The New York Subliners have won their first Call of Duty League event of the 2022 season, defeating the L.A. Thieves today to lift the Pro-Am Classic trophy.
New York had struggled to find themselves as a team throughout the Vanguard season but bounced back after bringing on Paul “PaulEhx” Avila and Matthew “KiSMET” Tinsley. These two additions have been the pieces that were missing for the Subliners to propel them to a grand-finals win against the Thieves.
The best-of-five series started with the Thieves taking Berlin Hardpoint in near-flawless fashion. They handed New York an invitation to the 100-point club after taking the first map 250-85. Everyone on the Thieves stayed hot after their win against OpTic Texas earlier on in the day, especially Dylan “Envoy” Hannon, who went on a nine killstreak to end the map with a 1.25 KD.
But despite a one-sided first map, New York answered back with a map win of their own by taking Tuscan Search and Destroy 6-3 to tie the series up, 1-1. Los Angeles struggled against New York earlier on in the tournament in Search and Destroy when the Thieves got full sailed by New York, who won six rounds in a row despite L.A. being on match point.
New York answered back with yet another map win on Gavutu Control, which saw the Thieves struggle to keep composure. Meanwhile, the Subliners were in the driver’s seat throughout, earning more ticks to grant them defense in the final round. A 3-2 win 0n Control brought them to 2-1 and one map away from winning.
Tuscan Hardpoint was the final map of the series and saw the Subliners keep their momentum from the two previous map wins. The team may have started out slow on the first Hardpoint but made up for it, in the end, by winning the series on the second, 250–237.
The 2022 CDL regular season officially resumes on Friday, May 13 with the start of the online qualifiers for Major Three.