LA Thieves win Call of Duty League Major IV: \u201cWe\u2019re the team to beat\u201d Twitter: LA ThievesThe fourth and final stage of the 2022 Call of Duty League season has crowned a fourth champion: the Los Angeles Thieves. Beating the miracle-making New York Subliners in Brooklyn, CoD\u2019s newest champs now have the trophy to match their star-studded roster. Two seasons ago, 100 Thieves lucked into a CDL franchise opening when OpTic Gaming Los Angeles sold their way out of the league. A season ago, the organization struggled to meet expectations and rotated eight different players across their four starting spots \u2013 which still wasn\u2019t enough to finish in the top three of any tournament. This year, despite their brand-new lineup failing to reach the top three of any Major, the Thieves ignored their detractors and stuck to their guns, maintaining the same lineup all season. Now with $200,000 added to their bank accounts and a new \u201cgruesome\u201d trophy on their mantelpiece, that commitment to the four has been rewarded. To reach this point, LA had to fight through Atlanta FaZe (twice), Toronto Ultra, and the New York Subliners in a 4-1 masterclass at CDL 2022 Major IV. While many had doubted this lineup\u2019s capacity to meet its early expectations, their new AR, Sam \u2018Octane\u2019 Larew, explained that \u201cit was only a matter of time.\u201d Outlasting the haters While the Thieves finished the Stage IV Qualifiers in fourth with a 3-2 match count, the team\u2019s buzz was minimal. Their flashy 2022 signings, Octane and Dylan \u2018Envoy\u2019 Hannon, hadn\u2019t helped the organization to a top-three finish yet and haters had seemingly already written the group off. When asked about the team being criticized for \u2018underperforming\u2019,\u2019 Envoy did not shy away: \u201cRightfully so, I feel like in the beginning of the game we\u2026 not deserved it, but we obviously weren\u2019t the team we are now.\u201d As for what changed, Octane was quick to credit the addition of coach Shane \u2018ShAne\u2019 McKerral at the end of Stage III. Likening ShAne\u2019s addition to the multi-champion 100T\u2019s roster change in Black Ops 4, Octane explained that \u201cthere was a shift in our practice mentality. \u201cI think we were going about things a little bit too broadly and once we picked up Shane, things started to hone in a little bit more, our minds got a little focused and we started putting in extra time and the shift was pretty immediate.\u201d Beating New York in New York To even get to the Grand Finals, LA had to beat the best team in CoD (according to the 2022 standings) twice. According to Kenny \u2018Kenny\u2019 Williams, the team\u2019s sharpened mentality was key to getting past Atlanta. \u201cI felt like we were playing perfect CoD. Our comms were all there, everything we needed to communicate, any time we needed to slow the game down and work together\u2026 that\u2019s just the one thing we\u2019ve been focused on is just shooting together.\u201d After beating FaZe in Winners Round 1, LA proceeded to beat Ultra in Winners Round 2, lose to the Subliners in Winners Finals, and beat FaZe in the Losers Finals to make their way back. As for what happened against New York in the first matchup? Octane explained that \u201cthey were playing maps we don\u2019t play, they were getting freebies.\u201d Zack \u2018Drazah\u2019 Jordan colorfully elaborated \u201cthey had good side every map. We just didn\u2019t give a f**k.\u201d Following Winners Finals, Subliners SMG Paco \u2018HyDra\u2019 Rusiewiez seemed confident about the map choices, contending that Berlin was New York\u2019s \u201cplayground\u201d. While the map was 2-1 in NY\u2019s favor during the Winners Finals, it went 3-0 for LA in the Grand Finals. That assertion fell on deaf ears in the Thieves camp. Octane noted that map count, Drazah pointed to the trophy on the table, and Envoy responded in kind: \u201cBerlin\u2019s definitely not their playground. They need some work.\u201d While the in-game maps were one thing, the real-world location was another. The New York Major, at Kings Theater in Brooklyn, drew praise from the community all weekend long. Although the crowd was deafening in support of the Subliners\u2019 CDL Champs and Major IV runs, Octane welcomed the animosity: \u201cI love that sh*t. Playing against the crowd is one of my favorite things, I\u2019ve done it my entire career \u2013 most predominantly against OpTic, which is when you notice it the most \u2013 but playing against the crowd is always more fun.\u201d The \u201cteam to beat\u201d During this Major IV run, the Thieves have called their teamwork \u201cimmaculate,\u201d their Call of Duty \u201cperfect,\u201d and their opponents \u201cscrambled.\u201d Having beaten the home team 5-3 in the Grand Finals, with every single player finishing with a positive K\/D, it\u2019s hard to disagree with those statements. The Los Angeles Thieves, for the first time in their CDL franchise history, are CoD champions. Up next: the $2.55 million playoffs, CDL Champs, where LA will match up against the Boston Breach in Winners Round 1. With the Major in the bag, the team has their eyes set high: \u201cGrand Finals,\u201d Kenny asserted. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any match or any team right now that I\u2019m looking to play, I think we\u2019re the team to beat so, Grand Finals [is the goal].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LA Thieves win Call of Duty League Major IV: \u201cWe\u2019re the team to beat\u201d Twitter: LA ThievesThe fourth and final stage of the 2022 Call of Duty League season has crowned a fourth champion: the Los Angeles Thieves. Beating the miracle-making New York Subliners in Brooklyn, CoD\u2019s newest champs now have the trophy to match […]<\/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-28342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28342","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=28342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}