A pro becomes world champion for the third time in Call of Duty and is regarded as one of the best players, but he can only do this with the controller.
Who is it about? Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro is a professional “Call of Duty” player and is considered one of the best players of the popular shooter.
In 2020, Shotzzy became world champion in Call of Duty for the first time while playing for the “Dallas Empire” team. He is now with Team OpTic. With OpTic, Shotzzy became world champion again in 2024 and was additionally awarded as MVP (Most Valuable Player). On June 29, 2025, Shotzzy successfully defended the world championship title and won the important tournament again with OpTic.
Before Shotzzy played Call of Duty professionally, he was already an eSports player in Halo. He also became world champion there (2018) and was among the best players of the game.
A force on the controller, weaknesses with mouse and keyboard
What sets Shotzzy apart: Shotzzy is considered one of the best CoD players and is distinguished by exceptionally good aim and movement – at least when he holds a controller in his hands and can use the aim assist from Call of Duty. When playing with mouse and keyboard, he has weaknesses.
In January 2025, he wanted to prove in a Twitch stream that aim is not the most important thing in Call of Duty and therefore played with mouse and keyboard – but it backfired completely.
The eSports player lost one gunfight after another and quickly became annoyed. It was obvious that without a controller and the aim assist, which is a targeting aid, he could not compete at the highest level.
Shotzzy’s “weakness” is not unusual, but intentional
What is behind Shotzzy’s weakness? Shotzzy plays Call of Duty with a controller and is therefore inexperienced with mouse and keyboard. However, one cannot blame the professional or simplistically say that he merely exploits the aim assist. This is precisely intentional.
In Call of Duty, all professionals play with controllers. Not just because they want to, but because they have to. The Call of Duty League transitioned to mandatory controller use in 2020 (via callofdutyleague.com). And also in the rules of the Call of Duty Challengers 2025 – this is the path through which players can become professionals – the use of mouse and keyboard is prohibited.
Players like Shotzzy are understandably only good with a controller and would be at a disadvantage in firefights with mouse and keyboard or without aim assist. This was recently demonstrated by CoD professional Swagg when he played a shooter that has no aim assist: Pro has over 8,000 hours in Call of Duty, tries out another shooter and shows that he actually can’t aim at all
