The ongoing Esports World Cup is going to feature a 16-team Modern Warfare 3 tournament in August, and according to multiple sources, LA Guerrillas will reject their invite earned from being a Call of Duty League franchise.
Despite finishing their regular season strong with a Top 3 finish at Major 4, ahead of CDL Championship contenders such as Toronto Ultra and OpTic Texas, the purple side of LA won’t be extending their season into the World Cup.
The Guerrillas’ Major 4 performance saw them earn a qualification spot for Champs, and could be ending the year in a strong position.
However, while other franchises and Challenger teams take to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the $1.8 million MW3 tournament, Guerrillas’ players are looking for new homes for the post-season trip.
Due to this, there will be an extra slot allotted to a Challengers team. At the time of writing, it is still unclear how exactly the three (or four, now) Challenger teams will earn their invites.
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Organizations and players aren’t entirely clued in, either, with multiple sources confirming there has been no conversation about how Challenger teams get invited.
As for the five Guerrillas players — Conor ‘Diamondcon’ Johst, Justice ‘Estreal’ McMillan, Kevin ‘Fame’ Bonanno, John-Alexander ‘Flames’ Dieguez, and Adam ‘Assault’ Garcia — their futures are not clear.
We have heard Minnesota Rokkr is interested in both Diamondcon and Estreal to form half of their Esports World Cup squad, though no decisions have been made at the time of writing. The current expectation, however, is that Rokkr’s EWC and Black Ops 6 rosters will not be the same.
This all comes after months of speculation that LA Guerrillas want to get out of the Call of Duty League, having released their other esports teams and reduced its overall workforce significantly with huge layoffs in February 2023.