LA Thieves bench Temp, sign rookie Venom to CDL roster LA ThievesThe Los Angeles Thieves have made a roster change for Stage 2 of the Call of Duty League season, benching veteran Donny \u2018Temp\u2019 Laroda for rookie and former Challengers player Carlos \u2018Venom\u2019 Hernandez. The news was made official on March 22 in a video that LA Thieves posted on Twitter, in which General Manager Eric \u2018Muddawg\u2019 Sanders and head coach Jordan \u2018JKap\u2019 explained the reason for the change. According to the announcement, Venom will be slotted into the starting lineup immediately in place of Temp for Week 2 of Stage 2. Thieves just completed Week 1 (Toronto Home Series) with a 1-1 record, getting reverse swept by New York Subliners in the final match of the week. \u201cHeading into Stage 2, we\u2019re going to be inserting Venom into the lineup,\u201d Muddawg said. \u201cVenom is a top rookie prospect, he started off the game with four straight victories in Challengers with WestR. He\u2019s an aggressive sub but he\u2019s really good at playing his life, and we\u2019re hoping this change will be a catalyst to help us implement some of the changes we talk about so frequently.\u201d LA Thieves CDL Stage 2 starting lineup: Kenneth \u2018Kenny\u2019 Williams – Austin \u2018SlasheR\u2019 Liddicoat – Thomas \u2018TJHaLy\u2019 Haly – Carlos \u2018Venom\u2019 Hernandez – LA Thieves roster update: Welcome @Vxnxm to the LA Thieves starting roster. #LAThieves pic.twitter.com\/s4uhO1i6zx \u2014 LA Thieves (@LAThieves) March 22, 2021 This move lands Temp on the bench just mere months after starting the LA Thieves chapter of his career. After a decent season with Subliners last year, Temp was recruited to be part of Thieves\u2019 first-ever CDL roster. However, his form has taken a noticeable dip over the past few weeks, most notably during the Stage 1 Major and the first week of Stage 2. \u201cWe looked very good at times so far this year, but not the level we want to be,\u201d JKap said. \u201cIt\u2019s best to be proactive and make a move, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. Hopefully, we see a turnaround from the boys.\u201d Thieves looked set for a successful start to their CDL journey when they went 4-0 to open Stage 1. However, a final-day loss to Dallas Empire lost them the group, and in the Stage 1 Major, they were stunningly upset by cross-town rivals LA Guerrillas in the first round of the winners bracket. They ended up finishing the tournament tied with Guerrillas for top-six, but Stage 2 started with a shaky 3-2 win over the struggling Toronto Ultra and getting reverse-swept by Subliners, which appears to have been the final straw. During Stage 1, Temp was lowest on the team with a 0.98 K\/D, including negative ratios in both Search & Destroy and Control. The numbers dropped even lower in Stage 2, as he finished the Toronto Home Series with a 0.86 K\/D, including 0.76 in Hardpoint. Hours after the announcement, however, and Temp already found a new home. Dropping into the Challengers circuit, Temp has joined the WestR lineup in place of Venom. Watch now: Should Subliners gamble to make room for CoD\u2019s next star? Venom will make his CDL debut for Thieves in Week 2 of Stage 2, which starts on March 25. LA Thieves play twice, against London Royal Ravens and Atlanta FaZe, so it will be a good opportunity for fans to see what the former Challengers star is all about. His success in the amateur circuit can\u2019t be denied \u2013 winning the first four NA Challengers Cups and the NA Stage 1 Elite \u2013 but the competition can get a lot tougher in the big leagues, especially against the likes of FaZe. You can keep track of all the roster changes and player signings with our CDL 2021 Rostermania hub.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LA Thieves bench Temp, sign rookie Venom to CDL roster LA ThievesThe Los Angeles Thieves have made a roster change for Stage 2 of the Call of Duty League season, benching veteran Donny \u2018Temp\u2019 Laroda for rookie and former Challengers player Carlos \u2018Venom\u2019 Hernandez. The news was made official on March 22 in a video […]<\/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-28328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28328","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=28328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}