CDL Champs 2025: OpTic Texas Goes Back To Back

You’d be forgiven if an OpTic comeback wasn’t in your predictions for CDL 2025. For most viewers, it probably wasn’t even the bingo card by Major 4. 

After all, the roster was in flux across the first three Majors and it was no exaggeration to say their season was slipping away—an 18-game loss streak almost putting them out of Champs qualification entirely. A number of their roster moves simply hadn’t panned out, leaving the legendary organization with pacing problems and seemingly a lack of leadership too. Huke rejoined the roster and while his performance was a critical lift for the team, it wasn’t quite enough. 

With everything on the line, it was either go to Major 4 with a battered squad, or take another huge risk on the last roster change OpTic would have time to make. Out of time and down to the wire, the Greenwall placed their hopes in a rookie.

Mercules had turned heads in the Challengers scene, but he was an unknown quantity at the pro level. He did have his moment as a stand-out stand-in, getting called up to the Toronto Ultra’s starting lineup for Major 3 and delivering well under pressure and with little prep time. However, the expectations he’d be under on a name like OpTic, as they fought for a shot at Champs—that’s the kind of pressure that makes a diamond, or shatters a stone. 

In the end, OpTic pulled the trigger and it was all diamonds. Champs qualification came first, the team making a run all the way to second place and beating a legendary FaZe squad along the way. Then, they began a dramatic rise up the standings, and bit by bit all the agony of what looked to be the organization’s worst season ever would be vindicated in just four days. 

OPTIC TEXAS TAKEOVER

Day one opened with one of the most anticipated matches of the tournament: A first-round dance with Atlanta FaZe, maybe the only team to rival OpTic in terms of legacy. The reigning Champs were on the offensive from the jump, using their vetoes to force a showdown against FaZe in Protocol S&D—a mode that Drazah’s squad had been dominant on for most of the year. It was a calculated risk that could have put them in a serious bind if they lost the opening Hardpoint. The bet paid off, though, and OpTic went up 2-0, with the series totally in their control. One more blink and they were off to Winner’s Round 2 with a 3-0 that no one in the crowd saw coming. 

Mercules was a true standout. He found an answer to every situation FaZe threw at his team, and it was off his back that OpTic carved their path. The confidence he exuded in our pre-Champs interview was on full display, and would only shine brighter against his former team in Round 2.

Toronto Ultra awaited them in Round 2, and while JoeDeceives looked every bit the franchise player, the matchup was no closer than Round 1 had been. After starring in a 6-0 against his rival and his former squad, there could be no more doubt about whether or not Merc was here to stay. 

PRACTICE MADE PERFECT

Elsewhere in the bracket, Boston Breach was turning heads at nearly the same rate as OpTic, winning a stunning upset against a recently-formed CDL superteam: the LA Thieves. The Breach buzz only grew after beating the Miami Heretics  in one of the year’s most memorable series. 

The stage was set. It would be an explosive faceoff between two surging teams for a shot at the Champs Grand Finals. Fireworks should have ensued. Instead, it was another bloodbath for OpTic Texas. 

Unexpected as it was for fans, the Breach saw it coming. “Those guys are the best players in the game,” Breach’s leader Purj said in a post-Champs documentary. “They’ve been railing us in scrims for a month, to be honest…right now we’re recording this, [Grand] Finals haven’t happened yet: I’m assuming it’s a 4-0 [for] OpTic.”

In the end, it was heartbreak for Breach, but a chance at the impossible for OpTic. All of the worries, the turmoil, the roster changes had led to a shot at being the first Call of Duty organization to ever repeat as World Champions. 

A SHOT AT HISTORY

At this point, it looked like OpTic might not just repeat but do so without dropping a map. Their opponents from the lower bracket would be the Surge, a team that had gotten three silver medals across the year and did not seem able to close out a Finals.

Again, OpTic came out swinging. Shotzzy’s masterclass performance (27-13 statline, complemented by nearly two minutes of hill time) on Hacienda Hardpoint immediately looked like a knockout blow. The Vancouver Surge, however, had more grit to them than the other CDL competitors. Rebounding hard on Map 2, the Surge made sure it wasn’t even close—a vicious 6-0 in Dealership Search & Destroy leveled the series and drew blood on OpTic for the first time in the event.  

Back and forth, the two squads traded wins. OpTic snatched victory from the jaws of ruin in Protocol Control after a devastating misplay from Surge allowed Huke and Shotzzy to sneak onto the point and send the game to a Round 5. That momentum carried them through the Vault Hardpoint, where Dashy’s impeccable aim stole the show and tightened the Greenwall’s grip on the series. 

Yet, Surge found a way to stay alive. The young upstarts once again toppled OpTic in Search & Destroy, this time claiming a thrilling Round 11 victory on Protocol. The Canadian crew also surfed off their momentum into Hacienda Control, stealing away one of the best contests of the year, despite a career highlight four-piece from Shotzzy in the dying embers of the map.

ACROSS THE FINISH LINE

With Mercules slowing down in the final stretch of the tournament, it seemed like the Surge had a shot of beating their “bridesmaid” narrative and getting gold when it mattered most. Only this time, the rest of OpTic was stepping up. Shotzzy in particular was not to be denied. A commanding 6-2 victory put OpTic at match point: 3-2. 

If there was a moment to swing the series, this was it. A win for Surge would have catapulted them into a Game 7 with the most confidence in the world. They were 2-1 in S&D in the series. OpTic’s roster was quite new, their map pool perhaps not as deep as the cohesive team across the stage from them. Surge only needed to win one Hardpoint to deflate the crowd and give themselves a good chance to close it out—and the map started like a dream. 

Surge leaped out to an 80-point lead a little after the first full rotation. Every trade was falling into their lap. If they could just trade 50% of the remaining time the rest of the way, they’d live to see another map. On the other hand, OpTic hadn’t clawed their way up from the dregs to give up here. The final two rotations couldn’t have encapsulated their event better. Every time Surge seemed to be clawing ahead, OpTic picked them apart and kept their foot down. 

Ultimately, it was yet another superstar play from Shotzzy that sealed the deal. His eliminations on Neptune and Abuzah all but guaranteed the win. The music played, confetti dropped, and OpTic stood alone atop the mountain.

This win didn’t just secure the organization’s legacy in the CDL era, but the players and the coaches, too. Shotzzy has entered into the Greatest of All Time conversation, with three championship rings in five years. He and Huke became World Champions together again; Dashy, Shotzzy, and Coach JP silenced any doubts about their OpTic legacy by completing the incredibly rare back-to-back run. Mercules secured a ring in his third professional tournament ever. Coach Karma became the first coach to win two rings, adding to the three he won as a player in the Call of Duty World League era. All of this, in the same season that also saw the core of the roster lose 18 consecutive maps. It’d be a challenge to script a season better than this.

Given how competitive and ever-changing the Call of Duty League can be, it’s hard to imagine any team completing a three-peat. Still, when we look back at this event, and at OpTic’s’ year, it’s hard not to think stranger things have already happened.