James Eubanks was complaining, and Ian Porter had heard enough.

Weeks before Eubanks, known worldwide by his gaming pseudonym “Clayster,” and Porter — “Crimsix” to his 834,000 Twitter followers — embarked on the inaugural season of the Call of Duty League, they first needed to communicate.

They were still in the early stages of practicing together as teammates, which could’ve made for a tense situation. Telling a new teammate, one of the most winningest in title history, to shut up and play might not lead to harmonious practice sessions.

So it started with a simple suggestion: go grab a coffee.

“He was, like, complaining or moaning at every single call out,” said Crimsix, who was also Clayster’s teammate with Complexity in 2013. “I said ‘Clay, you're moaning at every single call today. Get a coffee or something.’”

So he did.

Clayster got up and got his coffee. There wasn’t a shouting match. No offense was taken.

Crimsix said he felt silenced before. He referred to his acrimonious split with OpTic, feeling sure he couldn’t tell his former teammates to quit the moaning and get a coffee. Brutal honesty worked better for Crimsix in January than it had in over two years.

“The next day it's all right,” Crimsix said. “He didn't react negatively and that's the same thing with me. If I'm moaning or something like that, like I want someone to say that because I don't realize it.

He literally got on the next day and he’s, like, ‘Dude, I f—-ing love that s—-.’

Clayster and Crimsix are veteran superstars in the world of competitive gaming, earning lucrative salaries and endorsements over the past decade. They are the backbone of the Dallas Empire, one of 12 franchises in the inaugural Call of Duty League — a geo-located competition looking to continue esports’ explosion into the mainstream.

If there is a “best Call of Duty player in the world” debate, Crimsix and Clayster are headliners in that conversation. Envy Gaming owner Mike Rufail knows the scene — he had a rich Call of Duty career of his own going by “hastr0.” He wasn’t going to be satisfied with just having a team in the league.

He wanted the best players. He wanted champions.

The Empire are already regarded as one of the top franchises in the world after all but stomping the other competing teams in preseason scrimmages. Personnel is a driving factor.

Clayster and Crimsix are a match made in heaven for Rufail. The question might not be: is the best Call of Duty player in the world living in Dallas, but rather, which Empire player is going to be the best in the world?

The veteran

Got two rings but eight empty fingers 🥶



[ https://t.co/KvcdQhvbAY ] pic.twitter.com/UMO9DnTzR6 — Empire Clayster (@Clayster) December 21, 2019

Clayster is fresh off a Call of Duty World Championship in 2019, his first global title since 2015. He’s used his Twitter account to flex the ring he got to show for it, too.

The 27-year-old AR slayer is the oldest pro player in the league. That’s still something he’s coping with.

“When I came in I was, like, the youngest one,” said Clayster, who began his professional career as a 15-year-old in 2007. “Then, somehow in the past decade, I'm the oldest one. This is weird. I didn't think I was ever going to end up like this, but that’s the way it is.”

The league calls itself the “next chapter” in Call of Duty esports, a competition that introduced gaming stars to the world. Ten of the teams are North American-based, with two more in London and Paris, but the richness is in its players.

Well-known streamers who may specialize in Call of Duty are fun to watch, but the league is comprised of the best players in the world, Rufail said, whether they are pulling four-digit-viewership on Twitch or not.

“There’s no doubt that the best Call of Duty players in the world are going to be in this league,” Rufail said. “Of course there will be some other players that come through and start shining, but that’s the beauty of being in a league like this.

“The cream will rise to the top and those players will aspire to be in this league.”

Messy split with OpTic

Ian "Crimsix" Porter isn't shy about how he wants his former OpTic teammates to feel when they play him in the Call of Duty Leagye. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

The argument for Crimsix as the best player in the world is a little bumpier since his former OpTic team imploded in 2019.

There’s nobody in the game with as many major tournament wins as Crimsix, who has 33, but it’s been a while since he was winning with consistency.

“I think I play I a lot better with emotion,” Crimsix said. “And I really haven't had that in a while. The last two years have been tough. We didn't really win. We won one tournament in two years. And before that, I think I won like seven or eight every year. It was a struggle.”

OpTic compiled what many considered the best Call of Duty Team in the world — maybe ever. The first-place finishes were spare before its implosion in 2019, and the reasons for that drought has been debated by its former members.

Crimsix said his problems with his former team stemmed from work ethic. He’s used Twitter to express the difference between his experiences with his new team compared to his former OpTic squad.

