawns against Florida… We noticed it like half a second too late. Brandon was like ‘wrong spawns, wrong spawns’, I was like ‘what!’ I was pushing out their side, I lost so much composure.” The spawn in question was indeed controversial, with many CDL pros criticizing the game for its seemingly lackluster mechanics. Despite OpTic wiping Florida off the map, Florida spawned directly behind the OpTic players instead of the expected spawns across the map as punishment for being wiped. Topic starts at 31:50 On the earlier Seattle loss, Scump put it down to poor map vetoes from OpTic, resulting in matches being played on maps Seattle were confident playing. While they were also OpTic’s favorable maps, Scump thinks they should have sought to choose Seattle’s least favorite maps, even if OpTic were less comfortable on them as well. “We trolled vetoes,” he said. “We ego-challenged… we played our best maps and their best maps, they just had a better day.” With fine margins seemingly to blame for the early elimination, Scump and OpTic Texas should be confident of regaining top spot when Major 3 comes around.

Scump explains how IW can make Modern Warfare “infinitely better” Legendary pro Call of Duty player Seth ‘Scump‘ Abner has listed some of the changes that developers Infinity Ward can make to Modern Warfare in order to drastically improve the game, at least in his view. Unlike most other pro Call of Duty players, Scump doesn’t limit his CoD intake to just practices and competitive matches. Over the years, he’s proven to be a big fan of playing public and casual matches, and has built a massive YouTube following on the back of his many popular ‘pub-stomping’ videos. This is why many players, competitive and casual alike, listen every year when he speaks about what changes the new CoD game needs in order to be better. By now it’s not much of a secret that the 2017 World Champion isn’t the biggest fan of Modern Warfare, and has criticized several aspects of the game’s multiplayer, especially pertaining to casual games. He was asked about that during his visit to Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez, CEO of the Chicago Huntsmen CDL franchise that Scump currently plays for, and he noted some of the things that Infinity Ward could do to make the game better. “I don’t not like it, but there are a lot of glaring issues that, if fixed, could make it infinitely better,” he explained. “Fix the footsteps indefinitely, they need to nerf the shotgun, first of all. The maps aren’t that great; they’ve added a couple of more maps. Shoot House is pretty fun! They need to keep adding Ground War maps.” (Discussion begins at 10:23 mark.) It comes as no shock that everything Scump listed has, in fact, been what a majority of the player-base has also been complaining about. Despite numerous changes implemented across several updates, footsteps continue to be in a less-than-ideal state. The shotgun he referred to is the 725, which many agree continues to be the most overpowered gun in the game. In fact, what frustrates players most about the weapon is the fact Infinity Ward have “nerfed” it several times, and yet some are arguing it’s even more powerful than before. As for the maps, they’ve been heavily criticized by competitive and casual players alike. Scump’s former teammate and current Seattle Surge player Damon ‘Karma’ Barlow even suggested they were among the worst ever in CoD history. The addition of Shoot House has been a positive one, as Scump hints at in the video, so if the developers can keep pumping quality new maps into the game, it could help slow down the backlash they’re receiving over the day-one set of maps. The biggest thing that Infinity Ward have on their side is the fact that there is no Season Pass and purchasable DLC anymore, which means all post-launch DLC content will be free in Modern Warfare. That then allows them to get all of the new content to everyone on every platform at the same time, and that could be key to turning a lot of players’ opinions on the game around, including Scump’s.

Scump explains his biggest frustration with Modern Warfare Call of Duty star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has revealed his biggest frustration with the release of Modern Warfare – zeroing in on the current feel for the game. After months of waiting, Call of Duty fans around the world got their hands on Modern Warfare on October 25 as the year of the latest release gets underway. While players flooded the servers, causing them to break on the release date, the excitement has been matched with criticism from other players. Some, like Karma, have spoken out about their hatred for the map design. Scump, though, aired his frustrations during his October 25 Twitch stream, centering his criticism on the game’s mobility – well, lack thereof. “What do you guys think about the game? I don’t know, I’m getting super frustrated just because I feel like you can’t run around and try to fry people in this game at all,” Scump explained after a few hours of playing. “Obviously, you don’t want that all the time right, but you have to have the ability to do it. You cannot challenge people on heady in this game, jumping corners. Black Ops 4 – too fast, too much mobility – but this game, there’s like absolutely zero mobility.” The former World Champion even compared it to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, where there was a similar lack of mobility but you could gun players down regardless. “This game, it just feels like there’s no chance if someones posted, watching – it’s just a wrap,” he added. Can’t see the clip below on mobile? Click here Of course, when it comes to competitive play, things will change from what professionals experience in public matches as they carve out a map pool, practice game modes, and experience a pretty different play style. While they will likely also agree on what weapons, perks, and other items won’t be used in matches, their feel for the title will likely change. Whether or not that’ll make a huge difference though, remains to be seen. Despite Scump’s criticism, the speed of the game may work in favor of his new team – Chicago’s Call of Duty franchise – especially as he reunites with former longtime teammate Mathew ‘FormaL’ Piper. Even if submachine guns, which Scump has run for his entire career, don’t play a major role in winning in the next competitive meta, Chicago will be able to fall back on a high-powered line-up headlined by the T2P duo.

Scump explains Dallas Empire feud as he sends shots at Crimsix’s team MLG/Infinity WardProfessional Call of Duty player for Chicago Huntsmen, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner, has explained the ongoing feud between him and ex-OpTic teammate Crimsix, who plies his trade on Dallas Empire. Viewers of the first two CDL weekends will have been treated to a host of top-tier matchups, including multiple incarnations of the new ‘eClasico’, in which Dallas Empire and Chicago Huntsmen went toe to toe. Despite Dallas dominating online prior to the start of the CDL season, Chicago has now comfortably seen them off in a number of matches. However, it’s important to remember that the Huntsmen are yet to face Atlanta FaZe, who are widely considered to be right up there as the CDL’s early frontrunners. The trash talk has been fuelled by the ex-comradeship of FormaL, Scump and Crimsix, who all formed the infamous OpTic Gaming dynasty roster in Black Ops III and Infinite Warfare. While bragging rights first belonged to Dallas, Scump certainly seems to be enjoying ownership of them now, as a February 14 tweet proved. Read More: Scump’s insane SnD stats from CDL London – The tweet showcased a video of Dallas’ initial trash talk, followed by the results of all three series the two have played, which Chicago have won 3-1, 3-1 and 3-0. It was captioned: “A wise man once said, “Don’t talk trash if you’re not going to win the map,” referring to a classic comment from Nadeshot, “in this case it’s the series, 3 of them.” A wise man once said, “”Don’t talk trash if you’re not going to win the map”” . In this case its the series, 3 of them. pic.twitter.com/fccWtUii4v — OpTic Scump (@scump) February 15, 2020 However, Scump added a bit more detail to his boasting after London Royal Ravens player wuskinz stated that he’d been a “comedian” recently. “It’s human nature,” Scump explained. “If someone talks smack on you as a human and you smoke them over and over you’re bound to respond.” It’s human nature. If someone talks smack on you as a human and you smoke them over and over you’re bound to respond — OpTic Scump (@scump) February 15, 2020 Essentially, the trash talk on Scump’s behalf comes down to the fact that it was started by Dallas, who have then failed to follow their talk up with performances at CDL events – so far, at least. Scump also said he “only retaliates when threatened”, suggesting pretty much that ‘they started it’. I only retaliate when threatened. I’m a pretty cool cucumber the rest of the time. I’m like a skunk, but less stinky. — OpTic Scump (@scump) February 15, 2020 The community has been lapping up the rivalry, with fellow pro players also enjoying the antics. Nadeshot also took pride in being the “wise man” Scump referred to. Fans have been enjoying the back and forth between the two powerhouse franchises, with many arguing it adds to the excitement and intensity of matches. The CDL’s next weekend takes place in Atlanta on February 22 and 23. While Chicago will be in attendance, Dallas will not be back in action until March 7, when they travel to Los Angeles for the weekend hosted by both the Guerrillas and OpTic Gaming.

Scump explains why new CDL “bubble” in Texas is a big advantage Twitter: OpTicAll of OpTic Chicago, along with a majority of other pro teams, have relocated to Texas for the Call of Duty League 2021 season, and Seth ‘Scump’ Abner believes it’s going to give them a huge “advantage” over their CDL rivals. With the switch to online play in 2020, teams were scattered across the United States. Players could be competing from the other side of the country with a significant network disadvantage. Given LAN events are still a ways off due to the ongoing global crisis, a majority of CDL pros have established a makeshift “bubble” in Texas to combat the issue. With all players in one location, Scump argues that it only benefits teams for the year ahead. “I absolutely love it,” he said on January 27. With his teammates all training out the H3CZQUARTERS facility, there appear to be no excuses for the upcoming season. Being in the one location affords a degree of team bonding that you just can’t get online, according to Scump.“I think it has tremendously improved our team chemistry. Every single night [the team] is always hanging out after scrims.” “You can just tell. It feels like we trust each other a lot more inside of the game. We trust each other to make good decisions and do the right things on the map.” From OpTic’s standpoint, it’s not just the team chemistry that’s proving valuable. “On top of that, you have the sheer connection advantage,” Scump added. “I believe 31 of 48 players are in Texas right now and it might even be more than that. Clearly, Texas has some sort of connection advantage for people to want to pick up their lives and move down here to compete.” We’ve already seen the move pay dividends for OpTic as they recently blitzed through the LA Thieves 3-0 in the Kickoff Classic. “We’ve been playing super good. I can’t even remember the last time we lost a scrim set. It’s been amazing to have the whole team here and I think it’s only going to benefit us moving forward.” With other teams having followed suit with a move to Texas, it should help establish a more even playing field for a majority of matchups this year.

Scump dominates Black Ops 6 beta Twitch viewership beating Nadeshot, Swagg, more Activision/Call of Duty LeagueDuring the first weekend of the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 beta, COD legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner came out on top for Twitch viewership, beating out multiple world champions and top streamers. Between August 30 and September 4, Call of Duty players were able to get hands-on with Black Ops 6 for the first time ahead of its launch on October 25, 2024. The beta is always a big moment in the COD calendar and while it’s big for players, it’s also big for the content creators who want to get their new year off to the best start and see what they’re dealing with for the next 12 months. With sentiment around Black Ops 6 being largely positive, it’s no surprise that the streamers are pulling in thousands of viewers — but, surprise surprise, it’s Scump who comes out on top for viewership for the first beta weekend, according to stats from SullyGnome. Top 10 most watched streamers Black Ops 6 beta Scump beat out former OpTic teammate Anthony ‘Shotzzy’ Cuevas-Castro for the top spot, with Shotzzy himself seeing huge growth in his stream during this offseason of the Call of Duty League. Elsewhere in the top 10 is 2013 COD world champion Tyler ‘TeeP’ Polchow, French stars Skyrroz and Corentin ‘Gotaga’ Houssein, and long-time Call fo Duty streamers Mason ‘Symfuhny’ Lanier and Tim ‘TimTheTatman’ Betar. Just outside of the top 10 was the likes of former Scump teammates, Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell and Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter and German streamer Stylerz. There’s still another weekend of the beta starting on September 6, with players able to get a few days worth of games in for the last time before the game’s official launch, and it’s hard to imagine many COD streamers being able to compete with Scump’s numbers.

