Last weekend the Call of Duty League returned and brought fans exactly what they wanted. The weekend was full of high octane Call of Duty with tense matches going down to the wire. Unfortunately for Chicago fans, the Huntsmen did not bring home their second title of the year. They lost in the semifinals to the Florida Mutineers. Chicago admittedly played a sloppy series, but could some of their issues be attributable to the recent role swap?
Overview of the Role Swap
Heading into CDL Dallas, the Huntsmen had FormaL switch to play as a sub and Arcitys was back to an AR role. Although prior to this event Chicago had won CDL London, at CDL Atlanta it did not appear that everything was clicking properly for the Huntsmen. Chicago had only slightly began to descend from top peak of the power rankings and the competition was starting to catch on to some of the Huntsmen’s weaknesses. Given Arcitys and FormaL are both world champion AR players, it seems like this switch would be beneficial for whichever player gets to use their bread and butter. How did things play out for two of the league’s strongest stars at CDL Dallas?
FormaL Struggles to Adapt
FormaL saw his performance drop off during CDL Dallas. Fans are used to seeing FormaL put up killer numbers and achieve a K/D ratio of 1-1.2 on his way to the top. Sadly FormaL only achieved a K/D ratio of .83. Split out, Matt’s respawn K/D was .84 and his Search and Destroy K/D was even lower at .75. Even after adjusting FormaL’s respawn K/D to remove outliers (his best and worst one-game performances) his K/D marginally improves to .88.
Against the Minnesota ROKKR FormaL performed well achieving a respawn K/D of 1.04 and a Search and Destroy K/D of .89. Matt had his best map of the weekend against Minnesota on Domination going 23-18 for a K/D of 1.28. In the subsequent match against the Paris Legion FormaL struggled a lot more. In the opening Hardpoint he went 18-39 which tied his worst performance of the weekend. FormaL earned a respawn K/D of .78 and a Search and Destroy K/D of 1.2 for the series. In the last series of the weekend, FormaL’s performance fell short again. His Domination performance heavily weighed down his respawn K/D at 12-26 for a series K/D of .79 and Search and Destroy K/D of .4. Call of Duty is a team effort and each map is the result of countless different factors. However, there is no denying that FormaL’s sub-par performance contributed to the Huntsmen’s struggle throughout the weekend. Although FormaL was practicing on this role in scrims, changing pace from a top tier AR player to a top tier sub player is a move that no doubt will take time.
Arcitys Rises to the Occasion
Arcitys is coming off a world championship where he played the AR role. From CDL Dallas it is apparent his AR dominance has not changed. Through Friday of this event Arcitys lead the tournament in overall K/D, respawn K/D, Hardpoint K/D, average hill time and Domination K/D. Furthermore, Alec had an extremely impressive tournament posting the sixth highest K/D coming in at 1.16. Arcitys’ standout performance added to his early season success as he know holds the tenth highest K/D in the CDL for the entirety of the season at 1.11.
In Chicago’s match against the ROKKR is where Arcitys dominated the competition. As previously stated, he set most of the records for the first day of the event. Arcitys posted a respawn K/D of 1.77 and a Search and Destroy K/D of 1.00. Alec’s best map of the weekend came in this match in Domination where he dropped a killer 29-14 game for a K/D of 2.07. The following match was against the Legion and Arcitys had an average performance. Alec earned a respawn K/D of .96 and a Search and Destroy K/D of .57. Arcitys played his worst map of the tournament in the opening Hardpoint going 23-33. Lastly in the match against the Mutineers Arcitys had another standout performance. His respawn K/D was 1.14 and his Search and Destroy K/D was 1.29. Although his Domination play fell off slightly, against Florida he really stood out in maps one and four.
Overall, this switch will likely pay dividends for the Huntsmen. Arcitys and FormaL have both won world championships with an AR in their hands. Arcitys finds himself at the top of the K/D charts for the CDL with a season full of success thus far. FormaL has proven time and time again that no matter the title, he always finds his way to the top.
Featured image courtesy of the Esports Nation
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