3 scrims per day and not a single teammate has bitched about how much we’re playing. This is new. — Empire C6 (@Crimsix) November 12, 2019

He’s thrown the most shade at Seth “Scump” Abner and Hector “H3CZ” Rodriguez. But Scump has fired back at Crimsix multiple times on his stream and other platforms that didn’t involve typing.

Scump, who now stars for the Chicago Huntsmen, argued that there was plenty of winning done on that OpTic team in a video interview with NRG Esports in November. But Crimsix wasn’t satisfied without being the best statistically.

“We won [Crimsix] so much money,” Scump said in the video. “He did his part, obviously, but we were the ones really frying people. I just don’t get it – move on. If you have beef with me fine, but try and beat me at the tournament.”

A superteam built to be the best Call of Duty team in the world collapsed and Crimsix felt he was under the rubble.

Crimsix won’t have to wait long for his shot at redemption. Dallas and Chicago play each other in the first match in Call of Duty League history at 4:30 p.m. CT Friday in Minneapolis.

Playing against Chicago in the first matchup is something Crimsix is excited for, but he doesn’t put his energy into thinking about the events, he said. He plays his best when he’s not thinking hard at all.

“I want these people who did all this to me to literally see my face when they sleep,” Crimsix said. “That's what I want. I want them to record videos with them talking like ‘we could have done this better, we could have done this better,’’ and I'm on the other end just sitting there like ‘yeah, you could have, but you didn’t and we just f—-ing beat you.”

Crimsix notices all the talk about him. But he likes being in the know, especially when it comes to his new superstar partner, Clayster.

“People were saying stuff like, ‘Me and Clay were going to clash when we're actually playing,’ but he and I both knew back in the Complexity days that it works perfectly,” Crimsix said.

Clayster was confident it would work, too. He’s had to mesh with many different players in the past and sometimes true chemistry didn’t come for months. With Crimsix, it didn’t take long.

“Some people are just on the same wavelength,” Clayster said. “Sometimes you have to teach people things or help them out but I feel like he's doing enough. Those kinds of players, like it's just so much easier. It was pretty much like instantaneous.”

A deep roster

The Dallas Empire. (Courtesy/Envy Gaming)

Clayster and Crimsix may end up being the billboard guys, but to get the most out of the Call of Duty League’s five-on-five format played on the multiplayer maps in Modern Warfare, the Empire needed depth.

Rufail worked tirelessly to get Anthony Cuevas-Castro, 18, and Indervir Dhaliwal, 18, to complement Cuyler Garland, 20.

Clayster didn’t want to show clear bias in ranking the best players on the planet, but he did admit he thinks the Empire may have five of the best 10 players in the world. Crimsix claimed himself for that No. 1 spot.

Cuevas-Castro, who goes by “Shotzzy”, and Dhaliwal, who’s in-game-name is iLLeY, already knew Garland. Garland, otherwise known as “Huke,” helped bring the two of them in, as he was already signed with Envy.

Getting the big guys was tougher.

Clayster and Rufail spoke on the phone early in Rufail’s roster-construction process. After the first call, Rufail found the veteran to be too expensive. The two met in the middle in later talks because Clayster didn’t need to be the highest paid player.

He’s a two-time champ. Winning is what mattered.

Rufail saw the young talent he already had and realized the powerful roster he could have, Clayster said, and that spending the extra money would be worth it.

“I was going to get paid really well regardless of where I went just because me winning a World Championship last year,” Clayster said, “and so my player stock was just astronomically high. But I wanted to win and I wanted to stay in Texas and I wanted to work for a company who knew Call of Duty.

“This is just like check, check, check.”

Dominating scrimmages and winning on launch weekend is one thing. But the season is about proof for everyone involved. The Empire are convinced they are the best team with the best player.

There are players that are nearly always on that elite list with Clayster and Crimsix. That includes the lilkes Scump and Seattle’s Damon “Karma” Barlow, both former Crimsix teammates.

But none of them will have to wait much longer to find out who’s the best in the world.

“We're going to show the fans what is driving our team, and certainly Crim is out to prove that he is the absolute best player in the world and of all-time,” Rufail said. “Anytime you have a player on your team that has that kind of chip on the shoulder, you put them on your team.

“I think there's still a little bit of question amongst the community of who is the best. There are only really a couple of other names you can put into that mix. And yeah, that title is kind of up for grabs.”

On Twitter: @seanzcollins

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