Scump reveals devastating Black Ops 4 scorestreak is now GA’d ahead of CWL Fort Worth The list of items on the competitive Call of Duty ‘gentleman’s agreement’ (GA) just keeps getting longer, with the powerful ‘gunship’ scorestreak apparently the latest addition to the unofficial restrictions in Black Ops 4. OpTic Gaming‘s Seth ‘Scump‘ Abner appeared to confirm that the gunship was no longer in play among professionals while making a cameo appearance on fellow OpTic member David ‘Hitch‘ Edwards’ livestream. The pair were watching back a match between OpTic and Splyce at CWL Las Vegas, and although Scump is barely audible in the footage, what is being discussed is clear. Scump can be heard stating “We waited until three days out [from the event] to finally do it, when people have been saying for two weeks straight that we need to get rid of it [the gunship]. I’ve been saying it for two weeks.” Hitch responds by asking “so now there’s just lightning strike and just hellstorm? That’s it?”, to which Scump responds “yep.” The removal of the gunship from pro play might have something to do with OpTic Gaming’s Damon ‘Karma‘ Barlow’s public complaint about how much damage it can sustain. How the hell do you destroy a gunship? 8 rockets 1 hitmarker. — Damon B (@OpTic_DKarma) March 13, 2019 So for CWL Fort Worth, which starts on March 15, it sounds like we won’t be seeing any insane streaks resulting in a gunship raining down from above, at least in the pro tournament. With assists granting the same amount of points as kills in Black Ops 4, it is a lot easier for players to earn the higher scorestreaks, even at the pro level, and it seems that gunship has been ruled as too powerful and game changing to be permitted.

Scump details why OpTic Gaming might not boot camp anymore during Black Ops 4 season In preparation for CWL Vegas on December 7, OpTic Gaming has been holding boot camps with other CoD teams, but it looks like this might be a one-time deal. While professional teams frequently scrim one another throughout the season, OpTic took it a step further by inviting eUnited to the organization’s headquarters in Texas for a boot camp before CWL Vegas. Any other teams hoping to get some boot camp time in with OpTic look to be out of luck, though, as Seth ‘Scump’ Abner said the team doesn’t plan on doing it again for quite some time. In the second episode of the newest season of ‘Vision’ released on December 5, Scump revealed that the team doesn’t plan on boot camping again until Champs. “I don’t think we’re gonna boot camp again until Champs, honestly,” Scump said in the episode. “Boot camps are great, but at the same time if you play the same team over and over, you get acclimated to their tendencies that you don’t get other looks.” Scump further explains that he feels that boot camping was actually part of why OpTic’s roster had a tough time during the WWII season, as they weren’t ready for the looks that many teams were giving them during tournaments after only boot camping with a single team. He did confirm that they also brought out Team Envy to boot camp this week to break things up instead of playing the same team over and over, something he hopes will give them better results at CWL Vegas. At the end of the day, though, Scump doesn’t want to give too much info up with boot camps and scrims. “Just getting different looks and allowing teams to get a full read on you because if you play them in the bracket, they’ll know everything you do,” concluded Scump on boot camping. OpTic Gaming will begin their journey at CWL Vegas on December 7, playing in Pool C along with Splyce, G2 Esports, and two yet-to-determined teams.

Scump claims OpTic Chicago “don’t suck” despite lackluster CDL Stage 3 results Twitch: ScumpWith the Stage 3 Major fast approaching, CDL star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner returned to Twitch after a near two-month break to discuss OpTic Chicago’s latest performance, explaining how the team doesn’t “suck” in light of recent criticism. It’s safe to say that Stage 3 wasn’t all too kind to the Green Wall. Finishing fourth in Group B, OpTic secured just two series wins over Seattle and London. Both of these victories came in week one. Ever since, they’ve been on a rough losing streak, winning just two further maps across three matches. Dropping to eighth place in our overall power rankings, various teams have been able to pass them by throughout the season. Now looking ahead to a lower bracket start in the upcoming Major, OpTic has a considerable mountain to climb. Despite struggling against top squads in the CDL, Scump still believes they’re a well-rounded team capable of big wins. Booting up his stream for just the second time in seven weeks, he addressed the criticism head-on and outlined just how challenging Stage 3 has really been. “It’s just been a cycle,” he said at the very beginning of his latest broadcast. While OpTic continued streaming their team practice deep into the 2021 season, that has since come to an end as the lineup moved to offline scrims in March. Without his stream to fall back on, the grind has become monotonous for Scump. “It’s so weird not streaming. My days are just so repetitive. Wake up, eat, scrim, just nothing other than that, it’s so strange.” While the schedule may be more tedious, the worst aspect now is that “nobody can see [their] practice,” he explained. “We practice every day without streaming. We go into our matches and we’re losing. People just assume we suck, which we definitely don’t.” Read more: Behind the OpTic and FaZe CDL scandal – If fans could see their performance in scrims, maybe it would turn the conversation around. But for now, Scump realizes it all boils down to “not executing in matches.” With some fresh wins under their belt, weeks of hard work out of the public eye could all be worthwhile. In the meantime, there’s simply “nothing to show for it,” he admits. “The past three weeks have been so sh***y.” Down on their luck in official matchups, OpTic hasn’t found a series win in almost three weeks. After narrowly dropping out of the last Major in the most unbelievable way, they’ll be hoping to turn things around with a much better showing in the Stage 3 Major. Read more: How FormaL Became a Call of Duty legend – Starting in Round 2 of the lower bracket, OpTic’s first game falls on Friday, May 14. They’ll be taking on the winner of Surge vs Guerrillas to start their run where just a single loss will send them packing once again.

Scump, Dashy, Simp and more – The top 10 rated players from CWL London 100 Thieves were crowned champions at CWL London, lifting their first major trophy as an organization, but who were the top performing players at the event? After a thrilling victory against Optic Gaming, 100 Thieves were matched against eUnited in the grand finals who didn’t drop a single map during their losers bracket run. Nevertheless, 100T continued their excellent form, winning two Hardpoints and Control to hand Nadeshot his victory as an organization owner which almost made him pass out. 100 Thieves’ Sam ‘Octane’ Larew scooped the MVP award, but how does he compare to the top performing players in London? CoDStats uses a variety of factors, such as K/D ratio and score per minute, to determine an overall rating for players. Here are the top ten rated players from the event. 10. Scump 9. Brack Team: Denial Rating: 1.09 Denial Esports could only manage a third-place finish in pool play after being drawn into a tough group alongside Gen.G and Spylce. They were unable to perform in the losers bracket, falling to Midnight in the first round. Despite their poor showing, Carson ‘Brack’ Newberry was able to place in the top ten players for rating highlighting his fantastic performances. 8. Temp Team: Splyce Rating: 1.10 Spylce will also be disappointed in their performance at CWL London after being eliminated by Team Envy following their drop into the losers bracket. Despite the result, Donovan ‘Temp’ Laroda proved that he is still one of the most consistent Black Ops 4 with a rating of 1.10 that is good enough to earn him a top-eight ranking as an individual. 7. Lacefield 6. Dashy major event of the year in Las Vegas.5. Skyz Team: Elevate Rating: 1.23 Another team looking to swiftly move on after CWL London is Elevate who were dumped into the losers bracket before suffering a first-round elimination at the hands of Luminosity Gaming. However, Cesar ‘Skyz’ Bueno managed to finish the tournament with a rating of 1.23, made all the more impressive given their early exit. 4. Decemate Team: Team Envy Rating: 1.25 Team Envy made the worst possible start to CWL London after being drawn into a group of death in pool play which resulted in them entering the losers bracket. However, a strong performance from Jacob ‘Decemate’ Cato almost helped them into the finals but they ultimately came up short against eUnited. 3. Arcitys Team: eUnited Rating: 1.29 eUnited almost completed the unlikeliest of comebacks at CWL London after being placed in losers bracket in the second round following defeat against 100 Thieves. Alec ‘Arcitys’ Sanderson was on fire, helping his team secure wins against Heretics, Envy and Optic before falling at the final hurdle in the 100T grand finals rematch. 2. Octane Team: 100 Thieves Rating: 1.29 Nadeshot will be overjoyed with the performance of his team in England, none more so than Sam ‘Octane’ Larew who was rightly awarded the MVP award with a rating of 1.29. The decision to sign the 21-year-old from rivals Optic Gaming has already proven to be a wise one. 1. Simp Team: eUnited Rating: 1.41 While he might have missed out on a trophy, eUnited’s Chris ‘Simp’ Lehr blew fans away with his magnificent performance at the tournament – his first ever as professional. Simp topped the list with a rating of 1.41 and held the highest K/D ratio of all players.

Scump, Dashy, & other CoD pros react to Black Ops Cold War reveal CDL / Treyarch[jwplayer VwDa3xvd] After months of anticipation, Treyarch and Raven Software officially unveiled the next entry in the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops Cold War, and the reveal was mostly met with praise from professional CDL players. After remaining completely silent for months on end, publisher Activision and developers Treyarch finally pulled back the curtains on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War during the first-ever live event within Warzone. Black Ops Cold War’s trailer received a mostly positive reception, with many in the community praising the game for its impressive visuals and interesting setting, as well as the return of classic characters like Woods, Mason, and Hudson. Beyond the casual fanbase, however, the professional community was also watching as well, and many Call of Duty League professional players posted their reactions about the series’ next installment. Needless to say, while pro players do enjoy many of the casual aspects of Call of Duty games, their main focus and priority is on the competitive side. While nothing about the multiplayer was announced in this August 26 reveal, it still gave the chance for CDL stars to get a feel of what to expect when Black Ops Cold War drops on November 13. Here are the reactions from some of the pro scene’s biggest stars, including the likes of the Huntsmen’s Scump, FaZe’s aBeZy, OpTic Gaming’s Dashy, and more. https://twitter.com/SaintsNato/status/1298681475081089031 https://twitter.com/DashySZN/status/1298683819114070019 Of course, as mentioned above, these reactions were only to the first trailer of the game. With the full multiplayer reveal set to take place on September 9, that’s when a lot of these pro players will get a good look at what they’re going to competing with when the second season of the Call of Duty League kicks off. There are a lot of announcements still to be made, especially when it comes to the competitive side of Black Ops Cold War, and despite all these positive initial thoughts, these players have their own wishlists for what they want in the 2020 title. For example, the aforementioned Scump layed out what he thinks will make BOCW the “perfect” CoD, one of which is a return to 4v4, which a lot of his league-mates have also expressed. Competitive Call of Duty officially transitioned to a 5v5 format in 2018 when Black Ops 4 was announced, but that decision has since been met with mixed reviews, at best. All in all, given the early positive reactions to their game, it seems like Treyarch might have another hit on their hands. With Modern Warfare not being thought of highly by the competitive player-base, especially at the professional level, it may not take much to get the support of the pros this time around.

