Call of Duty League Power Rankings after CDL Toronto

[jwplayer ax5RSODz]The inaugural Call of Duty League regular season has now been played out in its entirety, with Toronto Ultra taking the win in their own Home Series, the last of the season before CDL Playoffs and Champs.

The final of the tournament saw Toronto Ultra beat Atlanta FaZe 3-2 in a five-game thriller, earning themselves a Winner’s Bracket seed for Champs and proving that they’re a serious contender when the big one rolls around.

But right now, they’ve still got some work to do to prove they’re the best team in the game — here are our Call of Duty League Power Rankings after CDL Toronto.

12. Seattle Surge

There’s not a lot that can be said about Seattle Surge that hasn’t been already. Hero performances from Octane are to be expected, but the team as a whole just hasn’t managed to string results together and they find themselves joint-last in the standings.

They managed to nab a map win in their 3-1 loss to Chicago Huntsmen at CDL Toronto, but a 3-0 sweep at the hands of OpTic Gaming knocked them swiftly out of the tournament. In the last four tournaments they played, Seattle avoided last place just once.

11. Los Angeles Guerrillas

The Guerrillas have been in close competition with Seattle Surge for last place in the CDL standings for some time now, and take the bottom spot thanks to their worse map win percentage.

• Read More: Octane blasts “horrible” CDL after Seattle Surge forced to play 4v5

There was a slight uptick in Guerrillas performances towards the latter end of the season — including a big 3-4th placement at CDL Minnesota, in which they beat Chicago Huntsmen and took Atlanta to a game five — but it wasn’t really enough to push them up our power rankings or the CDL standings.

10. Minnesota RØKKR

Minnesota have slowly fallen down the rankings during the CDL season. Having started as championship contenders, they’ve failed to pull off anything significant in several months, placing dead last at their last three Home Series events.

The talent is clearly there on this team, but they’ve slowly fallen behind their opposition, and now they find themselves facing an uphill battle to catch up.

9. OpTic Gaming Los Angeles

Sometimes OpTic look great, sometimes they just don’t, and at CDL Toronto we saw a bit of both.

A convincing 3-1 win to knock Chicago Huntsmen out of the tournament showed what the team is capable of, but they really haven’t had the consistency to move up any more than one spot in the final power rankings of the regular season.

8. Paris Legion

There are very few teams that can truly say they’ve experienced the highs and lows of the Call of Duty League like Paris Legion. They started strong with a flawless performance at launch weekend but slowly fell off, especially with the switch to online play.

• Read More: FaZe drops Call of Duty Challengers player after homophobic slurs

More recently, though, they ended their losing streak and even made it to the grand final of CDL London, where viewers really got to see how good this team can be. If they had done that once or twice more, their Champs seed and power rankings spot would be looking much nicer right now.

7. London Royal Ravens

London have been a consistent middle of the pack team throughout the inaugural season of the CDL, never abysmal but never a top side, either.

They came 3-4th at CDL London, beaten out by Paris, but overall they’ve looked stronger than their European rivals of late — even their loss wasn’t exactly a convincing one.

6. New York Subliners

New York Subliners’ win at their own CDL Home Series was somewhat of a shock, but they had shown marked improvements in the prior weeks and was well deserved. They’re perhaps not a top-tier team in the same vein as Dallas Empire or Atlanta FaZe but they’re good for an upset.

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They finish the regular season at 6th in our power rankings, having let themselves down slightly at CDL London with straight 3-0 losses to Dallas Empire and Paris Legion. They didn’t play at CDL Toronto and saw themselves slip slightly as a result.

5. Toronto Ultra

Arguably one of the bigger surprises of the CDL season is Toronto Ultra managing to snag a win against a resurgent Atlanta FaZe side at the final Home Series.

Similar to New York, they’ve shown much improvement in recent weeks, and the win was well-deserved after weeks of figuring out their shortcomings, but are they good enough to push above the top four in our power rankings? We weren’t convinced.

4. Chicago Huntsmen

Chicago’s consistency issues are well-storied at this point, at times looking like a mid-table squad but with the potential to be absolutely dominant.

They were beaten convincingly in the grand final of CDL New York by the hosts themselves, and followed that up with a poor performance at CDL Toronto, placing 5-6th following losses to Toronto Ultra and OGLA. They’ve lost their grip on the top spots, and had the season gone on any longer, we might have seen them slip even further down the rankings.

3. Florida Mutineers

Florida Mutineers have arguably been the standout team of this CDL season. The acquisition of Owakening changed this team’s fortunes drastically, and prior to their 5-6th placement at CDL Toronto — with two losses to Dallas Empire — they had placed 1st, 1st and 3-4th at Minnesota, London and Paris respectively.

• Read More: Chicago Huntsmen’s Arcitys defends himself over “costing” accusations

They’re still one of the best teams in the game, but a couple of minor slip-ups see them outside of the top two.

2. Dallas Empire

Dallas Empire were tantalizingly close to earning the top spot in our power rankings, having worked their way back to the top with a win at CDL London, but their 3-4th placement at CDL Toronto, following a 3-0 sweep at the hands of Atlanta FaZe, forced our hand and pushed them into second.

Without a doubt, Dallas look like one of the best teams in the game, and the number one spot is really only between two teams for now, but we might have to wait until Champs to truly crown the number one team in the game.

1. Atlanta FaZe

Atlanta FaZe are one of only two teams to have made the playoffs of every CDL Home Series so far, but have failed to win one since CDL Florida in May.

Since then, they’ve placed 2nd three times — including at CDL Toronto — and 3-4th once, but a lot of their success has relied on clutch game 5 wins. For that reason, the battle for top spot between Atlanta and Dallas was excruciatingly close — but Atlanta’s frequent recent grand final appearances edged it for them.

So, that’s it: the final power rankings of the CDL 2020 regular season. While teams like Dallas and Atlanta have managed to hold their high spots throughout the entire season, they’ve been shown up plenty of times throughout. In the end, though, none of these losses mattered, as they find themselves at 1st and 2nd once again.

Now, all eyes look ahead to the biggest tournament on the Call of Duty calendar: CDL Playoffs and CDL Champs, which take place from August 19-23 and August 29-30 respectively.

For all the information you could possibly ask for on CDL Champs, check out our full guide to the event, including the prize pool, seeding and how the final bracket looks.