CDL Champs 2023: Bracket, prizing, stream, venue

Ant Stonelake

Ant Stonelake

Eight teams are ready to compete for more than $2million.

Call of Duty League (CDL) Champs 2023 is upon us. The biggest event of the calendar will see the top eight teams from the regular season compete for their share of the biggest prize pool of the season.

It is the culmination of the entire Modern Warfare 2 season, with all of the teams at Champs ready to show why they deserve to take home the Championship ring.

Venue

For the first time in the CDL era, Champs is heading away from Los Angeles. It will stay on the West Coast with the event happening at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. Photo via UNLV.
Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. Photo via UNLV.

The venue is a historic one. It has hosted huge events in its history, including the NBA All-Star Game in 2007. Thomas and Mack Center has also hosted numerous boxing matches and has around 250 events each calendar year. CDL Champs is now one of them for 2023.

Bracket

Only the top eight teams from the regular season will take part in CDL Champs 2023. The bottom four teams will have to sit at home and watch the event unfold. London Royal Ravens, LA Guerrillas, Florida Mutineers and Las Vegas Legion all missed out on the chance to play at Champs.

Legion had the chance to make a run at Major 5 to snag the final qualification spot. The eventual winners, New York Subliners took them out in the lower bracket with a 3-0 sweep.

It's hard to predict favorites for the event in Vegas with only one team winning two events this season so far. NYSL should be right at the top of the list because of that but every team has fallen off after winning so far this campaign.

WR1 matches

The bracket for Champs was set immediately following the conclusion of the Toronto Ultra Major 5 event at the end of May.

Here are the first-round matches for CDL Champs 2023:

  • Atlanta FaZe vs Seattle Surge
  • Toronto Ultra vs LA Thieves
  • Boston Breach vs OpTic Texas
  • New York Subliners vs Minnesota ROKKR

Note: Grand Finals for CDL Champs 2023 will be played as a Best of 9 series. This is a change from the Best of 7 series that teams have been playing all through the regular season.

Rosters

More than ever, teams have been right on the ball in making mid-season changes to their rosters. That's been true even in the period between the last Major of the regular season and Champs. Boston Breach have brought in Eric "Snoopy" Perez to their roster for the main event of the season.

The eight CDL Champs rosters. Photo via CDL.
The eight CDL Champs rosters. Photo via CDL.

Here are the eight rosters competing at CDL Champs in 2023:

Atlanta FaZe:

  • McArthur "Cellium" Jovel
  • Austin "SlasheR" Liddicoat
  • Tyler "aBeZy" Pharris
  • Chris "Simp" Lehr

OpTic Texas:

  • Dan "Ghosty" Rothe
  • Brandon "Dashy" Otell
  • Cuyler "Huke" Garland
  • Ant "Shotzzy" Cuevas-Castro

New York Subliners:

  • Paco "HyDra" Rusiewiez
  • Cesar "Skyz" Bueno
  • Preston "Priestahh" Greiner
  • Matt "KiSMET" Tinsley

Toronto Ultra:

  • Charlie "Hicksy" Hicks
  • Jamie "Insight" Craven
  • Thomas "Scrappy" Ernst
  • Tobi "CleanX" Jonsson

LA Thieves:

  • Kenny "Kenny" Williams
  • Zack "Drazah" Jordan
  • Sam "Octane" Larew
  • Dylan "Envoy" Hannon

Minnesota ROKKR:

  • Kevin "Fame" Bonnano
  • Dillon "Attach" Price
  • Ben "Bance" Bance
  • Cameron "Cammy" McKilligan

Boston Breach:

  • Ben "BEANS" McMellon
  • Eric "Snoopy" Perez
  • Joe "Owakening" Conley
  • Kyle "Kremp" Howarth

Seattle Surge:

  • Amer "Pred" Zulbeari
  • Lamar "Accuracy" Abedi
  • Makenzie "Mack" Kelley
  • Daunte "Sib" Gray

Prizing

The prize pool for CDL Champs 2023 is a whopping $2,380,000. Every team at the event, regardless of placing, will take home at least a slice of the pie.

The winning team will win $1,000,000. It's a slight step down from last year's $1,200,000 but still an incredible life-changing amount of money.

Here's the full split of the prize pool for CDL Champs 2023:

  • 1st: $1,000,000
  • 2nd: $660,000
  • 3rd: $320,000
  • 4th: $160,000
  • 5-6th: $80,000
  • 7-8th: $40,000

CDL contracts have a clause in which players are legally required to receive at least 50% of the prize money they win. That means the players on the winning team will at least take home $125,000 each.

Stream

As always for the 2023 season, Call of Duty League Champs will be live on Twitch and YouTube.

The stream will be live for every single one of the matches in Las Vegas, from WR1 all the way through to the Grand Final. The Grand Final is the only match that will be played on Championship Sunday.

That's all you need to know heading into the CDL Champs event in Las Vegas. Be sure to stick to esports.gg for all the latest news and reports from the event.