The Los Angeles Thieves picked up their first victory of the 2022 Call of Duty League regular season tonight against the winless New York Subliners.
This was only the Thieves’ second online match of the regular season, coming off a 3-1 loss to the Atlanta FaZe on Feb. 6. But the main storyline entering today’s match centered around the Subliners, who started the 2022 CDL season 0-2 following losses to the Seattle Surge and Los Angeles Guerrillas last week.
New York quickly became the first CDL team to make a roster move this year and officially announced today that Royalty was replacing Neptune in the squad’s starting lineup, a move first reported by Dot Esports’ CRONE. But even with the addition of the Canadian submachine gun player, the Subliners’ early-season struggles continued.
Related: Online qualifier match results for 2022 Call of Duty League Major One
This series between New York and L.A. started with a 250-206 victory for the Thieves on Bocage Hardpoint. Envoy led the lobby with 39 kills, while Royalty had the fewest eliminations in map one, producing a 19/35 scoreline. But Royalty immediately responded in map two, Tuscan Search and Destroy. He dropped a game-high 10 kills to help New York claim a hard-fought 6-5 win.
The series then transitioned to Gavutu Control, where Los Angeles heavily outslayed the Subliners. All four players on the Thieves posted positive K/Ds in map three, while everyone on New York went negative. Kenny almost went double-positive at 27/14 in Los Angeles’ 3-1 Control victory. Royalty, on the other hand, led the Subliners in kills for the second consecutive map, posting 18 eliminations.
Facing a 2-1 deficit, New York made L.A. battle on map four, Gavutu Hardpoint. But once again, the Thieves took another respawn map and closed out the match with a 250-218 win. Kenny produced a series-leading 1.33 K/D with a 96/72 scoreline, according to Breaking Point. Royalty went 63/86 (0.73 K/D) in his first online CDL match. All four New York players posted negative K/Ds in this series, however.
The Subliners now fall to 0-3 on the young season and are in jeopardy of starting the first Major of the year in the losers bracket. New York won’t play again until next week when they take on the Boston Breach on Feb. 19. The Thieves (1-1) will be back in action tomorrow against the Florida Mutineers.
In the other matches earlier today, the Boston Breach improved to 2-0 with a 3-1 victory over the Paris Legion. Despite a 114-kill series out of Standy, the Seattle Surge beat the Minnesota RØKKR 3-2 with a game five, round 11 clutch by Accuracy. And the Toronto Ultra bounced back from last week’s game five, round 11 loss to Seattle with a 3-0 sweep of the Los Angeles Guerrillas.
The online qualifier matches for the first Major of the 2022 CDL season will continue tomorrow, Feb. 12, starting with a showdown between Minnesota and the London Royal Ravens at 2pm CT.
