Against all odds, the Call of Duty League pros agreed to ban snaking, but it’s taking some players longer than others to get the muscle memory out of their system.
Snaking in CoD refers to players positioning themselves behind an object on a map and quickly switching between prone and crouching positions. The movement resembles a snake, and it’s challenging for players to shoot an enemy bobbing and weaving behind cover.
Although annoying to go up against, snaking is a skill, and Sledgehammer Games explained why it’s hard to balance the feature in an interview with Warzone content creator Repullze. Multiplayer creative director Greg Reisdorf said: “We want you to be good at the game. If you can do it, do it. But at the same time, there is always one player on the other side of it, and we want to make sure it’s a good experience for them, as well.”
CDL pros are struggling to unlearn snaking
The MW3 devs confirmed that the team is “actively investigating what can be done about snaking,” but in the meantime, the CDL took matters into its own hands.
Instead of waiting for the devs to come to the rescue, snaking has been voted out by CDL teams based on a Gentleman’s Agreement (GA) on Nov. 29. Agreeing to a GA makes matters quite tricky, as it’s up to the players and coaches to enforce the rule. There aren’t any official consequences for breaking the agreement, so some pros don’t believe snaking is gone forever.
Within hours of the vote, finger-pointing started as teams called out other players for snaking during scrims.
A clip of veteran CDL pro Clayster falling victim to snaking violations first went viral. The three-time world champion responded: “LMFAO, it was our first game, alright, it takes a little bit to get out of your system.”
There have always been occurrences of snaking during CDL matches over the years, but the controversial movement mechanic reached new heights of relevance in CoD Vanguard and Modern Warfare 2. In MW2 especially, a large segment of the fanbase argued that snaking hurt the quality of the product, as the movement feature forced players to be more cautious before rushing out into open spaces. As a result, the match pace of play suffered.
Former CDL legend Scump weighed in, saying “This GA right here is a dam. There’s going to be little cracks in it, and then water trickles through it until it eventually bursts.”
Community members hold their doubts about whether the agreement will last. Under the bright lights of the main stage at a Major, it’s so easy for a pro to slip up in the heat of the moment and fall back on old habits out of instinct. Sure, it was the first match, but if Clayster already did it by muscle memory during a scrim, who is to say we won’t see that same pattern reoccur again?
“It doesn’t matter if people agree to stop snaking in scrims etc. When it comes down to an important series online or a LAN match, people are going to do whatever possible to win. It needs to be a dev fix,” EU Challengers player Hicksy claimed.
And Hicksy does have a point. Historical evidence tells us that Gentlemen’s Agreements can change at the drop of a hat in the CDL. For example, pro players have banned and unbanned sniper rifles several times in MW3 before the season even started.
The devs did not reveal a timeline for their investigation into snaking. We will get our first look at how the dam holds up when the CDL season starts on Dec.8.