Scump & Dashy lash out over new OpTic vs FaZe CDL Comms video Call of Duty LeagueA new Call of Duty League Comms video led to yet another wave of backlash from players and staff alike, and now OpTic’s H3CZ and Scump have hit out. The intention of Comms videos is to provide insight into how players are interacting with one another in the heat of the moment. However, the 2021 season has seen this content go a step too far, according to many of the league’s top players. An earlier Comms video released in February led to NYSL’s James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks flipping off his camera live on the broadcast. Now, just weeks later and a number of OpTic players are lashing out over the latest release. While their first loss to FaZe in Stage 1 went to a game five, it was the S&Ds that cost OpTic, winning just a single round across two maps. It proved to be a good learning experience for the team, though it was obviously a tough loss at the time. Now, the OpTic players have hit out at the League for sharing their private comms. Scump, Dashy & more complain The original tweet with the video has now been deleted, after much deliberation and backlash from the pros. “No shot y’all posted this,” Seth ‘Scump’ Abner commented underneath the video. Evidently, the CDL didn’t run this one by the players before sharing it online. “Bro, no shot right?” Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell followed up as well. Revealing private moments through wins and losses is one thing. Historically, this kind of insight has often been praised by the community when handled properly. In this instance, however, it was more than just these moments that were made public. “Let’s hop on board with a nine-minute Listen-In to see what the comms of OpTic are going into maps,” head coach Troy ‘Sender’ Michaels joked in response. The video gave a unique look at how players across both teams discuss strategy heading into each map. For these two squads, it gives their opposition a chance to see how they think on game day. OpTic H3CZ addresses the issue OpTic founder Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez addressed the issue, alongside Scump and FormaL, in a vlog posted on March 18. “It’s so uncool by the League to do that,” H3CZ says as Scump can be heard complaining in the background. “What you guys do behind closed doors to hype yourselves up shouldn’t be public… It’s literally taking it out of context.” Now the second major issue related to CDL’s Comms videos, it’ll be interesting to see if any changes are made moving forward — especially when some of the biggest names in Call of Duty esports are calling it out. As we’ve seen in previous years, there are plenty of ways to go about this form of content without revealing intricate details teams intend to keep private.

Scump and Crimsix speak out on conflict with OpTic J ahead of potential Immortals buyout OpTic Gaming – TwitterOpTic Gaming Call of Duty pro player Seth ‘Scump‘ Abner has dropped a cryptic hint about the organization’s falling out their President and COO Ryan ‘OpTic J’ Musselman. It has been a tumultuous past several weeks for OpTic Gaming and its members, to say the least, as the org could face extinction if parent company Infinite Esports & Entertainment get purchased by Immortals. There have been rumors that OpTic J, now the President of Infinite’ had a falling out with his former peers at OpTic, and could potentially play a role in leading the Green Wall to its doom. These rumors were only further intensified when Scump was heard making mention of J on teammate Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell’s Twitch stream “OpTic J tried to Thanos us,” he said. “Should I tweet that? That’s a good tweet. ‘OpTic J tried to Thanos us’ – that’s a good one.” He reiterated this point by making a nearly identical comment in the official Call of Duty Twitch stream chat, in front of over 10,200 viewers. Scump was making a reference to Thanos, the ultimate villain of Marvel’s Avengers film series, who managed to eliminate half of the population in the universe with a single snap of his fingers at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. While his message was cryptic in terms of details, it certainly confirmed that things were far from right between OpTic and J, and that the COO had, in fact, tried to cause damage to the Call of Duty team in some way. In the same Twitch clip, Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter was heard saying “he really did” in response to Scump’s comment about J. Crimsix decided to take it even a step further by resubscribing to Dashy’s channel and including the message “Can we get a ‘F*** J’ in the chat please?” As expected everyone in the chat obliged and began to spam the message. J’s falling out with OpTic This is hardly the first time that OpTic J has been spoken about in such way. On May 28, the infamous Call of Duty insider known as the CoDBurner published a post in which he made similar claims. “J is a snake and is trying to save his own skin and work for Immortals,” the mysterious informant wrote on Reddit. While he did not go as far as the CoDBurner, OpTic CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez strongly hinted that a falling out had taken place between him and J by recently saying that the last time the pair had exchanged texts was back in March of 2018. That’s saying a lot, especially considering that the two have led OpTic since the day of its founding and J continues to play an integral role in the organization’s management.

Scump considering quitting pro CoD after slamming CDL player treatment CDLOpTic Chicago star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has continued his public outcry against the Call of Duty League, accusing them of treating players unfairly and revealing that the ongoing situation has forced him to “question continuing to compete.” [jwplayer fKo7sjsG] In a rather rare display of public vocality, Scump took several shots at the Call of Duty League on Twitter, his latest one perhaps being the most inflammatory. After tweeting that he feels the CoD League is using fines to essentially suppress and censor players’ opinions that go against the league and Call of Duty in general, the veteran continued the onslaught with a post claiming that the CDL had “made” them sign contracts under pressure. “The CDL also made us sign a player ‘contract’ in front of them without allowing us to run it by our lawyers at the player summit,” he wrote. “It was a ‘sign it now or you can’t play at Minnesota [2020 Launch Weekend]’ type of exchange. I’m probably going to get fined for this too, just letting y’all know.” What’s more, Scump revealed that this ongoing dilemma has caused him to think about potentially leaving the professional CoD scene: “They’re doing us dirty and most are scared to speak out at all because they’re going to fine us. Has made me question continuing to compete.” Just prior to these tweets rolling out, he’d just finished venting publicly about the CDL apparently fining him for promoting a game other than Call of Duty on his Twitch stream, which was due to a sponsored offseason broadcast. He also compared the current situation with the CDL’s predecessor, the Call of Duty World League, claiming that “the CWL has no control over our channels, CDL owns them apparently.” In response to Scump’s tirade, Dallas Empire’s Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter seemingly hinted that his former teammate may have been the only pro not to be on board with the players’ plans to unionize before the 2021 season. However, Scump says he’s now told James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks that he’s had a change of heart. He followed up with a more elaborate explanation on his livestream: “When the original players union petition was brought up to me, I got no information on it, just nothing. No one reached out again for months and months, and I tweet today and Clay instantly reached out: ‘let’s do it,’ and I was like ‘let’s go, run it.’” Here’s @scump speaking about potentially forming a CDL Players Union: “”Let’s go, run it.”” Looks like it’s now all just a matter of when, and not if. pic.twitter.com/goE6fRbFHC — Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) November 15, 2020 All of this started with a seemingly harmless Twitter post in which the 2017 World Champion went on a bit of a rant questioning why ranked playlists never gets included in CoD games at launch, with Black Ops Cold War being the latest example. After a brief interaction with Treyarch’s David Vonderhaar about the topic, things began to escalate as Scump’s tweets and replies to others turned into conversations accusing the CDL of using fines as a censorship tool. We have since reached out to the Call of Duty League and are awaiting official comment. As always, we will continue updating this story as more information becomes available.

Scump confirms plans to retire from professional CoD after MW2 CDL season OpTic GamingOpTic Scump has been at the top of professional Call of Duty for more than a decade but he’s decided that the Modern Warfare 2 season will be his last. Seth ‘Scump’ Abner is the biggest name in professional Call of Duty. From winning his first tournament in Black Ops 1 to capturing an elusive World Championship in 2017, his run has been practically unparalleled. Not only has he built an audience of 2.65 million subscribers on YouTube, he has also been among the best players in the entire game year over year. That run, however, is coming to an end in the Modern Warfare 2 season. First teased in OpTic’s documentary series, The Process, ‘The King’ himself confirmed the news with a video on his channel. “One last dance, ladies and gentlemen. This will be my final year competing as a professional Call of Duty player,” he said. In a follow-up to the initial announcement, he also clarified that it doesn’t matter how OpTic performs next year, and that he’ll be hanging up the sticks whether they win or lose. “One last season is pretty much all I’ve got left in the tank.” This mean’s he’ll have one last chance (alongside Illey, Shottzy, & Dashy) to take home a CDL trophy and cement himself in the history books the same way he did in the pre-franchising era of competitive play. This marks the end of an 11 year run in which he collected 30 event wins, 18 of which came as a member of the legendary OpTic Dynasty roster that collected the aforementioned championship.

Scump confirms his Call of Duty Operator was axed amid NICKMERCS skin drama Scump / TwitchCall of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has confirmed that Activision were supposed to have given him his own Operator in Warzone and Modern Warfare 2, as fans blame the NICKMERCS skin controversy for it no longer going ahead. Despite TimTheTatman and NICKMERCS making history for being the first creators to have their own Operator skins in CoD, they may have been the last. NICKMERCS faced a wave of backlash which sent the internet into a frenzy after his controversial pride comments, which soon led to both him and TimTheTatman’s Operators being removed indefinitely from Warzone and MW2. Aside from this, vast amounts of CoD players and creators, such as Dr Disrespect, heavily criticized Activision for not making Scump the first skin, who had continued to be the face of CoD. Now, as MW3 is in full swing and the start of the CDL is imminent, Scump has revealed during his Twitch broadcast on December 4, 2023, that he was meant to have his own CoD Operator last year. Scump reveals Activsion were giving him his own CoD skin As the CoD legend was signing off from his Twitch stream for the day, he adressed the situation by answering a final message from his live chat. Scump read outloud: “The Doc is right you should have had a skin in CoD a long time ago,” as he then responded: “I mean again, we were supposed to have one, we were supposed to have one last year.” As the clip soon spread across socials, many fans expressed their frustrations. “I speak for everyone when I say that wouldve been the highest selling skin in activision history,” a fan claimed. Many proceeded to blame Activision, as well as TimTheTatman and NICKMERCS surrounding their Warzone skin drama for it not being released in MW2. “Nick and Tim ruined it, but it’s also on Activision for granting it to those two dumbasses who don’t even play the game,” one responded. As another said: “Nick’s mild take ruined it for everyone else.” Various CoD players also suggested that the Operator skin released for CDL Champs 2023, which at the time fans heavily linked to Scump due to him being known as “The King,” was indeed the alleged skin. Whether or not CoD’s most popular creator will ever get an Operator skin in MW3 or future games by Activision remains to be unknown, but given his unwavering dominance in the COD space, he should be the first port of call should they decide to bring creator Operator skins back.

Scump confirms he’s staying with OpTic after CDL retirement despite 100 Thieves links Call of Duty LeagueCall of Duty icon Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has explained that he’ll be sticking with OpTic Gaming after his retirement after fans suggested he should go to 100 Thieves. Shortly before the start of the Modern Warfare 2 season, OpTic Texas’ Scump confirmed that he’d be bringing the curtain down on his glittering career after the 2023 campaign. The 27-year-old, who is widely regarded as the best submachine gun player of all time, is trying to go out with a bang and add a few more event wins to his already stocked personal trophy cabinet. In fact, if OpTic managed to win CDL Champs this year, it would mean Scump grabs his second world title during his 100th event. With some fans already looking that far forward, others have been quizzing him on what he might do once he retires. A career in content creation seems likely, but don’t bet on him leaving OpTic any time soon. Scump teases OpTic future as he approaches CDL retirement With Scump inching closer to retirement over the last few years, some have speculated that he’d join his pal Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag over at 100 Thieves. That theory has popped up again during his recent streams, but Scump has poured cold water on that. “Recruiting to 100 Thieves? I’m not leaving OpTic bro,” Abner said during his December 7 stream. “I actually can’t say anything, but I’m not leaving OpTic for a very long time, let’s just say that. I’m locked in boys. I’m not leaving OpTic bro.” Some fans quickly theorized that Scump was suggesting that he’ll have an ownership stake in OpTic once he hangs up the sticks and moves away from competing. That would make sense given his decade-long allegiance with the GreenWall. Though, nothing has been confirmed just yet, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens moving forward.

