It was a twist of fate that nobody saw coming as the Carolina Royal Ravens forcibly ejected the New York Subliners from CDL’s Major I in Boston. The Carolina Royal Ravens are flat bottom in the CDL standings after winning just one match since the season began in December. Following a last-minute substitution in the form of TJHaly and facing a demoralised, already-beaten Subliners, the Royal Ravens capitalised and produced a fantastic series.

Now, the New York Subliners will go home almost empty-handed. Last season, the Subliners won two Major tournaments and then snatched the COD Championship trophy with ease from Toronto Ultra in a record-fast Grand Final that ended 5 – 0 for the New York squad. Following a hugely positive and high-performing qualifying stage, Subliners ultimately failed to gain traction at the Boston Major, losing 0 – 3 against Minnesota Rokkr and then being slammed 1 – 3 by the Carolina Royal Ravens in the lower bracket.

Not The Gameplan

Image Credit: COD League

Recently, I caught up with the Subliners’ Matt ‘KiSMET’ Tinsley, and he spoke positively and confidently about the squad’s future. I’ve been close enough to the squad to learn about the intense efforts behind the scenes to ensure team chemistry and makeup are as resilient and tight-knit as possible. Despite those efforts, the Subliners sidestepped all expectations this weekend, falling miserably against the lowest-rated team in the CDL.

It was a wonderful scene for the Carolina Royal Ravens, though. So far this season, the squad has failed to generate anything meaningful in terms of results. For the old-school Call of Duty esports fans, it was heartwarming to see the Royal Ravens’ Clayster on stage thoroughly hyped up after the win. At the start of the CDL 2024 season, Clayster made references to retiring before the end of 2024 – hopefully, he’ll find his upswing now and avoid that happening.

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Now, with the Subliners out of the competition, it’s left to the Royal Ravens to defeat Seattle Surge to move up. If the team is successful there, it’ll be a showdown against one of the following squads:

Atlanta FaZe
OpTic Texas
Toronto Ultra
Minnesota Rokkr

That’s a huge ask for Carolina, even when burning with the white-hot momentum of ejecting the CDL world champions from the tournament. There’s still a long road ahead – five more matches will need to be won for the Royal Ravens to secure the Major. The odds are stacked against them but don’t count them out just yet.

Stranger things have happened.

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