The Atlanta FaZe are back on top of the Call of Duty League world after taking down the Los Angeles Thieves on Feb. 5 in the grand finals of Major Two in Boston. And for Atlanta’s core trio of Simp, aBeZy, and Cellium, this championship win had a little more meaning to it after what transpired at the end of the last CoD season.
Even though this was FaZe’s first championship since CoD Champs 2021, that doesn’t mean they had a bad season in 2022—they just came in second quite a lot.
In fact, at the four Majors and Champs last year, FaZe had four second-place finishes and one third-place showing. That’s a solid year of work for most teams, but maybe not in the eyes of fans who grew to expect FaZe to win everything.
Nevertheless, FaZe proved any doubters wrong this weekend by hoisting their first trophy since the end of the Black Ops Cold War season. And the Major Two MVP, Simp, summed up how the victory felt in one word: amazing.
“Being able to prove that we can still win at least since Cold War just feels amazing because having a whole year of Vanguard where it felt like we could catch a dub when we got to the finals and we just never did kinda sucked,” Simp told Dot Esports. “So just being able to come out here and show people we still got it is just amazing.”
The other half of the Tiny Terror duo, aBeZy, had a slightly different outlook on getting back on top of the CDL.
“I don’t think there’s really anything for us to prove at this point because we’ve all won a lot,” aBeZy said. “Last year, the fact that we even got second a lot was kinda crazy to me. It felt good to come out here and get the dub, though.”
Cellium, the third core piece of the Atlanta franchise, added he was happy with the work the team put in before the event and said it felt good to win again.
Related: Simp: ‘I think our SnD overall is by far the best in the league now’
But on top of actually securing another first-place finish, Atlanta were able to do it against a team that they had several tough battles with at the end of the 2022 CDL season. The Thieves beat FaZe twice at Major Four and CoD Champs 2022, eliminating them from both events. And in the case of Champs, L.A. won the biggest tournament of the year with Atlanta on the other side of the stage.
With that recent history between these squads, it wasn’t entirely surprising to hear the FaZe guys say this win felt that much sweeter.
“It felt amazing,” Simp said. “It felt great to beat these guys.”
“It definitely felt good, especially to get our revenge after last year,” aBeZy added.
SlasheR, the newest player on Atlanta, wasn’t a part of the FaZe squad that endured those CoD battles with L.A. last year. But he has his own history with the Thieves organization. He was a part of the Thieves’ inaugural CDL lineup in 2021 but was benched and reinserted into the playing roster throughout the year.
Despite the different circumstances compared to his new teammates, the veteran was clearly thrilled to be able to pick up another championship and do it against his former organization and teammates.
“Of course, I always wanna play against those guys,” SlasheR said. “There’s definitely some beef there, we ended on not the best of terms, so it felt good to beat those guys in the finals. I’ve been waiting to play them on LAN, too, so I’m glad. This was my first opportunity to do that because I’ve only got two online matches versus them—and I’m currently undefeated. But yeah, it feels good.”
Based on the performance of both Atlanta and the Thieves this weekend, it wouldn’t be a shock to see them square off in more grand finals throughout this year, possibly building on this recently-developed rivalry.
But CDL fans will get to see a rematch very soon, since the two heavyweight CoD squads will face off in an online qualifier match for Major Three on Sunday, Feb. 19.