Scump concerned the CDL will leave Twitch for YouTube Twitch.tv/ScumpSeth ‘Scump’ Abner fears for the future of the Call of Duty League as he believes the league will move exclusively over to YouTube and miss out on important viewers from Twitch. The Call of Duty League started streaming on Twitch for the 2023 season, and the move paid massive dividends. Scump and other COD community members, such as the Flank, started co-streaming matches, which contributed to a massive spike in viewership. Scump’s first watch party peaked at around 95,000 viewers. And then, CDL Major 3 became the most-watched event since the league began in 2020, surpassing 333,000 between the mainstream and other co-streams. But beginning with the Major 4 Qualifiers, the league also started streaming matches from YouTube. In April, Scump expressed concerns that this signaled a soft launch back to YouTube full-time, and he recently doubled down on his worries. Scump warns CDL fans over potential move back to YouTube On May 26, during a recording of the OpTic Podcast, OpTic Gaming CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez talked about being more hands-on in the design process for CDL skins. Scump responded that he should also get his hands on the YouTube contract because he fears a move is coming. H3CZ reassured Scump that he won’t let a move to YouTube happen if he has a say in it. Anthony ‘Methodz’ Zinni jumped in and claimed: ” If we go to YouTube, I don’t know if we’ll make it through.” The former Boston Breach player added: “I think if everyone just conforms to the short-term bag instead of letting us grow, for the long-term bag, it’s just f**king stupid.” Scump looked back on how league viewership performed when YouTube used to have exclusive rights, and the OpTic legend argued the first event will have 100,000 viewers, but by Major 4 Qualifer matches, that number will plummet to 20,000 or less. “It’s going to happen; it always does. That’s what happened when it was on YouTube last time, and it’s going to happen again.” Scump is also worried an exclusive move to YouTube would eliminate co-streams, which has positively impacted viewership. The CDL has not confirmed its streaming plans yet for the 2024 season.

Scump clears up speculation about ZooMaa’s role on OpTic’s CoD team OpTic Gaming’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has discussed the team’s decision to recruit FaZe Clan’s Tommy ‘ZooMaa’ Paparatto as a substitute, and what it means for the roster in 2019. Having won CWL Las Vegas, the first event of the Black Ops 4 season, in convincing fashion, OpTic are likely the team least in need of a roster change. Every team in the CWL Pro League must nominate a substitute player though, meaning another name had to be added to the lineup. With FaZe Clan’s shock exit at the Pro League qualifier leaving them without a league spot, their veteran players suddenly became some of the most sought after by teams who are in the league. Both Preston ‘Priestahh’ Greener and James ‘Crowder’ Crowder joined 100 Thieves, (Crowder as a coach), and ZooMaa had already hinted that he was set to join OpTic – but only as a sub – which was confirmed on January 30. Given that there was some confusion about what ZooMaa’s role as a substitute would entail, Scump clarified on stream that the starting positions of the current roster were not at risk of being axed in favor of the FaZe player. “We’re not replacing anyone, he’s not taking anyone’s spot – he’s there just in case.” Some OpTic fans may have been concerned that the arrival of ZooMaa on the substitute bench may put pressure on others on the team, but Scump makes clear that’s not how the move is being viewed internally. Fans’ concerns are not unwarranted however, as Pro League team UYU announced on January 30 that Tristan ‘Spoof’ Green, who had qualified with the roster, lost his starting spot to former G2 player Anthony ‘Zinni’ Methodz, who was brought on as a sub originally. ZooMaa will only step in in the case of absolute emergencies, and in the meantime will look to find his own roster to prepare for CWL Fort Worth, and will no doubt aim to be recruited by a Pro League team in March, when a transfer period will commence.

Scump claims Warzone’s slide-canceling made CoD “less skillful” Activision / Twitter, @OpTicTexasProfessional Call of Duty’s biggest name, OpTic Scump, isn’t sold on the slide-canceling era brought about by Warzone and Modern Warfare. Instead, he thinks the movement mechanic lowered CoD’s skill gap. A skill gap is a relatively simple concept. In a game, the difficulty of mastering certain mechanics creates a window that can separate low- and high-skill players. RNG elements, for example, are considered to lower a skill gap – as their randomness can give low-skill players an advantage against those who have honed their talents. This is one of the reasons why many consider battle royales to be inherently non-competitive. A common sentiment is that CoD’s movement mechanics, whether in jetpack or slide-canceling titles, increases the skill gap by giving players new skills to practice. Conversely, OpTic Gaming’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner believes it’s the opposite. Scump argues that Warzone slide canceling is “less skillful” (For mobile users, segment begins at 32:24) While discussing fast- and slow-paced CoD titles on the OpTic Podcast, Scump revealed his issue with the current movement era: “The more variables, I feel like lessens the skill gap.” Teammate Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell wasn’t quite convinced, so Scump elaborated: “Slide canceling and jump mechanics, it creates unpredictability… He could slide cancel you and you could not expect it because he has so many things in his arsenal that he can use. It’s unpredictability, which makes it less skillful.” Scump was very aware that this might not be the most popular opinion, especially with co-podcasters Dashy and Nick ‘MaNiaC’ Kershner not being necessarily persuaded. It does raise an interesting debate, though. Inherently, difficult mechanics should theoretically mean a higher skill gap because there’s even more skills to practice. Scump, on the contrary, believes that “the more vanilla it gets, the more skillful it becomes.” POV: trying to kill @Shotzzy on the MW19 engine 😰pic.twitter.com/m5bVwBy2KQ — Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) October 8, 2021 With CoD’s longstanding emphasis on “breaking cameras” (as explained by Tommy ‘ZooMaa’ Paparatto back in June 2020), Scump’s right that there is some randomness due to movement mechanics. You can see just how chaotic slide cancels appear in the clip of someone facing Anthony ‘Shotzzy’ Cuevas-Castro in the clip above. If someone is able to do a movement that the game struggles to balance out visually on an enemy’s screen, then there is some randomness which could harm the skill gap. Still, one has to wonder if that’s an issue with complex mechanics or simply an issue with the game (and servers) keeping up. Regardless, it seems that Scump wants CoD to be more about thinking and shooting straight than breaking ankles.

Scump claims rumored MW2 movement change could save his pro career Activision/Call of Duty LeagueScump is a Call of Duty legend in the truest sense of the word. With a career that contains 28 championship wins over thirteen years, the 26-year old has revealed the one change that might extend his reign at the top of the scene Seth “Scump” Abner is one of the last original Call of Duty pro players standing. Starting back in Modern Warfare 2 (2009), the ‘Ginger Ninja’ has had an illustrious career with the franchise and has seen all but a handful of his OG competitors call it quits in recent years. It’s no secret that he himself has been pondering retirement for a while, but it turns out there is still one thing big change the devs could make to keep him around a little longer. According to the COD vet himself, getting rid of slide canceling would be the only way to keep him playing longer than he currently expects. Read More: Scump claims leaked Modern Warfare 2 DMZ mode could “save CoD” by following Escape From Tarkov – When the topic came up in a May 19 episode of the OpTic podcast, the King perked up at the idea: Apparently, there’s not any slide-canceling next year? That might have just prolonged my career.” He went on to compare the new-age mechanic to the strain of games like Advanced Warfare and Black Ops 3 where verticality and advanced movement really took root. “I’ve got to see it come to an end…we’ve had four straight years of slide canceling. Imagine if we had four years of jetpacks?” Timestamp 39:20 This isn’t the only time that Abner has spoken about the potential end of his career either. In a May 18 stream, he also acknowledged that things could be wrapping up in the somewhat near future and that each new entry in the franchise will have to be good enough to keep him around “I’m going year by year now. We’ll see how the next COD looks, I’ll say that…” he said. While there’s certainly more to a game than just one mechanic, if the rumors of MW2 not having slide canceling are true, then it certainly sounds like good news for fans of OpTic Texas’ red-headed phenom.

Scump claims new Modern Warfare 3 Field Upgrade will be insta-ban for pros Activision/Twitch: ScumpThere’s a new Field Upgrade coming in Modern Warfare 3 that could massively change how people play the game — but Call of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has said that it’s already going to be banned by pros before the game even comes out. Modern Warfare 3 has received a ton of positive feedback since the reveal event on August 17, with Call of Duty players seriously excited at the prospect of all of the classic MW2 (2009) maps returning as well as a number of major changes to TTK, not to mention the Zombies and Campaign modes. Despite this, there are some small features or aspects that have left players raising their eyebrows. For example, many are interested in seeing the new ‘Tac Stance’ movement style in action, with many unsure of what exactly it entails. A major change that could work great in public matches however, is the new A.C.S. Field Upgrade — but Scump already has concerns about it in pro and ranked play. A.C.S. Field Upgrade “already GA’d” According to Scump, the new Field Upgrade is instantly going to be added to the list of Gentlemen’s Agreements for players to not use in Modern Warfare 3. “They got something you can throw on the objective and it plays the OBJ for you?” he asked during his August 17 Twitch stream. “That’s getting GA’d day one! You kidding me?!” As JGOD explained in the video Scump was reacting to, the A.C.S. can be thrown onto an objective to capture points, leaving the user to continue traversing the map and slaying out. There are often a number of things that are auto-banned by pros from competitive play at the start of the year, and Scump — as well as much of the competitive community — thinks that the Call of Duty League pros will be waving goodbye to the A.C.S. before they even see it in action. Of course, things could change and they might opt to try out the A.C.S., though that seems unlikely given the nature of the Field Upgrade. For now, though, the competitive landscape for MW3 isn’t too clear.

Scump claims Modern Warfare 2 needs just a few fixes to be a “really good” CoD YouTube: OpTic Nation / ActivisionWhile the Modern Warfare 2 Beta isn’t exactly perfect, Scump is optimistic that with just a few key changes, Infinity Ward could turn this year’s release into a “really good” Call of Duty title. As the second week of the Modern Warfare 2 Beta gets underway, everyone is now chiming in with their hot takes. For some, early impressions are positive in light of specific changes in this year’s iteration. For others, missing features and a few questionable design choices have left room for improvement. For the King of CoD himself, Scump is more in the latter camp. Although he’s not onboard with every decision just yet, he believes Modern Warfare 2 could be “really good” with just a handful of tweaks. It boils down to the following: time-to-kill (TTK) being too quick, the Dead Silence issue, and the contentious state of the mini-map. Kicking off the discussion in the latest OpTic podcast, Shotzzy asked for “higher TTK and Dead Silence [as a Perk].” As for why the noise cancelling effect isn’t already a Perk, as it has been in many previous CoD’s, Scump claims it’s due to the popularity of Warzone. “They want Call of Duty [multiplayer] to play like Warzone, but why give a f**k? Separate the two. This is multiplayer and this is Warzone,” he said before yelling “give us [Dead Silence] holy sh*t.” In its current form, with Dead Silence functioning as a Field Upgrade, players have to wait for the ability to come off cooldown. As a result, footstep audio can be heard from all players throughout a vast majority of the match. It’s only in brief intervals with this effect active that players can sneak around on flanks and make bold plays. “Modern Warfare 2019 was the worst S&D experience I’ve ever had,” Shotzzy chimed in, casting the blame on the lack of Dead Silence. “We had to call a [strategy] once we had Dead Silence.” If Infinity Ward was to revert this shift and lump Dead Silence back in as a Perk, Scump and Shotzzy agreed the game be one step closer to a more enjoyable competitive experience. As for TTK, Scump joked that he might need to load into multiplayer matches with an Armor Plate from Warzone just to survive. Rapid TTK has been a common complaint since the Beta went live, so with near-unanimous criticism, there’s a fair chance we see a slight improvement here when the full game arrives. Last but not least comes the issue of the mini-map. While Scump only briefly mentioned this particular aspect, he argued public games are more enjoyable with red dots enabled for gunfire. Currently in Modern Warfare 2, all weapons are essentially silenced by default. Firing your gun does not reveal your position on the radar. While many were quick to voice their displeasure with this change in the first week of the Beta, Infinity Ward soon doubled down and “refused” to acknowledge the community demand. So in this regard, we might not see any changes as devs “do not want to punish players for firing their weapons.” The Modern Warfare 2 discussion begins at the 12:00 mark below. Overall though, Scump is confident the game can shape up well in time for the full release. “I really like the maps,” he said, and “gunplay felt good.” So with a few adjustments to the aforementioned areas, perhaps we’ll be in for a good year ahead.

