by
Cody Perez
in Call of Duty | Apr, 19th 2021

OpTic Chicago has been one of the most popular and beloved teams of the entire Call of Duty League 2021 season. This is no surprise to anyone at all, given that this is the team that brought in the most fans and viewers when it was formerly known as the Chicago Huntsmen last year.

This team has been part of the top teams in the league for a long time, and it looks like that is continuing this year. However, what if this is not going to be the case for much longer? What if we are beginning to see the end of the current Chicago pro team as we know it?

Without a doubt, one of the most complicated parts of the 2021 season of the Call of Duty League is the switch from Modern Warfare to Black Ops Cold War for the game of choice. With this change has come something else: the switch back to the four-man squads that we had in previous esports years.

The Modern Warfare season saw the unique five-on-five approach take center stage, but it was met with controversy and disdain from many teams. Though the return of four-player squads is a welcome change for many, it has also resulted in some teams doing worse than they did before.

While some teams like the New York Subliners, Minnesota Rokkr, and Toronto Ultra are arguably better than ever before, other teams are worse than they were during the 2020 season. Several teams have been affected by this throughout the second season thus far.

At the time of writing this, we are going into the third stage of the season and are nearing the halfway point of what has been a crazy year so far. Though it has taken a bit to really get going, it seems like we are moving towards some shifts that are unlike anything we saw last year.

Instead of having the teams who all dominated last year continue to dominate in the same way, there are some new challengers approaching who are turning the Call of Duty League upside down. In the process, I feel that OpTic Chicago has been one of the teams on the receiving end of the more negative changes and results.

In fact, I would argue that OpTic Chicago is a shadow of its former self from the Huntsmen team that we saw last year. This will be potentially a controversial opinion, but it is my personal opinion, after all. However, I think it is important to point out that something is going wrong with this team.

Perhaps more than any other team in the league to date, I feel that OpTic Chicago is the biggest possible disappointment in 2021 compared to the team that it was last year. Sure, Dallas Empire has had its moments this season and definitely needs to reevaluate certain areas, but it has maintained some solid moments nonetheless.

On the other hand, Chicago is constantly appearing to shift between the powerhouse it was before (and can be) and a team that can fail in the most awkward and unfortunate ways possible. This is a team that should, for all intents and purposes, be dominating this season.

However, instead, we are getting a team that is no longer what it once was and could be getting worse by the minute. I am not here to bash Chicago, even though I am admittedly not the biggest fan of this team, but, rather, to criticize the performance and give my personal opinion on what it can do next.

Without an OpTic Chicago that we had last year, the league is missing that important link; that massive team that is scary to fight against and something that can shake teams like the Empire and sometimes even Atlanta FaZe to its core.

That is why I am here to offer my reasons for why OpTic Chicago is a shadow of its former self, what has led to this point in time, and what can change moving forward to ensure that the correct path doesn’t continue. Let’s get started.

It all starts with the general performance of the team as a whole. In general, I would say that Chicago is steadily decreasing in its performance as time goes on this season. It started out stronger than possibly ever before in the first stage and has been decreasing in strength ever since.

Let us take, for instance, the first stage of the 2021 season for OpTic Chicago. In that stage, it was paired up with Atlanta FaZe and the other teams in the group that was potentially the group of death then. Atlanta is like the weakness for this team, so I definitely didn’t expect Chicago to take them down, so it was no surprise when FaZe came out on top in the normal weekly matches.

With that particular match aside, Chicago actually did quite well for itself, easily dispatching Paris Legion, Toronto Ultra, the Los Angeles Guerrillas, and the Florida Mutineers to come out as the second-best team in the group. This put them in the winners bracket with a solid chance of winning the whole thing.

Then we came to the first Major and the team did great, decimating the New York Subliners before losing to Dallas Empire in a pretty close match. This was all in the expected performance, though. It was able to defeat the LA Thieves but was then upset in a rematch against the Subliners where they lost three to nothing in the opposite situation.

But, once again, the cracks began to spread even more when we came to the Major most recently, where the team lost in the first round of the upper bracket to Toronto Ultra. They recovered with a win over Seattle, again as expected, but then lost to Rokkr in the most insane way possible.

The second stage is a totally different story for Chicago compared to the spectacular first one. Couple that with the other reasons below, and you have a team that is currently a shadow of its former self.

For one, the roster changes for OpTic Chicago were not great when coming into the 2021 season. I really like Dashy, and I think that he brings some interesting strategy to the team that really grounds it and brings something that is missing.

But my problem is that he shouldn’t have had to join the team in the first place if it kept at least one more of the players from the past roster. The twins were a great duo and, while I get that choosing one over the other would have sucked, it was a missed opportunity for the team.

I would even, personally, argue that you could have gotten rid of another player instead, and then you could have kept both of them on the roster for the 2021 season. This roster change was one that was understandable, though, given the switch to the four-person squads.

But it definitely feels like Chicago is a team that thrived better when it was the five-person team it was last year compared to this year. It still has the chance to reclaim the former glory, but we will have to wait and see for now as there are more pressing issues than just the roster.

By far, my biggest issue with the Chicago team is that it has the worst sportsmanship out of any other team in the league. Some of the players have the worst attitudes around, and they are not afraid to show it in the slightest when it comes to public podcasts and reactions.

I personally see OpTic Chicago as 2021’s villainous team of the league, but not necessarily in the cool and alluring way that you might think. Instead, they are the cursing, offensive, and downright frustrating team that feels like they think they can say whatever they want about whoever they want.

And, unfortunately, there really is no one to stop them. While other teams and players have been treated with warnings and reprimands for certain remarks in the past, it feels like Chicago is the exception who is able to do whatever it wants at all times.

I don’t put the full blame on the players themselves. In many cases, like this one, it does fall to the leadership. If the leadership was more strict and punishing, then we wouldn’t have the terrible sportsmanship and attitudes that this team largely has.

They are led by one of the most offensive CEOs in the industry who has basically built his reputation on these lame gimmicks that are rarely ever as funny as he potentially thinks it is. With him leading the pack, it’s no surprise that it almost feels like this team is a rogue squad that is hard to like these days.

In the end, I would like to say all of this with the intention of offering some advice to the team and the fans as well. For the team, there are some things that OpTic Chicago can do to recover from this potential rut that it is slowly digging itself into in 2021.

While it is still near the top of the leaderboard, that will change very soon if they continue down this path in stage three and beyond. To help change this up, first and foremost, the team needs to focus on the maps and modes that it once dominated in but has been slipping lately.

It needs to hone in on those weak parts and not ignore them or pretend like it was just a fluke that the other team somehow got that upset because it wasn’t a coincidence at all. The team also needs to make sure that every fight gets the attention that it needs.

Don’t just focus on the bigger picture and the huge teams that are in front of them, and forget about the smaller teams that can swoop in and get an unexpected win. Then there are the attitudes. It is time for some serious change in this department as it can be hard to focus on the problems that you and your team have if you are getting so angry and being offensive towards others.

Tackle those behavioral issues, and that can affect the team synergy as a whole, leading to better performance and coordination. As for the Chicago fans, if you feel burnt out, there are a couple of teams that we recommend you keep an eye on this season.

There is Toronto Ultra who is steadily rising but it remains to be seen how long this will continue. As such, I would present Minnesota Rokkr and New York Subliners as the teams to watch, instead. Roker, in particular, is fantastic for quickly becoming the new OpTic for me.

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Source: https://www.esportstalk.com/news/opinion-optic-chicago-is-a-shadow-of-its-former-self/