Call of Duty League 2021 first Home Series & launch weekend dates announced

The Call of Duty League has officially announced the dates fans will finally see competitive Black Ops Cold War kick off, as well as the first official Home Series event, of the 2021 season.

Fans have been patiently waiting for the start of the second CDL season ever since the first ended back in August 2020. Since then, we’ve had the release of Black Ops Cold War and a litany of roster changes to get excited about, but now we can see it all come into play.

With the action kicking off very soon, here’s everything we know so far about the CDL 2021 season.

CDL 2021 Kickoff Special

This season, the CDL are hosting the Kickoff Special, which will see all 12 teams go to battle on January 23-24.

In a unique spin on this kickoff tournament, fans will be able to vote on who they want each team to face.

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Each of 2020’s top three regular-season teams — Dallas Empire, Atlanta FaZe, OpTic Chicago — will hold online polls to determine which team they will face-off against at the Kickoff Classic. Here are the possible teams:

• Dallas Empire: New York Subliners, Paris Legion, London Royal Ravens
• Atlanta FaZe: Florida Mutineers, Los Angeles Guerrillas, Seattle Surge
• OpTic Chicago: LA Thieves, Minnesota RØKKR, Toronto Ultra

The method through which fans can vote has not yet been announced.

First CDL 2021 Home Series: Atlanta FaZe

Atlanta FaZe will be hosting the very first event of the regular season in their online Home Series from February 11-14. As with all COD League content, this will be streamed on the official CDL YouTube channel.

As has been made clear in the 2021 CDL format explainer, Home Series events will help provide seeding, storylines and more heading into major events, and teams will be desperate to kick their year off with a bang and get off on the right foot.

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The Home Series events themselves haven’t been detailed yet, though it goes without saying that the Atlanta online event will be a great insight into what we can expect from the league in the future — especially with a new, unique format for drawing groups…

Unique Home Series group draw

This year, Home Series groups will be drawn a little differently than how they were before. For the Atlanta FaZe Home Series, the top two teams from last year — Dallas Empire and Atlanta FaZe — will get to pick each others’ opponents.

Using a snake draft format, Dallas will be able to pick who enters Atlanta’s group — and vice versa — until both groups are fully populated.

This group draw will be broadcast during the Kickoff Special, and the CDL have promised more details to come on the draw and the season as a whole.

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So, that’s our first look at the opening CDL events of the 2021 season!

It will be great to finally see teams take to the battlefield once again, and the group draw will give us a great idea of which teams to look out for at the opening Home Series events, as Dallas and Atlanta try to give each other the toughest time possible.