Scump claims CoD aim assist is too strong: “They took out so much of the skill in aiming” Twitch: Scump/ActivisionSeth ‘Scump’ Abner is one of the biggest names in Call of Duty history, a pro player for over a decade and one of the most successful players in the game. But now, even he believes aim assist has gone too far, following the launch of Modern Warfare 2. Aim assist has been a huge topic of debate in recent years, especially since games like Fortnite introduced crossplay, allowing controller players and mouse and keyboard players to play alongside and against each other on any platform. While this step forward was widely celebrated at first, it has caused some arguments among console and PC players especially and opened up several cans of worms that many didn’t predict. Even outside of that, just in Call of Duty alone, there has been much debate about gunplay and how the franchise has progressed, and Scump thinks that just in terms of pure gunskill, things have become much easier in the latest titles, including Modern Warfare 2. “Aim assist is so crazy,” he said, when one of his Twitch viewers asked about the possibility of mouse and keyboard players in the Call of Duty League. “Nowadays, in CoD, they took out so much of the skill in aiming with a controller, with dynamic aim assist, it’s actually like you don’t have to aim anymore. “It’s so easy to shoot nowadays, compared to back then.” Even Twitch streamer Mason ‘Symfuhny’ Lanier was in Scump’s chat, admitting that “MnK players would get rolled in CDL.” A lot of players believe that it’s become easier to shoot straight in recent Call of Duty games, and Scump is another name to add to that list. Whether that’s something Activision and the CoD developers have done purposely or will take into account when designing future titles, remains to be seen.

Scump thinks CDL format is ‘broken’ but claims there’s one easy fix YouTube: OpTic Chicago / Call of Duty LeagueCall of Duty League’s 2021 Champs event is now locked in and with the full structure revealed, OpTic Chicago’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has explained how the current format is ‘broken,’ pleading for a fix in future seasons. The CDL has officially confirmed this year’s Champs format, with only eight of the league’s 12 teams set to attend. With details now locked in, not only does it mark the smallest end-of-year event in CoD history, but it also has wider implications for the full 2021 season, according to Scump. Having played through the first four stages now, Scump has already grown to “hate” the CDL format. But with Champs on the horizon, the veteran has made it clear the entire season is one big “structural mishap from the CDL.” With just one stage remaining, “the bottom four teams can’t make it [to Champs],” he argued during the July 7 OpTic podcast. As a result, the current format is leading to inconsequential games that “people don’t care about.” The bracket for the Call of Duty League Playoffs & Championship. pic.twitter.com/ahgQwsJGbh — DEXERTO Call of Duty Esports News (@DexertoIntel) July 7, 2021 “Everyone’s already clinched for Champs,” Scump explained, currently sitting in fifth place overall. The gap between the top eight and bottom four teams is large enough that Stage 5 results only have implications for the final Major. “That’s obviously still important,” he added, “but people don’t care about that as much.” Offering a quick fix for the last few weeks of regular-season action, Scump pitched an idea to properly engage the bottom teams. “If there were a few matches that dictated whether you’re going to Champs or not, it’d be way more hype.” While Stage 5 and the pathway to Champs is one key issue, Scump also went on to criticize the seasonal structure as a whole. League matches can be great for “consistency,” he argued. After all, “it’s good repetition.” However, “it’s too much repetition on too many days.” “This format… we don’t get any breaks, we play matches every single week. We had a week break during the year and it was like, holy sh**, thank God.” Instead of a more intricate format with games all through the year, Scump wants to see a return to form for competitive CoD. “There should be eight tournaments throughout the year based on points and that’s it.” The relevant topic begins at the 35:05 mark below. With Scump’s ideal format, all CDL teams would be featured at every event throughout the year, no different to how CoD events were organized prior to franchising. Read More: Can John solve LA Thieves’ CDL problems? – While the 2021 cycle is drawing to a close, there’s still Stage 5 and Champs for OpTic to focus on. You can keep up with all the latest Call of Duty League news & results with our 2021 CDL overview coverage hub.

Scump calls out pros over “glorified scrims” CDL Kickoff Classic tweets Call of Duty LeagueOpTic Chicago’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has called out his fellow pros calling the CDL Kickoff Classic “glorified scrims,” saying it’s a “pussy perspective.” The CDL Kickoff Classic was the first time fans got to see competitive Call of Duty matches in the 2021 Black Ops Cold War season, with each franchise playing one match against some of their biggest rivals. There were a bunch of exciting matches and even some surprise results, firmly setting the tone for what should hopefully be a good year of Call of Duty League action. That said, since there was no real reward behind this event — no prize money, no League seeding — some players perhaps didn’t take it too seriously. And Scump wasn’t impressed. While discussing the kickoff event with fellow OpTic members Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez, Davis ‘Hitch’ Edwards, and Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper, Hitch mentioned Clayster’s tweet (below), which called the matches a “scrim.” Lost 0-3 in the scrim to Dallas, back to the drawing board and we’ll see them next week for some more practice. GG’s to them! — Clayster (@Clayster) January 23, 2021 Scump didn’t take kindly to this, and immediately called out Clay and any other pros with the same mindset during episode 10 of the OpTic podcast. “What a pussy perspective,” he exclaimed, making everyone laugh despite how serious he was being. “If you don’t want to win anything when the public eye is watching you… ‘Glorified scrim?’ No, it’s not.” Explaining his point, Scump added: “This is the first match of the season. You want to set the tone with your team to carry out for the rest of the season. If you go out there and lose, your practice isn’t working.” Topic starts at 11:03 Finally, he made the point that he just doesn’t understand the rationale behind the ‘glorified scrims’ sentiment. “I don’t understand how people would go into it with the mindset of ‘I don’t want to win this match.’ We went in [wanting] to win this match, especially because it was 100 Thieves.” Clayster could understandably have had similar thoughts, taking his New York Subliners side to battle against the world championship Dallas Empire team that dropped him. Alas, it seems that wasn’t the case. While there technically might not have been any real ‘meaning’ behind these matches, there’s no doubt Scump and his OpTic side went into it with a fire in their belly — and that should give fans a lot to be excited for as the season kicks off.

Scump calls Modern Warfare 3’s SBMM the “worst” in CoD history YouTube: OpTic Audio Network / ActivisionModern Warfare 3’s skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) system has been a hot topic since launch, and now the King himself, Scump, has chimed in, labeling it the “worst” in franchise history. Another year means another new CoD title which in turn, inevitably leads to another debate on SBMM. The contentious subject often divides the community as some don’t mind its place under the hood while others simply can’t stand it. On paper, the matchmaking system is designed with benevolence in mind. It intends to match you up against players of a similar skill, thereby stopping you from joining in against less-skilled enemies and wiping the floor with them, and vice versa. In practice, however, many have argued over the years it can be too restrictive, forcing you into sweaty lobbies with no time to breathe. That’s been the case once again here in 2023 with Modern Warfare 3 now in focus, though it’s arguably more prevalent than ever. Plenty have already lashed out in opposition of SBMM in the new release, and now, Scump has joined the mix too, arguing it’s worse than ever. Breaking down their first few days in the new cycle, Scump gave his initial thoughts on MW3 during the latest OpTic Podcast. While the now-retired CoD legend is eager to see how competitive play evolves this coming season, not everything he said was all too positive. One area in particular, could do with some fine-tuning, according to the King. That area being SBMM. “It’s my opinion, but I think skill-based -matchmaking] this year is super cranked,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s because the player base is going down, but dude… Skill-based this year feels way worse than any other year.” Agreeing with his former teammate in Nade, Scump sympathized with a recent outburst, admitting it’s challenging to keep a smile on stream when every lobby is having him square off with the scene’s ‘sweatiest’ players. “People come in and they’re like, ‘Why are you bitching? You’re a pro player, you should be able to kill anybody.’ Dude, I’m using a Sidewinder going for camos, getting slide canceled by MCWs and Rival 9’s the whole game.” “It is crazy right now. It’s been pretty frustrating going for camos and having to deal with it.” Scump discusses MW3’s SBMM from the 41:40 mark below. In the early outings, SBMM has certainly been a hot topic. Though there’s a chance, like in previous years, things may cool off in the coming weeks, as Scump explained. “Cold War’s [SBMM] was bad off the rip, but towards the middle of the game’s lifespan, when the sweats went to Warzone…” things improved on the multiplayer side, he argued. With Modern Warfare 3’s integration with Warzone just around the corner in the highly-anticipated Season 1 update, perhaps history might repeat itself here.

Scump calls for new “prestigious” Call of Duty maps instead of recycled old ones YouTube, OpTic Chicago / ActivisionCall of Duty fans have been happy to see old maps brought back, but OpTic Chicago’s Scump seems to be tired of it — calling for developers to bring some fresh, quality content to the franchise and the CDL. By Stage 3 of the CDL’s 2021 season, two classic maps have already been added to the league’s map pool: Raid and Express. Following the Black Ops Cold War Season 3 update, vintage map Standoff is also expected to reach competitive play. Raid, Express, and Standoff all hail from 2012’s Black Ops II and are beloved maps in the competitive CoD community. It’s no surprise that they’re favorites among fans and competitive players, but superstar Seth ‘Scump’ Abner appears to think nostalgia is no excuse to curb envelope-pushing new content. In a recent episode of the OpTic podcast, Scump and content creator Davis ‘Hitch’ Edwards dove into the map discussion. In that conversation, the veteran SMG called for devs to stop relying on older content and instead set new standards for map design. (For mobile users, segment begins at 8:24) Asked about the reintroduction of Standoff, Scump groaned and was encouraged to let his feelings be known. The veteran star was happy to oblige, noting that it may be time for some freshness in competitive CoD: “Dude, can we get some new, original, good maps?” he implored. “These were eight years old. I’ve played the f**k out of these, man. As good as it is to have good maps, guaranteed good maps, we’re basically just playing Black Ops 2…with slide-canceling.” Read more: The truth behind legendary OpTic Clutch – Hitch, presenting a more casual perspective, points out the overwhelming difficulty in trying to create a ‘guaranteed good map,’ touching on the franchise’s recent history: “I can’t remember the last time a legendary map was made in CoD. There have been good maps but there hasn’t been a Raid or a Slums.” Scump seems to agree with Hitch that new maps haven’t been horrible, but none are on a truly memorable level: “There are good maps, they’re just not on that prestigious level.” While teammate Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper is excited to play on Standoff, noting that the game’s mechanics should make it play differently, the OpTic group’s consensus remains the same. As of yet, no developers have responded to Scump’s appeal. Interestingly, the CDL’s commissioner, Johanna Faries, was announced as the CoD franchise’s general manager as well — so one has to wonder if future map design will more closely suit competitive needs.

