Rest, Relax and Regain for the Huntsmen

Last week at CDL Minneapolis the Huntsmen had their worst showing of the year. Plagued by sloppy and inconsistent play, Chicago unfortunately could not recover. Given the Huntsmen are not competing at CDL Paris, they have three weeks to prepare for CDL New York on July 10-12. In the next three weeks it is imperative Chicago fine tune some of their little mistakes. If the Huntsmen are unable to fix these mistakes, they risk losing a top seed at Champs.

Round and Round they go

All season the Huntsmen’s best game mode has been Hardpoint. The Huntsmen start off up 1-0 in the majority of their series this season. Heading into day two of CDL Paris, Chicago hold the highest win percentage in Hardpoint at just over 71%. Despite winning a majority of their Hardpoints, Chicago have some fundamental flaws they can fine tune. While Chicago are undoubtedly a top team with regards to gun skill, that gun skill can often bail them out of tricky situations. Sometimes this great skill can contribute to reinforcing bad habits for the Huntsmen. Why rotate early if they assume they will break using gun skill?

Courtesy of Kyle Miller

At CDL Minneapolis, Chicago played some pretty sloppy Hardpoints. The team slayed rather well, but limited rotations really put extra pressure on the Huntsmen. The best example of this was the match against the Toronto Ultra. In this match, the Huntsmen dominated the Ultra with regards to kills, yet they only won by five points. FormaL posted a phenomenal 35-20 performance with Scump close behind at 31-22. In spite of this, Chicago lost almost every rotation to the key hills.

Losing the majority of the rotations to money hills over the course of the weekend really hurt Chicago. While more often than not they bailed themselves out, down the line it cost the Huntsmen the tournament. Against LAG, map four was Chicago’s to lose and they lost it. Not rotating early enough to the big hills enabled Los Angeles to earn a majority of time down the stretch. Heading into CDL New York, rotating early in scrims is essential to improving. Combining the Huntsmen’s gun skill with early rotations would create a lethal combination for opponents.

Search and Improve

It is no secret Chicago’s Search and Destroy play has been inconsistent. This is definitely the game mode the Huntsmen need to spend the most time on ahead of CDL New York. The two biggest issues at CDL Minneapolis were first bloods and ineffective trades. If the Huntsmen manage to bring Search and Destroy up to the level of their Hardpoint, they will be a favorite in next month’s event.

First bloods have been a huge issue for Chicago this season and especially last weekend. The Huntsmen lost a majority of first bloods last weekend and it showed. When a team wins the first gun fight, if that kill is traded out it is not a big deal. Unfortunately Chicago did not do a great job of this. More often than not, the Huntsmen lost the first gun fight and the man disadvantage was often too large of a hole to dig out of.

Courtesy of MLG

The Huntsmen also struggled to trade out kills effectively. A complementary issue to losing the first gun fight, the lack of trades puts Chicago at a man disadvantage, sometimes multiple men. Some of the Huntsmen run long-routes that can pay big dividends but recently Chicago has bit off more than they can chew. The Huntsmen are getting picked off and find themselves down too many men. Without a slip up from the opposing team, the Huntsmen have struggled to get a grip on Search and Destroy.

The Solution

The remedy to Chicago’s Search and Destroy woes? Unity. It is understandable that Chicago cannot always group together and move throughout the map. Having said that, more unity on the map would enable Chicago to get more trades than they currently are. Simply giving themselves a better chance of winning each round would likely move the needle in Chicago’s favor moving forward. It is crunch time with only three events left until Champs, will the Huntsmen have what it takes to hit peak form ahead of the biggest event of the season?

Featured image courtesy of the Call of Duty League

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