The YouTuber and streamer Aydan spoke on Twitter about a sad tactic used by professional players & content creators in Call of Duty: Warzone. To have a better chance in tournaments, they lower their K/D.
What is this tactic? When large streamers and well-known CoD players want to participate in a big tournament of Call of Duty: Warzone, they are allowed to bring the best weapons of the Warzone, but often cannot team up with their preferred squad.
Prominent Warzoners like “Nickmercs” or “Vikkstar123” act here as team leaders and are randomly assigned teammates. The teams aren’t completely randomly drawn, but an effort is made to create a fair playing field. Thus, players with a relatively low K/D (the ratio of kills to deaths) are matched with soldiers who have a strong and high K/D. This mechanic is called “K/D Cap.”
The YouTuber and Twitch streamer “Aydan” noticed that the K/D of many people has recently decreased “substantially” – even among major content creators. He further stated on Twitter: “It’s kind of sad to see that people do this just to get better teammates for K/D Cap tournaments.”
Aydan believes that professionals intentionally lower their K/D to perform better in tournaments.
Why is this such a problem? Here, two mechanics come together that can lead to unfair conditions in tournaments.
On one hand, players who actually have a high K/D and are among the top players of the Warzone also end up in tournaments with absolute Warzone stars. The K/D Cap mechanic is thus completely undermined, and the best players have the opportunity to team up with other top players.
But it also affects the matches of the ongoing tournaments. During such a tournament, participants play public matches, and their placements and kills count towards the tournament.
Analyses suggest that Warzone uses skill-based matchmaking to match players of similar skill levels together. So if professionals lower their K/D, the tournament-relevant matches might also feature weaker opponents.
Both factors make “reverse boosting” absolutely dishonorable and unfair for tournaments. Often there are several tens of thousands of dollars at stake and prize pools in the dimensions of 100,000 dollars. In a Warzone competition with partner “Vikkstar123” in early September, the organizers distributed a total of 210,000 dollars.
What do other professionals say about it? Some well-known Warzone players & streamers commented under the tweet:
Buncha lil rats. Do anything for some cheese! Stay focused tho big A, keep slayin’
— FaZe Nickmercs (@NICKMERCS) October 4, 2020
Nickmercs said on Twitter: “These little rats. They do anything for a bit of cheese” and harshly condemned this “tactic.” Former CoD pro “TeePee” takes a different approach and states that the system is not well-suited for Warzone tournaments:
I get what kd caps are supposed to do, but all it did was favor people who solo squad and wager regularly. Doesn’t work well for wz tournaments imo
— Tyler Polchow (@TylerTeeP) October 4, 2020
TeePee on Twitter: “I understand what K/D caps are supposed to do, but all they really do is favor people who solo in squads and take high risks. Doesn’t work for Warzone tournaments, in my opinion.”
In competitions, it often involves a lot of money, and a good team is half the battle in Warzone. If the accusations are true, it is cheating at the highest level – just that it cannot really be verified. Cheaters in matches can at least be reported, and the developers have already banned a total of 200,000 cheaters.