Scump calls for new CDL roster change rules after LA Thieves bench SlasheR ActivisionOpTic Chicago’s Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has called for changes to the Call of Duty League roster rules, shortly after it was announced that LA Thieves would be benching Austin ‘SlasheR’ Liddicoat for the Stage 2 Major. The news that SlasheR would be demoted from the starting Thieves line-up shook the CoD esports community. He is arguably one of the best players in recent years and seemed pretty much undroppable. He was replaced by Zack ‘Drazah’ Jordan, the second LA Thieves roster change of Stage 2, after they picked up Carlos ‘Venom’ Hernandez to replace Donovan ‘Temp’ Laroda. With so much swapping and changing occurring in the league throughout Stage 2, Scump has called for changes to be made. Appearing on the OpTic Podcast, Scump — joined by Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper, Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez and Nick ‘MaNiaC’ Kershner — got onto the topic of LA Thieves. After briefly discussing the roster swap, Scump let his thoughts be known. “I don’t think it should be allowed during a Stage,” the OpTic star said. “They should have to play with that team the rest of the Stage, unless it’s an emergency or health thing.” With H3CZ challenging this opinion, Scump continued: “They shouldn’t be allowed to switch someone in mid-Major…They’re about to go into the Major with a different team that they played the whole Stage with!” (For mobile users, timestamp at 18:50) While LA Thieves did make two roster changes during Stage 2, only Venom was a new acquisition. Drazah was the team’s substitute since the start of the season, and has proven exactly why CDL teams have a substitute or two. Rules around roster changes aren’t exactly clear. By the looks of it, franchises can pick up and drop players whenever they want, providing contracts are respected. This could raise some questions going forward, and make the CDL reconsider how they allow roster changes to happen. For now, though, LA Thieves are looking to reap the rewards at the CDL Stage 2 Major.

Scump calls for CDL to revert to CWL format after winning $500K Major 1 Twitter: @OpTicTexasCall of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner is calling for the CDL to change back to a popular format the CWL used in Grand Finals, despite winning the $500K Major 1. With OpTic Texas’ win at Major 1, Scump picked up his 30 pro championship in 10 different CoD titles. The team dominated the event as they went the entire bracket stage without dropping a single series, but they saw no reward in the finals for accomplishing that feat. OpTic’s only advantage for coming from the upper bracket was a map veto, and now the King is begging the CDL to use the popular CWL format for finals. Scump wants Best-of-5 Finals in CDL In his first stream since winning Major 1, Scump watched the team’s road to the championship. When a fan asked him about the finals format and having no advantage over FaZe, the GOAT didn’t hold back. “I feel like there has to be some sort of advantage [in finals]… One veto, that’s all we get. There’s literally – there’s almost no advantage.” Scump doesn’t understand how the CDL thinks having one map veto when you play nine of the 10 in a series is considered an advantage. Read More: CDL Major 2 Qualifers – This is why Scump, alongside others, wants to see the CDL adopt the CWL format, which saw the finals as a Best-of-5 – but the team from Loser’s Bracket had to win twice to become champions. “The team that comes from Winner’s Bracket should have to be eliminated twice. If we would have lost, we would have lost one series, technically.” He added that he would love to see the Bo5 format return and that “a lot of people want it to be two Best-of-5s, too.” It’s the third year of the CDL, and with the season already off and rolling it would be shocking to see a format change midyear. But the pros seem adamant on making this problem heard.

Scump calls out Clayster for “backpedaling” on Dallas Empire trash talk Katy Eyre for ESPAT MediaChicago star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has taken aim at James ‘Clayster‘ Eubanks and the Dallas Empire for “backpedaling” on their pre-CDL London trash talk, after the two locked horns in the league’s first tournament weekend. The Chicago vs Dallas rivalry has enveloped the Call of Duty League. Star-studded rosters on both sides marked the matchup as a potential title-decider, but after success in London and Minnesota, it looks like the Huntsmen have come out on top. The Scump-led Chicago lineup edged Empire 3–1 in their first meeting at Copper Box Arena, before the eventual winners proved victorious again in a 3–0 sweep in the final. Soon, fans were ribbing Dallas on social media for their losses. Clayster wasn’t having it, especially considering he felt his team had lifted their game, and hit back at the critics in a passionate rant. The social media tirade soon drew the attention of Scump, however, who accused Empire of “backpedaling.” “DaLLas [sic] started this feud, and now is backpedaling,” he wrote on Twitter, and shared an image of Mike ‘Hastr0’ Rufail commenting on power rankings. “Don’t dish it if you don’t want a negative response after. Victim role is weird!” Clayster replied almost immediately, asking the newly-crowned London champion who he was talking about when he said “backpedaling.” Scump suggested the online negativity “wouldn’t be as bad” if the Empire hadn’t heaped on the trash talk ahead of the matchups. “How is that backpedaling?” the Clayster responded. “Where exactly did I talk trash? I stated facts, and I’ve really stayed out of it for the most part. Alec [Arcitys] is like a brother to me, and I’m friends with you. I’ve got no beef, and nothing to say, yet I’m getting dumpstered on the bird by the cult following.” Read more: CDL London results and final placements – During the conversation, Clayster also added the Huntsmen stars, including Scump and fellow former OpTic Gaming megastar Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper, had fanned the flames by using the “influence and power [they] have over fans.” How is that backpedaling? Where exactly did I talk trash? I stated facts, and I’ve really stayed out of it for the most part. Alec is like a brother to me and I’m friends with you, I’ve got no beef and nothing to say, yet I’m getting dumpstered on the bird by the cult following — Clayster (@Clayster) February 11, 2020 Context is important in situations such as this one, and you know the influence and power you have over your fans. We’ve had some setbacks, and not the performances vs y’all we wanted, kudos to y’all, but it’s not like me/ant/Inder/Cuyler we’re coming at yalls neck preseason. — Clayster (@Clayster) February 11, 2020 Scump agreed that his first use of “backpedaling” for Clayster may have been a bit off base, especially considering the rivalry had first sparked from comments by Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter, and had been set ablaze after their first meeting. He didn’t, however, see eye to eye on Clayster being able to shrug off his team’s trash talking ahead of the matchups. While Eubanks may not have been personally throwing barbs at the Huntsmen, he was simply “guilty by association.” “I agree it wasn’t so much you, but it trickles down to you, unfortunately. With all the hype and confidence y’all built online it was inevitable that if you lost it would be bad,” Scump said, and suggested it had “become the narrative” for both teams. Read more: Top six moments from CDL London – “Seems like your whole team talks trash when they do these hype pieces and take little jabs at us,” he added.” Guilty by association, in this case, James. Negativity comes with the position y’all took since day one.” Clayster argued that the “narrative” was only due to Scump and Crimsix, and that there had been no “backpedaling” at all. The narrative was built for sure, but also stems from you and Porter. You know how it is with those video pieces, they take a 45 min interview and clip the two “heater” answers. Honestly there’s no real argument here, we’ve done no backpedaling and have given y’all credit. — Clayster (@Clayster) February 11, 2020 When do Chicago and Dallas face off again? While it looks like Scump and Clayster aren’t set for any personal battles in or out of the CoD servers—Eubanks even ended the conversation by congratulating the King—the ever-growing Huntsmen vs Empire war seems far from done. Unfortunately for Chicago fans who are keen to see their team extend their winning record, and Dallas fans who want to see their roster hit back with a vengeance, the grudge match will be put on ice over the next month. Read more: When is CDL Atlanta? Schedule, teams, more – While the CDL resumes in a fortnight at the Gateway Center Arena in Atlanta, Dallas Empire is one of four organizations set to miss that weekend. The same holds true in a month, with Chicago absent from Week 4 in Los Angeles. The next time the two star-studded rosters are slated to potentially meet comes in Week 5, when Empire hosts their first CDL homestand. With the home side and the Huntsmen locked into opposite brackets, they will both need to make it to the playoffs for a chance to face off. If they do, however, that maybe one of the most explosive fixtures in the competition’s inaugural year.

Scump claims Call of Duty no longer feels the same due to Warzone Activision / YouTube: OpTic TexasCompetitive legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner believes Warzone has left a permanent mark on traditional Call of Duty, as the OpTic Gaming star recently explained how there’s been a “drastic shift” ever since the battle royale launched. Warzone released in March 2020, just a few months into the Modern Warfare cycle. With this free-to-play drop, CoD was back in the spotlight as the new battle royale saw profits skyrocket with more players jumping in each day. As a result of Warzone’s immense popularity, veteran CoD pro Scump believes the entire franchise has pivoted. “Warzone literally changed the way people look [at CoD] and the way CoD plays,” he explained in the latest OpTic Podcast. From gameplay adjustments that make regular multiplayer “feel different,” to an overall “shift” in focus, he explained how Warzone has fundamentally changed CoD. The first glaring concern Scump outlined has to do with CoD’s core gameplay. In previous iterations, guns were hitscan, meaning your bullets connected with the target instantly. That’s no longer the case, however. “CoD’s not hitscan anymore… please give me hitscan back,” he pleaded with the developers. “This bullet travel speed is just not it in multiplayer.” “All this antiquated bullet velocity stuff, it doesn’t apply to traditional multiplayer,” OpTic CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez chimed in. “Even from a non-competitive standpoint, they shouldn’t mix and match. It’s not good enough.” “The amount of money [Warzone] has made, the popularity that it’s given Call of Duty, has now shaped the way we’re playing across the entirety of CoD,” he said. Agreeing with that point, Scump compared Vanguard’s Gunsmith system to that of previous titles as a key example of how the series has changed. “You look back at other CoD games, attachment-wise…you had a Red Dot and FMJ. Now, there are literally 10 attachments per gun,” Scump said while rolling his eyes. “That adds different bullet travel time, then there’s bloom… it makes multiplayer feel so different.” Up until the Black Ops 4 cycle in 2019, this wasn’t a concern, according to Scump. These changes only started taking hold of the franchise “when Warzone came out,” he explained. “That’s when there was a drastic shift, you can tell.” “Call of Duty felt like Call of Duty until Warzone, then it took a weird branch.” Despite even winning one of Warzone’s biggest events just last week, it’s clear Scump wishes things were different between the BR and regular multiplayer. Read More: 2022 CDL rostermania – With Vanguard’s integration with Warzone fast approaching, there’s no telling if we’ll ever get back to the way things were.

Scump breaks down how FormaL helped secure OpTic Gaming’s CoD Champs victory Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has discussed how Matt ‘FormaL’ Piper’s performance, and one specific moment from the former OpTic star, helped the team secure the 2017 Call of Duty Championship. Scump was rewatching the grand final of the event with his chat on stream, describing how OpTic Gaming earned the victory over rivals Team Envy, and the thoughts that were going through their minds as the event unfolded. The OpTic star moved through to the final map of the tournament, a match of Uplink played on Infinite Warfare’s Precinct map, with OpTic Gaming just needing to win one more map against Team Envy to get their hands on the trophy. While watching the second half of the Uplink map, Seth came to one of Call of Duty’s iconic moments, when FormaL boosted into the air to catch Jordan ‘JKap’ Kaplan’s throw just seconds before he scored. Read More: How to dominate Black Ops 4’s new game mode Safeguard “And the interception, yes!” cried Abner with a smile. “Oh, the crowd goes nuts. That was huge right there, that was such a vibe kill for them dude, such a vibe kill. “For him to get that interception, that might have been the dagger (in the heart) right there.” On the back of FormaL’s incredible clutch, OpTic Gaming went on to claim victory in the map, winning the second best-of-five in the grand final to win their first Call of Duty Championship, the highlight of an incredible run from what has now become known as OpTic’s “dynasty” team. Unfortunately, a disappointing World War 2 season saw FormaL depart for Luminosity Gaming, and while Seth stated that the end of their ‘T2P’ partnership “feels bad”, the pair will always be able to look back at this incredible moment.

