A new Call of Duty League Comms video led to yet another wave of backlash from players and staff alike, and now OpTic’s H3CZ and Scump have hit out.
The intention of Comms videos is to provide insight into how players are interacting with one another in the heat of the moment. However, the 2021 season has seen this content go a step too far, according to many of the league’s top players.
An earlier Comms video released in February led to NYSL’s James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks flipping off his camera live on the broadcast. Now, just weeks later and a number of OpTic players are lashing out over the latest release.
While their first loss to FaZe in Stage 1 went to a game five, it was the S&Ds that cost OpTic, winning just a single round across two maps. It proved to be a good learning experience for the team, though it was obviously a tough loss at the time. Now, the OpTic players have hit out at the League for sharing their private comms.
Scump, Dashy & more complain
The original tweet with the video has now been deleted, after much deliberation and backlash from the pros. “No shot y’all posted this,” Seth ‘Scump’ Abner commented underneath the video. Evidently, the CDL didn’t run this one by the players before sharing it online. “Bro, no shot right?” Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell followed up as well.
Revealing private moments through wins and losses is one thing. Historically, this kind of insight has often been praised by the community when handled properly. In this instance, however, it was more than just these moments that were made public.
Bro no shot right 🤣🤣
— brandon (@DashySZN) March 16, 2021
“Let’s hop on board with a nine-minute Listen-In to see what the comms of OpTic are going into maps,” head coach Troy ‘Sender’ Michaels joked in response. The video gave a unique look at how players across both teams discuss strategy heading into each map. For these two squads, it gives their opposition a chance to see how they think on game day.
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OpTic H3CZ addresses the issue
OpTic founder Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez addressed the issue, alongside Scump and FormaL, in a vlog posted on March 18.
“It’s so uncool by the League to do that,” H3CZ says as Scump can be heard complaining in the background. “What you guys do behind closed doors to hype yourselves up shouldn’t be public… It’s literally taking it out of context.”
Now the second major issue related to CDL’s Comms videos, it’ll be interesting to see if any changes are made moving forward — especially when some of the biggest names in Call of Duty esports are calling it out.
As we’ve seen in previous years, there are plenty of ways to go about this form of content without revealing intricate details teams intend to keep private.