The Call of Duty: League season of CoD: Black Ops Cold War starts without sniper rifles. The reason is the state of the game, as an important counter-item to the big guns is broken.
What’s going on? The “Call of Duty: League” (CDL) is an E-sports league created by Call of Duty itself that has been played since 2020 and Modern Warfare. All teams are assigned to an American or European city and compete over several months for the best spots in the “Champions Weekend,” where the world championship title is at stake.
The CoD professionals play with different rules than in normal matches. For instance, most weapon classes are locked and certain equipment is prohibited. LMGs, shotguns, and tactical rifles are excluded, as is the popular Stim Shot for healing.
In addition to the official rule set, the matches are also subject to so-called “Gentleman Agreements” (GAs). If the professionals identify equipment that they consider incompatible with the competitive standards of the league, the players coordinate with each other and can thus ban additional weapons, equipment, or even play styles.
This has now also happened with sniper rifles. The large weapons are temporarily part of the GA and thus banned in official matches. The reason is a broken item in Cold War.
Equipment is so broken that snipers are dropped
Which item isn’t working properly? It’s about the smoke grenade. This item creates a large smoke wall after being thrown, providing protection from visibility and possible gunfire. Since thermal sights (which players can use to detect through smoke) are also banned in the CDL due to the GAs, the smoke grenade essentially always creates a relatively safe area and is therefore the best tactical item to counter sniper rifles.
However, the item is broken – it sometimes doesn’t work properly and introduces an unknown variable into the game. After several weeks of scrim matches (practice games), the professionals decided to add the smoke grenades to their GA list. Shortly thereafter, the sniper rifles followed, as without the smoke they are simply too strong.
Will snipers return to the CDL? That currently depends solely on the state of Cold War. As long as the “smokes” are broken, the snipers will remain shelved. According to the US news site Dexerto, the professionals have already tried quite a bit to find a compromise for the sniper.
Among other things, they wanted to allow the weapons without attachments or only in a game mode (Search & Destroy). But nothing helped – without smoke, the sniper rifles are too strong and had to be dropped.
CDL plays with many restrictions
What are the current rules in the CDL? To give you insight into how the league is played, here are some excerpts from the current rulebook. However, things may change during the season.
Game modes & Maps
- Hardpoint on Checkmate, Crossroads, Garrison, Moscow, and Raid
- Search & Destroy on Checkmate, Garrison, Miami, and Raid
- Control on Checkmate, Garrison, and Raid
Prohibited Equipment
- Primary Weapons: LMGs & Tactical Rifles
- Secondary Weapons: Shotguns, Rocket Launchers, and the M79 Grenade Launcher
- Attachments: SWAT-5mw Laser Sight, Yellow Dot, and Akimbo Attachments
- Tactical Equipment: Stun and Smoke Grenade
- Primary Equipment: C4 and Tomahawk
- Field Upgrades: Proximity Mine, Field Microphone, and Gas Mine
- Perks: Paranoia, Forward Intel, and Tracker
- Wildcard: Run and Gun
- Scorestreaks: Artillery costs 1,600 / Cruise Missile 2,000
Gentleman Agreements
- Weapons: AK-47, KSP 45, 1911, Magnum, and all sniper rifles
- Attachments: Thermal Scopes, Tactical Flavours, all “Body” Attachments, KGB Eliminator, and SOCOM Eliminator
- Perks / Wildcards: Scavenger, Gung-Ho, Extra Greed, and Law Breaker (only allowed without the Overkill function)
- Grenades and Field Upgrades: Molotov, Smoke Grenade, Stun, and a maximum of 3 Trophy Systems per team
- Scorestreaks: Artillery costs 1,600 / Cruise Missile 2,000
The list shows the most important restrictions when it comes to equipment choices and indicates under what restrictions the professionals must play. Notably, the ban on the AK-47. The professionals say the weapon is too powerful for the CDL. Whether the removal of the sniper rifles from the CDL matches will prove equally interesting remains to be seen.