Scump blasts Seattle Surge following Pred CDL saga: “they f**ked us” Twitch: Scump / CDLRetired Call of Duty legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has blasted the Seattle Surge for “f**king” OpTic Texas over their move for Pred, a CDL transfer which never came about. OpTic Texas’ CDL roster has been at heart of mystery and huge news of late. First, we saw an ambitious move for Seattle Surge’s Pred fail to capitalize, with H3CZ claiming the org were “tugged along” by the Washington-based team. The initial move was to replace Dashy, who was dropped following CDL Major 1. However, Scump then brought forward his retirement, paving the way for Dashy to return and Huke to join the Greenwall as well. Since then, OpTic placed fourth at CDL Major 2 and subsequently dropped iLLeY, whose future remains unknown. He was replaced by CDL Challengers star Ghosty, with the new OpTic Texas roster set to debut in the Major 3 Qualifiers. Scump has already revealed he was “shocked” by iLLeY’s removal and, in a February 10 livestream discussing his possible destinations, he blasted the Seattle Surge once more. Scump claims Seattle Surge “f**ked” OpTic Texas Explaining that he didn’t think iLLeY was likely to move to Seattle as a result of the orgs’ poor relationship, he claimed the Surge “f**ked” OpTic Texas “colossally”. “I think Surge could have happened [for iLLeY] if Surge didn’t completely just f**k us over,” he said. “In the initial deal. Because they f**cked us over. Straight up. They f**cked us over.” Asked by recently retired Methodz whether the pride was enough to stop the move, Scump responded: “They [OpTic Texas] wouldn’t let that get in the way. They wouldn’t be petty about it. Whereas Surge, I mean, colossally, let’s not put it lightly. They f**ked us… We went out to dinner, we paid, they f**ked us.” It certainly tracks with H3CZ’ version of events, who was similarly critical of how the Surge handled OpTic’s interest in Pred. He previously said that OpTic met Surge’s asking price three times before Seattle called the move off. Seattle refutes OpTic’s side of the story but, wherever the truth lies, the acrimony between the two orgs is impossible to ignore. CDL Major 3 Qualifiers will begin on February 17.

Scump argues CDL pros & Warzone players can’t be compared: “They’re different things” Activision / YouTube: OpTic NationDespite Call of Duty League and Warzone 1v1s being all the rage this offseason, Scump believes there’s no good way to actually compare the two. Instead, he argues they rely on “completely different skill sets.” With the 2022-2023 CDL offseason now in full swing, many have turned their attention to a reemerging debate. Once again, the conversation of CDL pros VS Warzone pros has come into focus. Coming out swinging, we saw Warzone stars Biffle and Aydan taking on the likes of Methodz, Sib, and even ZooMaa. While initial results were split across the board, 1v1s have continued to steal the spotlight every day since. With the two scenes battling for nothing more than bragging rights, it’s drawn considerable interest both on Twitch and Twitter. However, not all are impressed with what they’re seeing. For CDL’s biggest name, these small battles “show no skill,” and in the bigger picture, Scump claims there’s simply no way to have the two sides square off in a format that’s balanced for everyone. “Radar on 1v1s show no skill in Call of Duty,” Scump yelled to begin his rant in the latest OpTic podcast. “You’re wall-banging with FMJ. You’re pre-firing half the time. It doesn’t show gun skill,” he stressed. Rather than highlighting a player’s mechanical ability and next-level reaction time, he instead believes these 1v1s often go to the player “who has more patience.” “1v1 radar is the worst show of skill. That’s why I hate this CDL vs Warzone thing because they’re both completely separate f***ing skill sets. They’re not even remotely close. There’s no way to compare them.” One possible option he put forward would be to have full teams settle their differences early into the launch window of a new game. “One week” into Modern Warfare 2, for instance, four Warzone pros could be dropped into a series against four CDL pros, with Hardpoint serving as the lone game mode. While in theory, this could provide a more even playing field, giving both squads the same amount of time to learn maps, rotations, and callouts, it’s still “not the same,” Scump admitted. “We’re practicing every day, they’re not.” “Warzone is Warzone. CDL is CDL. They’re different things. “How are we comparing these things?” One particular instance many are often quick to bring up in the endless debate is Scump’s World Seris of Warzone win. Having outlasted 99 other CDL pros, Warzone players, and popular streamers in the one lobby, the King of CoD secured the $100K Solo Yolo win. Though more specifically, he did so with a final 1v1 win over Aydan. However, that iconic moment shouldn’t automatically put CDL players above Warzone players, Scump claimed. “When people bring up CDL they’re like ‘Scump won the 1v1.’ Yeah, that was dope. But do you know how much luck you have to have in that 25-minute game to not get shot in the back, to not get killed by a guy in the bush. People are like ‘CDL wins because Scump won that.’ It’s a really bad way [to view it]. It’s such a bad show of skill.” Scump debates the CDL vs Warzone topic from the 32:00 mark below. Ultimately, “everyone is a CoD player,” Formal chimed in. From his perspective, players across both the CDL scene and the Warzone scene are “tippable.” For now, it doesn’t appear the debate will be quieting down anytime soon. With Hitch planning a high-stakes event to evolve from the current 1v1s, if anything the argument will only get more heated in the weeks to come.

Scump angered by CDL fines “censoring” his opinions on Call of Duty Treyarch/YT: Nadeshot[jwplayer FKHc5OkU] OpTic Chicago veteran Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has hit out at the Call of Duty League for ‘censoring’ his opinions, after apparently receiving a fine for criticizing Black Ops Cold War’s lack of a League Play mode. With the release of Black Ops Cold War on November 13, community opinions have begun to filter in as players offer feedback. Among other things, the lack of a League Play/Ranked mode has been criticized, a feature that was also totally missing in 2019’s Modern Warfare. Scump has been among these critical voices, stating that a League Play or Ranked mode should be a base inclusion at launch for every Call of Duty title. “How does Call of Duty not get released with a ranked playlist every year?” he tweeted. “I am just genuinely confused. It should be a staple, but it gets ignored. Interesting to think about.” How does CALL OF DUTY not get released with a ranked playlist every year. I am just genuinely confused. It should be a staple, but it gets ignored. Interesting to think about. — OpTic Scump (@scump) November 15, 2020 The tweet garnered the attention of David Vonderhaar, one of Treyarch’s directors and veteran Call of Duty developer. He responded defensively, saying that Scump should be saying: “I’m really looking thankful for all the hard-working men and women trying to give us a ranked playlist.” Scump was apologetic, explaining that he wasn’t explicitly criticizing Treyarch. “Vahn, you know I love you first of all, and of course I’m grateful you guys pulled through at all during these times,” he replied. “It was more of a general thought to any game made. You always deliver and I speak highly of your studio all of the time.” Vahn, you know I love ya first of all, and of course I’m grateful you guys pulled through at all during these times. It was more of a general thought to any game made. You always deliver and I speak highly of your studio all of the time. — OpTic Scump (@scump) November 15, 2020 However, it quickly became clear that Scump was concerned about facing backlash from the Call of Duty League for his comments about the lack of Ranked Play. CDL players can be fined for what they say publicly, particularly negative comments about the game or integrity of the competition, with the League arguing it is antithetical to the growth of the game and the esport. Scump, though, denounced this as ‘censorship’. “Literally tweeted [that] I love the game an hour before. Fine incoming for the “controversial” one though,” he said. “It’s just so lame. I’ve dedicated my life to this game and now if I say anything slightly negative I get a slap on the wrist.” It’s just so lame. I’ve dedicated my life to this game and now if I say anything slightly negative I get a slap on the wrist. — OpTic Scump (@scump) November 15, 2020 He even revealed that he has been fined in the past for a stream that was sponsored by Raid Shadow Legends. According to Scump, he was punished for promoting another game that wasn’t Call of Duty, despite the stream taking place during the competitive CoD off season. I’m fed up. It’s not right what they enforce. It won’t change though 🤷♂️. I got fined for doing a sponsored stream on raid shadow legends cause I promoted another game from call of duty. Like HUH. — OpTic Scump (@scump) November 15, 2020 Many Call of Duty professionals feel that the CDL’s criteria for a fine needs to be slackened.

Scump and Nadeshot set to reunite for Optic Hitch’s Throwback CoD: Ghosts tournament OpTic Gaming content creator Davis ‘Hitch’ Edwards has revealed the eight team that will be participating in his throwback Call of Duty: Ghosts tournament, and it will feature OpTic CoD pro Seth ‘Scump’ Abner and 100 Thieves CEO Matt ‘Nadeshot’ Haag. This throwback team, which is being called ‘OG,’ partners Scump and Nadeshot with retired pro player Jordan ‘Proofy’ Cannon and current Rise Nation star Thomas ‘TJHaLy.’ It appears that TJHaLy is taking the place of eUnited’s James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks, who was the fourth member of the OpTic Gaming roster that featured Scump, Nadeshot, and Proofy during the Ghosts competitive season. Of the four players, only Scump and TJ are still actively competing. Nadeshot is currently the CEO of 100 Thieves and Proofy, who has hinted at possibly returning to competitive CoD, is currently a content creator. Of course Scump, Nadeshot, and Proofy teamed together for the second half of the Ghosts season in 2014, which saw them place first and win Gold at the memorabl and historic MLG X Games Invitational 2014. first four were revealed earlier this month, with the fifth and sixth squads having been announced several days ago. The seventh team will feature former Strictly Business teammates Dedo, Saints, Apathy, and Censor.This Ghosts Throwback Invitational, which has been organized by Hitch in collaboration with online tournament organizers UMG, will take place on September 22 and feature a $5,000 prize pool. With the tournament a day away, fans can expect Hitch to soon announce more details about scheduling, format and rule-sets, and more.

Scump and Nadeshot rate the 100 Thieves and OpTic BO4 rosters The duo of Seth ‘Scump’ Abner and Matt ‘Nadeshot’ Haag were back together in a recent video, discussing the ins and outs of rostermania, and rating each other’s teams. With Nadeshot officially part of the Call of Duty esports scene once again, having picked up an all star roster for the Black Ops 4 season, he asked Scump as a current competitor to rate his squad. And Scump had nothing but nice things to say about the 100 Thieves roster, saying it was between them and OpTic for the team most likely to win the first event “on paper”. Scump says that “out of the teams that have been announced, it’s [OpTic] and you guys, who should be the best teams.” Individually, Scump praises each of the 100T players, calling Kenny the best SMG, Fero the best rookie from last season, and Enable a great teammate who brings good vibes. As for Octane and SlasheR, while Scump agree that they are two of the top thee AR players, he worries there could be a role clash, just like OpTic had last season, Equally, Nadeshot gave his thoughts on the OpTic roster, which now includes the young duo of Dashy and TJHaLy, plus the return of three time world champion Karma. First, he reminds everyone that Scump is the best teammate he’s ever had. As for Crimsix, despite the pair “bumping heads” in the past, Nadeshot says he is a “very cerebral player” who “always makes the right play”. Karma he says is a “wildcard”, who has had his struggles recently, but Nade knows how good he can be. TJHaLy is a “phenomenal” player according to Nadeshot. Finally, Nadeshot admits he doesn’t know much about Dashy, so defers to Scump for his opinion, said Dashy’s SnD talent was the reason they picked them up. Just before the video ends, Nadeshot also sticks in a sly word about Team Envy, another top roster. He says he doesn’t think Envy will be as good as either of 100 Thieves or OpTic. “[Envy] won’t be better than 100 Thieves or OpTic, I think Envy’s team is actually going to be really inconsistent,” he explains, but Scump gives no comment – maybe not wanting jinx his team.

