The London Royal Ravens ahead of their opening match at the COD League. Photo by @RoyalRavens

The Call of Duty League heads to London on February 8th and 9th

The hometown London Royal Ravens outperformed expectations in their COD League debut

The Chicago Huntsmen enter as favorites after going 2-0 in the first week of the COD League

We’re one week into the inaugural season of the Call of Duty League and heading into London’s home-stand, there’s only first impressions to go off of. Eight of the 12 teams in the league are making the trip to England. Of that group only the Paris Legion and Chicago Huntsmen have a perfect 2-0 record.

Call of Duty League London Betting Odds

Player Odds Chicago Huntsmen +200 Paris Legion +425 London Royal Ravens +550 Dallas Empire +550 LA Guerillas +750 Toronto Ultra +1200 New York Subliners +1300 Seattle Surge +1400

All odds taken Feb. 4

Hunting for a Perfect Record

When the brand new Call of Duty franchises were forming their teams, the Chicago Huntsmen immediately jumped out as early favorites. They signed a proven trio of Scump, FormaL and Gunless, and filled out the team with some young talent. Arcitys was especially impressive in the opening week on the Hardpoint game mode. It might be the most stacked roster in the COD League and they absolutely dominated opening weekend.

The Huntsmen took down the Dallas Empire 3-1 before dismantling Optic Gaming Los Angeles. The closest teams to competing with Chicago are currently the Atlanta Faze and Minnesota Rokkr, neither of which are making the trip to London. Barring an upset from the likes of London or Dallas, the Huntsmen could keep their winning streak rolling.

The Hometown Team

The London Royal Ravens were a bit of an unknown entering the season. They were on the low end of many people’s preseason rankings. However, in their very first match, they took it to the New York Subliners and walked away with a sweep.

The very next day they had that favor returned to them by the Paris Legion. Despite the up and down performances, one glaring positive was the performance of wuskin who led the league in K/D for the opening week.

They’ll have the support of the fans, which greatly helped Minnesota during the opening weekend, so I suspect a strong showing out of the Royal Ravens. It just might not be strong enough to defeat Chicago.

Looking For Revenge

Where the Royal Ravens exceeded expectations in the first week of the Call of Duty League, the Dallas Empire massively under-performed. It’s another loaded roster with the likes of Clayster, Crimsix and Shotzzy, and yet they lost both of their games in week one. To their credit, both of those losses came to teams that are currently 2-0, Atlanta and Chicago.

The loss to Chicago should be a concern but Dallas has since had two weeks to look at the film and figure out the relatively new patch. A lot of these teams are still building that chemistry and Dallas should be able to start putting out performances that are expected of them. Dallas and Chicago are in the same group so expect a heated rematch between these two teams at some point.

An Ultra Longshot

Does Toronto really have a shot of winning this event in London? Probably not. But you can’t ignore the grittiness that they exhibited in their opening two matches. Against the Seattle Surge, the Ultra took Seattle to game 5 before winning the series on Search & Destroy. And although they lost to Minnesota 3-1, several of the maps they lost came down to last-second plays by the Rokkr.

The Ultra has a bigger roster than other teams and they’re still trying to figure out what combination works best. It’s unlikely that they’ll figure it out in time for London, but don’t sleep on Toronto pulling off an upset or two.

Pick: Dallas Empire (+550)