The Call of Duty roster carousel in between Major events has begun, and it’s the league’s most popular team making a big change by going back to what it started with.
Pred is now back on the OpTic Texas roster, the team announced today. He will be replacing Huke, who replaced Pred in December, and Huke will now be a free agent. OpTic has treated the announcement as a celebratory homecoming for Pred, who won the 2024 CDL Championship with OpTic less than a year ago.
But it’s definitely a bit of an unceremonious ending for Huke who was, by all accounts, OpTic’s best player during Major One after he replaced Pred. According to BreakingPoint.gg, Huke actually lead the league in overall K/D ratio (and Hardpoint K/D) in his time with OpTic, and many fans on social media called out the disappointing decision in reply to the announcement.
“This might be one of the dirtiest moves I have ever seen in CoD esports history,” one fan replied. “This man came in after a weird situation, was arguably their best player… and boom he’s gone. Happy to see Pred back but Huke deserved better.”
It’s possible Huke knew the situation moving forward that he was replacing Pred for a limited time, and this could have been the plan all along. Three days after Huke joined OpTic, Pred announced he was stepping away from competing to handle his own “personal issues,” with no timetable given for his return. Now, less than two months later, he’s back and ready to try to regain his superstar form once again.
I’m sure that OpTic’s reunion with Pred doesn’t make it any less disappointing for Huke, who did his best to lead OpTic during Pred’s absence, but the team could only make it to the second round of the elimination bracket in Major One before being taken out by the Carolina Royal Ravens 3-1.
With Huke’s early performance, however, he shouldn’t have too much of an issue finding a roster spot in the CDL for the rest of the season. There’s not much time for teams to make roster changes before the competition kicks off again, though.
Major Two begins next week on Feb. 14, and culminates in a LAN event hosted by OpTic in Dallas, Texas, starting on March 20.
Published: Feb 6, 2025 05:20 pm