Scump and Nadeshot playfully roast NAMELESS after facing him on Blackout Scump and Nadeshot took some playful digs at CWL Caster NAMELESS after an encounter on the Call of Duty: Blackout beta. The former teammates were playing duos matches on the beta when Matt ’Nadeshot’ Haag was knocked during a confrontation with an enemy opponent. Reacting quickly, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner rushed to the 100 Thieves founder’s aid, taking down the opponent before he could kill Nadeshot only to find it was none other than former Call of Duty pro, and current analyst, Anthony ‘NAMELESS’ Wheeler! Realizing what had just happened, Scump burst into laughter and shouted “Wait, that was NAMELESS,” before proceeding to call him a “nerd” and a “loser” and jokingly asking him “who cut your hair?” Not wanting to be left out, Nadeshot commented on Wheeler’s failure to kill him completely, and their history of competing against each other in Call of Duty esports. “NAMELESS is ass dude, he was missing all types of shots”, he jested. “Bro, we were always waxing NAMELESS back in the day anyways.” Fans of Scump and Nadeshot have enjoyed seeing the two popular streamers back together again. Haag and Abner were long-time teammates on OpTic Gaming’s CoD roster, and won an X Games Gold Medal together. While Scump is still a member of OpTic, Nadeshot has since moved on to start his own organization, 100 Thieves. While Nadeshot and Scump seem to have enjoyed their reunion, we’re not so sure NAMELESS will have appreciated it as much!

Scump & H3CZ explain how the CDL bubble can work YouTube: heczTV[jwplayer NR7iW2lk] With rumors circulating that the Call of Duty League could implement a ‘bubble’ similar to the NBA for the 2021 season, many top pros and personalities have had their say. Now, Chicago Huntsmen’s Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez and Seth ‘Scump’ Abner have spoken out. The bubble is something adopted by a number of sports leagues, most notably the NBA, in which teams can follow health guidelines by staying with their ‘bubble’ of people, with the intention of all staying healthy together and not engaging with people outside of your bubble. In the immediate aftermath of the leak becoming public, Scump was one of the first to speak out, clearly not in favor of the idea and hoping for an alternative to the upcoming season. Now, he, some of his Huntsmen teammates and NRG co-CEO H3CZ have spoken in a bit more detail about their thoughts. First, H3CZ cleared up that this is not just a decision a few people are working on: it’s something the players and everyone involved is coming together on to find the best solution for everybody. After saying that he’s in favor of a bubble, and that he wanted to put one together for the CDL Championship in its inaugural season, he also adds that he’s “not sure about the whole five months thing,” especially having to explain something like that to his wife, Jude, because “of course… I’m going to go out there and shoot podcasts and shoot content for the Huntsmen.” Scump went on to agree that five months is simply too much and that, should this scenario have to arise, he would rather play his regular season matches online and create a bubble in the lead-up to major events such as mid-season playoffs and the CDL Championship. This seems to be the main concern of some players. They have lives outside of their career, with Scump himself explaining that he has pets, a girlfriend, and a house to maintain, and that spending nearly half of the year in a bubble away from that simply isn’t a feasible option for him. Later in the video, Chicago Huntsmen coach Troy ‘Sender’ Michaels and Jordon ‘General’ General echoed similar sentiments, reiterating that running the whole course of the league in a bubble probably isn’t the best option for a number of players. Instead, most seem to say that a few weeks prior to a major event would be the best way to incorporate this into the league. Regardless, there’s no concrete information out there right now, so we’ll have to see what Activision and the CDL team do. It’s clear that there is opposition to the bubble but, after frequent complaints about having to play online during the 2020 CDL season, some players may prefer to go ahead to ensure matches are all played out on a fair LAN connection.

Scump and H3CZ discuss OpTic’s approach to content in Black Ops 4, streaming scrims and WWII struggles H3CZ / YouTubeOpTic Gaming’s Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez and Seth ‘Scump’ Abner have discussed the Call of Duty team’s approach to content creation going into the Black Ops 4 season. Scump, who stopped streaming and uploading videos to YouTube entirely during the CoD: WWII season but has made it clear that he wants that to change with the release of Black Ops 4 and Blackout on October 12. In episode four of H3CZ’s ‘Eavesdrop’ podcast, which appears to have been recorded a number of weeks ago, he detailed his plans and made it clear that there will no longer be a rule against streaming scrims. H3CZ briefly outlined OpTic’s struggles in WWII before saying that he didn’t know whether he could sit back and watch his protegee stay away from content for another year and asking whether Scump would be returning to streaming and uploading. “I think I need to be more selfish with content creation, because that’s when I’m having fun when I’m streaming. Like when I used to stream scrims and used to like roast our teammates, and everyone is like ‘laughing my ass off’, that makes it more fun and more engaging,” Scump said in response. Later, the OpTic star stated: “One side of me wants to say ‘fuck you guys, this is my team, we’re running it this way, we’re streaming scrims, we’re doing this and I don’t care what you say. Like, we can put this extra content out for our fans and they’ll love it’. “The other side of me is like ‘I don’t want to have to deal with us losing scrims and then us going to a tournament, losing, and then us coming back and streaming and getting that same hate’. It’s really just like a tear in the centre. “I mean I came out and said it as well, I flat out just didn’t like World War II and I’m not going to force myself to play a game that I don’t enjoy.” On the subject of not streaming scrims, Scump said: “I want to bring back scrims on stream, I don’t understand why everyone went black in Call of Duty like it actually makes a fucking difference. Like, the only thing that you can learn from watching someone is, like, their break-off strategy. “That’s the only thing, and most people have the same break-off strategy, like, most teams have the exact same. Scump also touched on his feelings about retirement during the WWII season, revealing that he was on the brink of quitting and that the money and growth that some people were seeing in Fortnite made it tempting to switch to the Epic Games title. Scump is the captain of OpTic’s CoD team and widely regarded as one of the best players to ever touch the game. He is also a content creator with a huge following, boasting 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube and 400,000 followers on Twitch.

Scump and Crimsix step up banter as Dallas-Chicago rivalry continues Ex-OpTic Gaming teammates Seth ‘Scump’ Abner and Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter stepped up their rivalry with a tongue-in-cheek back and forth on Twitter on November 21. Over the pair’s 4 years on OpTic together they won numerous tournaments together, including a world championship at the end of Infinite Warfare. Rumors of an acrimonious split saw Crimsix remain in Texas to represent Dallas Empire, while Scump followed H3CZ to Chicago to play for the Huntsmen. Both rosters have made strong starts to Modern Warfare, boasting impressive scrim records. On November 21, the two poked fun at each other on Twitter, after Porter promoted Dallas teammate James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks’ Scuf Gaming code in Scump’s Twitch chat. While teaming in Black Ops 4, Crimsix apparently grew so frustrated with Scump’s Twitch chat that he banned his own name. Abner confirmed the hilarious story in November while scrimming with his new team, much to FormaL’s delight. Read More: When will Capture The Flag be added to MW? – On November 21, Crimsix decided to go into Scump’s Twitch chat and promote Clayster’s Scuf Gaming discount code. After the incident was picked up on Twitter, Clayster responded: “Couldn’t use “Crimsix” because “Crimsix” is banned in Scumps chat LUL”. However, Scump replied with a sly dig of his own, explaining that Crimsix “couldn’t give constructive criticism last year without calling someone a pussy so people made fun of him”. He then sarcastically hash-tagged the Dallas slogan for the Call of Duty League: ‘Build an Empire’. he insisted i ban it because he couldn’t give constructive criticism last year without calling someone a pussy so ppl made fun of him 🙁 i was being a good teammate 🙁 #buildanempire — OpTic Scump (@scump) November 21, 2019 is it funny tho? coming into my stream after talking all that smack to try and promote his code? hilarious. Grown men in the gaming community. sheesh — OpTic Scump (@scump) November 21, 2019 Clayster responded directly to Scump, commenting on the hilarity of the fact Crimsix couldn’t even promote his own code, having previously banned his name in Scump’s Twitch chat. Scump, however, didn’t seem to find the event too funny, poking more fun at his ex-OpTic teammate. “Is it funny though?” he asked. “Coming into my stream after talking all that smack to try and promote his code? Hilarious. Grown men in the gaming community. Sheesh.” There are far worse things Crimsix could have done than promote a rival discount code in Scump’s chat, but fans are more excited at the prospect of Dallas meeting Chicago as a result of the Twitter banter. https://twitter.com/Kvmrny/status/1197603990789341191?s=20 https://twitter.com/G_e_m_B_O/status/1197609354628927496?s=20 The Call of Duty League’s inaugural season kicks off on January 24, taking place in Minnesota. While Chicago and Dallas do not meet during the first weekend of matches, Chicago will be playing OpTic Gaming Los Angeles. Read More: Modern Warfare November 22 patch notes – This match-up will see Scump go up against his old organization, which still features Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell and Thomas ‘TJHaLy’ Haly, who teamed with Abner during last year’s Black Ops 4 season. As CoD enters its first-ever franchised league, fans are anticipating mouth-watering match-ups, unprecedented storylines and tangible rivalries.

Scump agrees to CDL Players Union idea after Crimsix calls him out iBUYPOWER / MLGScump has confirmed Crimsix has convinced him to help build a Call of Duty League Players Union, after he opened up about his dissatisfaction with CDL player treatment, and the fact it almost drove him to quit. [jwplayer FKHc5OkU] Seth ‘Scump’ Abner isn’t one to pour his heart out on social media, so it’s fair to say that he took the world by surprise when he denounced the Call of Duty League in a series of tweets. Scump accused the Call of Duty League admins of treating players unfairly. In fact, the situation had taken such a toll on him, he even said it made him question whether he still wanted to compete. His impassioned stance has drawn a lot of praise from players and fellow professions alive. However, it also drew criticism from someone who happened to be a former teammate. Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter hinted that Scump had an opportunity to support the unionization of players ahead of next season, but apparently didn’t seize it. The Empire star’s tweet read “59/60,” potentially suggesting there was just one hold-out not interested in building a players union. Soon after, Scump revealed he had “just told Clay [he was] in.” Following the Twitter exchange, Scump added, “The reason I originally declined was because I was barely told anything about it. We can be friends on this one.” The reason I originally declined was because I was barely told anything about it. We can be friends on this one…. — OpTic Scump (@scump) November 15, 2020 Scump explained the situation in more detail on his Nov. 15 stream. “When the original players union petition was brought up to me, I got no information on it. Nothing,” he said. They asked him to sign it without explaining what it was, which put him off. “Then no one reached out again for months and months and months,” he added during the broadcast. “Then I tweet today and then Clay instantly reached out and he was like… let’s do it… and I was like let’s go, run it.” Here’s @scump speaking about potentially forming a CDL Players Union: “”Let’s go, run it.”” Looks like it’s now all just a matter of when, and not if. pic.twitter.com/goE6fRbFHC — Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) November 15, 2020 Fortunately, it seems like Crimsix and Scump have buried the hatchet and united on the issue. Now, it’s only a matter of time before Scump agrees to sign whatever he needs to sign to help form a CDL Players Union. If a union does end up coming to fruition, it will give Call of Duty League players more voice and power over the issues affecting them.