This article is part of our DraftKings Call of Duty series.
Games (EDT)
- 3:00 p.m. Seattle Surge vs. Paris Legion
- 4:30 p.m. OpTic Gaming Los Angeles vs. Los Angeles Guerrillas
SEA vs. PAR
The 2020 Call of Duty World Championships are finally here. For the next six consecutive days, there will be DraftKings competitions pertaining to the final tournament of the Call of Duty season, with the championship concluding August 30.
While the slate Wednesday is small, we'll see more games on the slate Sunday, with the ensuing days sticking to this four-teams-per-day format. That makes things difficult for this first go around, as the four teams playing Wednesday are the bottom four in terms of standing.
I'll be honest when I say this feels like a crapshoot. If we're going off past form, I think the Legion would be considered major favorites especially after making the Grand Finals in the London Home stand. It's just that a Legion win isn't exactly actionable as Louqa was the only player to score over 100 DK points in any of their last three contests despite all going at least four games. Paris feel like a safer "team" selection given they are the favorites and their Search and Destroy game has been excellent (only two losses over the last two tournaments) and a second Hardpoint adds tremendous value to some of their objective players relative to the current price.
The Surge are entirely dependent on Octane who is one of the few players on DraftKings that doesn't need a series win in order to maintain positive production. He needs to be in your lineup, but I'm convinced that tagging the captain spot on the destructive slayer isn't the right call, either for cash games or tournaments. Finding a way to get Louqa, Octane and SlasheR in a lineup doesn't take much creativity, but it does depend on guessing correctly which of the sub $8,000 players can have a 75-80 point game. The multi-time champion, Apathy, fits that bill for me, if only because he seems to play better in this sort of setting, and I'm unafraid of the SMG presence on the Legion. If you wanted to try KiSMET (for the objective play) or Hollow instead, it's a completely fine call as well. Both series probably go at least four games, but this is one of those weird situations where putting together a mini stack of this series makes more sense than piling on any one of the specific four teams Wednesday.
Prediction: PAR 3-1
SEA Players to Target: Octane ($10,200), Apathy ($7,200)
PAR Players to Target: Louqa ($9,600), Denz ($7,800), KiSMET ($7,400)
OGLA vs. LAG
The battle of Los Angeles doesn't exactly have the same ring to it when it's in loser's bracket Round 1. The decision to bench Dashy and Chino has been a mixed bag for OpTic Gaming, as the team has been a bit more consistent in respawn, but still struggles in S&D. Unlike the Surge who run entirely through Octane, OGLA has actually gravitated away from the usage of SlasheR despite the veteran being the undisputed shot-caller on the team.
The Octane/Louqa/SlasheR pricing is entirely correct by DraftKings, and if you wanted to fade one out of the group, it's definitely the former World Champion. I just don't know how many players really give you 80-90 point potential on this slate, and to me, it's worth trying to figure out the rest of the roster if it means I can safely scratch in that production.
I might need to form my own Kuavo DFS support group for all the times he's let me down, but again, if I'm trying to project for an 80+ spot, there's few that come as cheap as the former 100 Thieves star. I know the meta has moved away slightly from SMG's, but he still plays a critical part on the team and does enough on a per-engagement basis where I'm not kicking the habit Wednesday.
If you opt to go with just two of the three highest-priced players, any two of the Blazt/Decemate/Kuavo/Aqua combo feels the most ideal. I'm gravitating towards the OGLA players more because they aren't entirely dependent on a series pushing to four games, but this is the contest where you want to grab the majority of your players if you are stacking a single game. The prediction doesn't matter, I could see this go any number of different directions and it's hard to adjust for every one.
Prediction: OGLA 3-2
OGLA Players to Target: SlasheR ($9,200), Kuavo ($8,000)
LAG Players to Target: Blazt ($8,200), Decemate ($8,000), AquA ($7,800)
