James Eubanks doesn’t forget his laptop and HDMI cord when he goes on road trips. Both items were handy after the Dallas Empire star, also known as “Clayster,” and his team suffered a pair of surprising losses to Chicago and Atlanta on Jan. 25 at Call of Duty League’s launch weekend in Minneapolis.

“One of the best things about the loss is that it allowed us to go back to the hotel and watch vods together,” Clayster said. “That was something I don’t always see in my CoD teams. It was really nice that we were all willing to come together and discuss the problem instead of just going our separate ways and brooding about it.”

The Empire, who were projected to be a contender in the preseason, received prime-time matches against loaded Chicago and Atlanta teams and laid an egg after weeks of slaying out in scrimmages. There were questions about their preparation and ability to adapt or if Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro and Indervir “iLLeY” Dhaliwal, both 18 years old, would recover quickly from their CoD LAN debut.

“One of the main points I wanted to drive home to them was that excuses aren’t really acceptable, but there can be things that contribute to failure or success,” Clayster said. “People don’t call them excuses when you win. It was a stack of things that didn’t go our way and sometimes that happens in Call of Duty.”

Losing was frustrating, but Clayster said they understood the bigger picture. This wasn’t a tournament. That format, which will carry out the remainder of the regular season, begins Saturday in London.

This was two matches. 20 points. And both games were against teams with championship DNA.

“After you win a championship you are almost on a one-year high. You just have a stupid amount of confidence. I mean, I’ve felt that, and it’s really different,” Ian “Crimsix” Porter said. “We played two teams that are probably the most experienced, championship-earning squads. We were in Minneapolis to put on a show. It wasn’t meant for anything other than 20 points. These tournaments are significantly more.”

How Crimsix and Clayster handled defeat was important for a team that’s supposed to be among the best. They set the tone in practice and make the decisions. While the stars didn’t expect to have to adapt from the jump, Crimsix said, they were ready to change their play style.

The Empire knew some of their weaknesses before the season started.

“We played a certain way before Minneapolis and that way didn’t work. We changed that,” Crimsix said. “We realized maybe we shouldn’t just have Shotzzy on the hill. We’d have one player get all of our hill time. We thought maybe we shouldn’t be doing that but we were winning, so we did anyways. Then we lost the first two matches and knew the first two things to switch.”

Shotzzy said his role was inconsistent before the Empire’s recent adjustments that placed him in the aggressive role he’s comfortable in. He and Clayster used to swap who would use trophy systems near the objective and who would push the enemy.

That’s ironed out now, and adapting fast will be important moving forward.

Clayster said he expects more patches before tournaments going forward. Crimsix thought future changes may just involve spawns, and that could be a net negative, but the Empire are back to dominating in practice.

Not a bad last map before London. Excited to see the crowd and feel the energy! pic.twitter.com/Nqf7hbYvod — Empire Clayster (@Clayster) February 4, 2020

Now is the time for that, too. The eight-team tournament in London will provide 50 points to the winner. Dallas was placed in group A with Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. Two wins would push them to the next round.

Crimsix said he’s looking forward to the whole thing. He’s been overseas dozens of times and doesn’t mind the long flights.

But mostly it’s about putting last week behind them.

“All these people can tell us we suck but I don’t really care,” Crimsix said. “It’s just pointless. At the end of the day those matches were there to showcase the league. If they were there to showcase talent the structure would’ve been different.”

Well, the structure is different from now on. How the Empire showcase their talent in London could be a strong indicator of where this team truly stacks up with the rest of this young league.

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