With the pending release of Call of Duty’s next edition in just one week, teams and player are gearing up for what should be a refreshing change of pace for the competitive scene.
Today Team eLevate announced the signing of the lineup that placed second at the biggest event in the past year, team Revenge. The four man squad of Ulysses “AquA” Silva, Jared “Nagafen” Harrell, Brice Faccento, and Remington “Remy” Ihringer shocked the scene when they placed second at the $1 million Call of Duty Championship in March of this year, scoring $200,000 in prizes.
The squad ended up splitting apart ahead of second season of the Major League Gaming (MLG) pro league, but they’ll be back together heading into the next chapter of Call of Duty with the release of Black Ops 3 slated for Nov. 6.
“We’re excited to all be playing together as a team again, especially under the eLevate organization,” the team captain Silva said. “We’re all great friends and we’ve been playing together for a while, so going into this game I think we’ll have an edge over our competition.”
The team’s friendship and chemistry will be doubly important considering eLevate’s plan for the team. They’ve signed them to a year long contract and plan to enforce those contracts to try to develop a competitive lineup throughout the whole year. That isn’t a common occurrence in a Call of Duty scene infamous for rampant roster changing even after MLG implemented rules to curb the team swapping that commonly occurs after every major event.
“Our purpose here has been to provide our professionals, who have already proven themselves in the competitive field, support and time to develop even further, by providing contracts that span the whole of the Black Ops 3 release,” Brandon “MaDDoG” Hatfield, Team eLevate CEO, told the Daily Dot. Hatfield aims to change the roster change culture that he says “doesn’t serve the community or its professionals as well as it should.”
“We want to show our fans and the community at large that we are confident in what this roster is capable of doing and committed to their development,” he explained.
Developing a lineup may be key in Black Ops 3, which promises to remove some of the focus on slaying skill present in Advanced Warfare with its fast paced movement, putting more emphasis on teamwork and strategy.
The pickup may come as a surprise considering eLevate already had a top notch team. Their roster featuring Josiah “Slacked” Berry, Sam “Octane” Larew, Thomas “TJHaly” Haly, and Renato “Saints” Forza took third at this month’s Major League Gaming (MLG) World Finals, one of the biggest events of the year. But players like Haly, who is currently under 18, do not meet the age requirement to compete in next year’s Call of Duty World League, making that lineup dead in the water.
Either way, Team eLevate has a talented lineup to represent them throughout the entire 2016 season—something that may give them an edge heading into the biggest year of Call of Duty yet.
Screengrab via Call of Duty/YouTube
