CDL 2026 Round Up With Merk And Maven

The Call of Duty League Black Ops 7 Season has wrapped up with the banners of FaZe Vegas folded over the top. In one of the strongest years in the partnership system, CDL 2026 proved to be full of twists until the end.

Now it’s time to look back and reflect, and who better than Joe “Merk” De Luca and Clint “Maven” Evans to take us through the CDL 2026 season. Discussing the meteoric rise of certain stars, the secrets of the green room full of ‘psychopaths’ and b***h slap-prompting arguments, and which teams need to blow it up, immediately.

Talking with Hotspawn at the Call of Duty League World Championship, here’s Merk and Maven’s CDL 2026 round-up.

Hotspawn’s CDL 2026 Round-Up With Merk and Maven

Jack: Reflecting on your predictions at the start of the season, which teams have impressed you the most?

Merk: OpTic is probably number one. Getting into a final at every event isn’t an easy task. Then, being able to do it while you’re not winning those finals is very difficult. It’s a huge mental battle. So the fact they were able to win Major 4 is huge, and even here at Champs, they’re in another top two scenario. They’ve just been so consistent. Outside of that, I feel like our top four has been so consistent too. FaZe has been great.

Maven: Yeah, I think OpTic is probably the easy answer.

I’ll probably say FaZe, just for Simp and the pure fact that the trio broke up. All the success that they had, and to pick up Abuzah and 04 at the time, we were questioning ‘how are you going to fill the shoes of Cellium and aBeZy?

The fact that they’re in a Champs final, the fact they have won an event, the story for FaZe this year has been insane. I thought they’d be a top 4 contender, but the fact they got a Major win and a Champs win is insane.

Jack: How about on the player front – Who do you think has not necessarily been the best, but whose stock has risen the most?

Maven: 04, probably. I guess it’s weird for us because we kind of knew he was really good. He was our most underrated player last year, people just didn’t realise how good he was.

But I might say Kremp. I feel like Kremp is the guy that deserves a spot on a contender team. That kid is nasty. I know he struggled in the most recent series, but it’s a team game, and they just kind of got beat up. But I might say Kremp.

Merk: Kremp’s up there, 04 too. But Dashy, the oldest player in the league. MVP candidate. Not easy to do at all. He’s just been such a straight shooter for his entire career, and continues to impress.

Jack: What’s been your highlight as a casting duo for this year? What’s kind of been the best game to cast, or the most season-defining moment in one of your matches?

Maven: It’s weird because we were on a stretch of 3-0s – that was truly insane. Our last game four, I think, was in Major III. That doesn’t mean 3-0s can’t be exciting, but like we were on a stretch.

We have seen two really solid finals. Major III finals, Major I going to game seven. LAT vs OpTic too; they’ve been great series.

It might be recency bias, but OpTic vs FaZe in the winner’s final here – that was unbelievable. Definitely recency bias, but that map one and two were awesome. I have chills. That was peak hardpoint.

Jack: Do you have a favourite team that you like to cast the most?

Maven: Just the top teams, honestly. We’ve been doing this for so long; I’m friends with a lot of players, but I just want a good game and casting. Bad teams can be entertaining for the wrong reasons sometimes, for sure, but it can be almost frustrating at this stage to watch bad teams. So yeah, I like to cast the good teams, as dumb as that answer is.

Merk: But in terms of individual POVs, if we’re looking for playmaking, I think OpTic is always very entertaining with Shotzzy and Huke. They’re just so creative.

FaZe, again, 04, his individual sprees throughout this year – that winners final map four, holy hell! Some of the other pros were talking about it. When he takes over a map, it’s so fun to watch. He’s on the list. Hydra is another POV.

Maven: So the top teams, haha.

Jack: What is one of the funniest green room moments that you’ve had this year that fans might not have been able to see on air?

Maven: They don’t know that Chris Puckett is a psychopath. In the best way possible. We love Chris, but I have never met someone like him. He goes on adventures. One event we showed up to, and he’s like, ‘Oh, I bought tickets to Katy Perry. I’m going to go by myself,’ And we’re like, ‘Oh.’

He’s the definition of chaos – I’m a chaotic person. I have ADHD, and I can be all over the place sometimes – but he makes me feel normal. Puckett, if you’re just him, is my favourite thing. There’s just always something, there’s always a story.

Outside of that, the funniest moments are probably not shareable, honestly. Because we’ve all been friends so long, it can definitely be a little weird – if we had HR in there, we’d all be fired.

I think that the energy you put into tournaments, and we all have our own storylines we’re looking at, and normally it gets into like yelling bouts, which people don’t know about. We’re just yelling for specific players or certain teams.

Nameless always plays devil’s advocate in every argument ever. It’ll be something he doesn’t believe at all, but that’ll be for the sake of argument. I want to just b***h slap him.

Jack: We’ve finally expanded back over to Europe again now. But if you had the choice to take the CDL anywhere in the world, where would you like it to go?

We gotta go back to Paris, for sure. If we go back to the UK, which I think we would love to, I’d love to just do London, just because a flight to Birmingham is a pain. It’s a pain to get there.

Paris was weird for us because they have to do French casters over us in-house. It’s very strange because we’re not talking to the crowd. They’re not hearing us. So it’s very weird. Don’t get me wrong, the event was insane, but as casters, it was very odd. I don’t think I’ve ever had that in my career. I’m just casting, hearing French being screamed on top of it. So that was like an odd one, but I’d love to go to Paris again just for the atmosphere.

I’d love to go to Tokyo, or South Korea. It makes no sense, but I would have loved to go there. I would have to go there. Maybe we can have an event there just for me wanting to visit that place – nothing to do with CoD at all, although Modern Warfare 4 is set there, so…

Jack: If you were to step into the shoes of any Call of Duty League team manager, going into the 2027 season or EWC, what one team do you think needs to make a change?

Maven: Heretics, just get rid of the entire team because watching them just p**ses me off.

Merk: That’s a good answer.

Maven: I mean, it’s a little facetious, but oh my God, they were so bad. Watching them play sometimes is… ugh.

Merk: I think you’re probably your Gentle Mates. I think it’s time to get HyDra, the French phenom. That would be a fun pursuit. I hope that happens.

Jack: That leads me into my final question. You mentioned Kremp before, but is there anybody in the League that should be on the radar of the top teams?

It’s supposed to be a wild offseason for free agents. I think everything comes down to Falcons and the amount of money that they want to spend.

Another guy we mentioned earlier we’ll probably see is Lurqxz. There’s probably a good chance – I don’t know if he’ll be on like a top-top team because there are only so many spots, and it feels like we’re a couple years from the likes of Simp and Shotzzy starting to move their way out for the next generation, and they’re still just incredible – but there’ll be a lot of movement.