This week, the Activision team unveiled their intentions for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 as well as the updated Call of Duty League 2023 season schedule. In this article, Gamelevate will focus on the competitive side of the CDL by focusing on the Call of Duty League 2023 season details.
After having one of the shortest off-seasons ever, CDL is set to return with a bang. The coordination between the release of Modern Warfare 2 and the start of the CDL season has been well-timed. The CDL also released a video interview with Call of Duty League General Manager, Daniel “Waniel” Tsay. In the video Tsay provides more visibility into future plans for the Call of Duty League 2023 season. Here are his comments along with the announcement by CDL:
Call of Duty League 2023 Season Format
Qualifying Weeks
This Call of Duty League 2023 season the qualifier weeks will consist of three weeks of online gameplay, during which time each team will play five games. Those three weeks will determine the seeding for the LAN matches at team-hosted major tournaments. Major I is the only exception, as there will be only two weeks of qualifiers with teams playing four matches each (more details on this below).
Game Modes
The season will be played on Hardpoint, Search and Destroy, and Control game modes.
Major I Format Details
Major I will follow a Pro-Am format in which qualified Challengers teams will battle the pros with CDL Points and US $500,000 up for grabs.
Prior to Major I, we will hold two Challenger Cups plus an online qualifier—the Major I Challenger Qualifier presented by Aim Lab—to narrow the field down to eight Challengers teams that will be invited to Raleigh: three teams from NA, three from EU, one from the APAC region, and one from the LATAM region.
Prior to Major I’s Thursday start, those eight teams will be put into a Wednesday LAN Qualifier in a two-group GSL format, which is an alternative to the traditional round-robin format.
LAN Qualifier to Major I Group Stage
The top four teams emerging from that LAN Qualifier stage will join the Major I Group Stage alongside Call of League teams, and the bottom four teams will compete in the Challengers Open. Read more about 2023 Challengers updates here.
As far as our pro teams go, their qualifiers will look similar to last season. We shortened the number of qualifier weeks for Major I in order to wrap things up before the holidays. Each team will play four qualifying matches in two weeks, and then the League will host Major I in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Major I will begin with four groups of four teams competing in a GSL format. The top two from each group will then advance into a double-elimination bracket to decide the champion of Major I.
Different from last year, all Majors finals will be played in a best-of-seven format instead of a best-of-nine.
Bounty Matches Return for 2023
Last season we debuted our Call of Duty League Bounty Matches, and we’re excited to announce that Bounty Matches will return for the 2023 season. This means that in the middle of our Call of Duty League 2023 season we’ll have some exciting opportunities for teams to compete for more prizing and bragging rights.
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Points and Prizing Continuity
We also wanted to touch on our CDL Points system for this upcoming season. There was some feedback on the points system regarding the possibility of adding more points to LAN matches. We have looked into various potential changes but ultimately will be keeping the point system the same. This is given the larger point importance LAN matches already have in comparison to online matches. While we will be keeping our points system the same for 2023, it will be something we closely monitor.
Total prizing for the season will stay the same at US $5M.
Challengers Updates
We are also very excited to announce the adjustments we’re making this season to our Call of Duty Challengers program.
Some of the areas of focus we wanted to address this offseason were providing more meaningful competition opportunities and assessing the skill levels of Challengers more accurately.
Below is the summary of major changes we’re making, with full detail in our Challengers blog here:
- Expanding NA and EU Elite from 8 to 12 teams to provide more opportunities for top Challenger teams to play within this prestigious circuit
- Smoothing out the points curve for Cups and Opens to make sure teams in the upper and middle tiers of placement are being more accurately assessed points
- Converting the Finals for all double elimination brackets to Bo7 instead of two Bo5s to align with the Call of Duty League
- Increasing Challengers Finals to 16 teams to make sure more top teams can attend the season’s biggest competition
2023 Qualifying Weeks
We wanted to also give an announcement on the qualifying stages for Majors. During the Call of Duty League 2023 season, the qualifier weeks will consist of three weeks of online gameplay, during which time each team will play five games. Those three weeks will determine the seeding for the LAN matches at team-hosted major tournaments. Major I is the only exception, as there will be only two weeks of qualifiers with teams playing four matches each.
Call of Duty League 2023 Season Schedule
We’ve got the schedule lined up for 2023, so LFG!
Major I – League Hosted
- Dec. 2–11 – Online Qualifiers
- Dec. 15–18 – LAN Tournament
Major II – Boston Breach
- Jan. 13–29 – Online Qualifiers
- Feb. 2–5 – LAN Tournament
Major III – OpTic Texas
- Feb. 17–Mar 5 – Online Qualifiers
- March 9–12 – LAN Tournament
Major IV – New York Subliners
- March 24–April 9 – Online Qualifiers
- April 13–16 – LAN Tournament
Major V – Toronto Ultra
- May 5–21 – Online Qualifiers
- May 25–28 – LAN Tournament
2023 Playoffs and Champs (TBD)
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