Atlanta FaZe head to CDL Champs 2022 with new chip on their shoulders Twitter: ATLFaZeThe Atlanta FaZe may have failed to win a single LAN event this Call of Duty League season, but \u2013 with pressure at its highest \u2013 they\u2019re still the favorites at CDL Champs 2022. \u201cI think we had them kind of scrambled. That\u2019s the thing about Atlanta FaZe, if you get them out of their groove, they\u2019re a pretty beatable team.\u201d As Kenny \u2018Kenny\u2019 Williams suggested after his LA Thieves eliminated Atlanta at Major IV, this year\u2019s FaZe aren\u2019t quite as invulnerable as the 2021 unit that went 34-7, won three Majors, and went 4-0 to win Champs. Maybe the rest of the league has improved, maybe Vanguard isn\u2019t their best game \u2013 whatever the case may be, this FaZe club has vulnerabilities. Still, Kenny recognized that a lowered floor doesn\u2019t mean a lowered ceiling: \u201cWhen they\u2019re in their groove, they look dominant.\u201d FaZe secured top three at all four LAN Majors, have an MVP frontrunner in McArthur \u2018Cellium\u2019 Jovel, and are still the top seed going into Champs. The team has looked dominant this year, despite the negative narratives surrounding their failure to win a tournament, and they seem eager to silence the chatter. Drowning out the noise \u201cLast year, we had fun every day getting on. This year, you have those days like, \u2018What the f**k, why am I playing right now?\u2019 Because sometimes, there are some days when you\u2019re like, \u2018I can\u2019t get better.’\u201d As the bearer of FaZe\u2019s lowest K\/D (0.96), Alec \u2018Arcitys\u2019 Sanderson has borne the brunt of the criticism for FaZe\u2019s unmet expectations, and he transparently acknowledged this season\u2019s struggles. Conversely, when asked about the slander directed at his teammate, Chris \u2018Simp\u2019 Lehr refused to lend this criticism any credence: \u201cI feel like Alec has just been the scapegoat because we\u2019re a dynasty-caliber team and when we\u2019re not winning, people just pick someone to blame and they just look at numbers. People don\u2019t understand what he brings to the team \u2026 We always remind him how nasty he is, how much he actually brings.\u201d FaZe coach James \u2018Crowder\u2019 Crowder echoed Simp, emphatically dismissing his AR\u2019s detractors: \u201cAll the criticism that [Arcitys] gets is just, to be honest with you, people not knowing what the f**k they\u2019re talking about. \u201cThis team was built to be a very top team \u2026 and when you have players slaying the way they do, the routes that get taken on the map, and the positions that you\u2019re in, are how you get kills. And he sets up a lot of people to get kills and no one knows what the f**k they\u2019re talking about when they talk about him.\u201d While rebuking social media\u2019s Arcitys takes, FaZe\u2019s principal focus is going back-to-back at CDL Champs. To do so, the team will rely on the continued excellence of McArthur \u2018Cellium\u2019 Jovel. Cellium: \u201cThe perfect teammate\u201d Although Atlanta haven\u2019t won a LAN and numbers don\u2019t paint the full picture, Cell has rattled off an absurd season, posting a 1.22 Overall K\/D, a 1.25 Hardpoint K\/D, and a 1.20 S&D K\/D \u2013 all league highs. When asked about their flex\u2019s MVP form, Arcitys enthusiastically described what the statistics can\u2019t: \u201cAll year he\u2019s been MVP. Ever since I teamed with the kid, he\u2019s taught me things\u2026 and I\u2019ve been playing longer than him. His composure, his teamwork, everything about him is just on point. He gets gassed for how good he is, but he doesn\u2019t get gassed for how good of a teammate he is. And people can\u2019t see that just because everyone just thinks in listen-ins we have terrible comms, but for us, that\u2019s perfect comms from him. He\u2019s just the perfect teammate.\u201d As for how good Cell is individually, Simp described the flex\u2019s presence on the map: \u201cHe\u2019s a player that, if he gets into a position, he\u2019ll get you at least five kills \u2013 minimum. And I feel like when he\u2019s not on one of those god headies, he still has a 95% chance of killing the guy \u2026 He\u2019s disgusting.\u201d CDL Champs 2022 Last season, FaZe won a league-leading 83% of their matches heading into Champs. This season, that percentage has gone down to 68% but remains the league\u2019s highest. That lowered success could have hindered morale, especially for a team on the precipice of achieving dynasty status, but Crowder has a simple explanation for why it hasn\u2019t: \u201cThey\u2019re all close friends. It\u2019s very rare that you see a team as good as these guys also really get along.\u201d When it comes to Champs, the 2021 winners will have their work cut out for them in Winners Round 1 against the red-hot New York Subliners. FaZe may not have won a LAN event all year, but \u2013 as Simp explained before beating OpTic for the first time all season during Major IV \u2013 \u201cthose matches don\u2019t change this next one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Atlanta FaZe head to CDL Champs 2022 with new chip on their shoulders Twitter: ATLFaZeThe Atlanta FaZe may have failed to win a single LAN event this Call of Duty League season, but \u2013 with pressure at its highest \u2013 they\u2019re still the favorites at CDL Champs 2022. \u201cI think we had them kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}