FaZe Vegas Crowned Call Of Duty League 2026 World Champions
After a season of the utmost highest quality, FaZe Vegas has been crowned as the Call of Duty League 2026 World Champions.
The two biggest organisations in Call of Duty history met for the first time in a World Championship Grand Final, with destiny being pulled from left to right.
With OpTic’s stars looking for a three-peat, Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro hunting to be the outright CoD legend with a fourth ring, and Damon “Karma” Barlow searching for an unprecedented third Coaching title, the writing was on the green wall.
But as caster Miles Ross said, “In Vegas, the house always wins.”
Fortunately, for FaZe Vegas, that rang true.
FaZe Vegas win the Call of Duty League 2026 World Championship
Winning the Grand Final 5-2, FaZe Vegas defeated OpTic to become World Champions.
This comes as FaZe’s second World Championship, following their Cold War win in 2021. The iconic organisation denied OpTic’s hat-trick with the win.
For Chris “Simp” Lehr, the accolades roll in. The first non-OpTic player to ever win three rings. The Champs MVP, his second end-of-season award following that in 2019. An 18th career trophy. A case to be the greatest Call of Duty player of all time.
Jordan “Abuzah” Francois and Jovan “04” Rodriguez win their first rings after three years in the League as a duo, while Zach “Drazah” Jordan gets his second continued to be the pantomime villain against OpTic.
CDL Champs Grand Final Recap
Starting the game in scintillating fashion, FaZe Vegas debunked the myths that they needed a warm-up – pre-finals drama saw Telluride Bush cancel their scrim against the finalists, leaving them high and dry. Coming out swinging with an early 80-point lead, there were no complaints about how warm their hands were.
But that lead was short-lived as around the 200-point mark, OpTic overcame their deficit to extend a brilliant record on Hardpoint, clawing back for an early lead.
As a pendulum swings, FaZe found momentum in their staple modes. Starting the Neslo mantra (winning events by perfecting Search and Destroy and the third game mode), the Vegas hosts found the smallest of margins to take a 6-5 win in map two, and a 4-3 win in map three. Abuzah took the mantle here, posting up 42-20 in a massive Overload game.
FaZe continued that pressure into maps four and five, where they finally ended OpTic’s Hardpoint reign with a clinical display on Scar. Another tight game was decided by a decisive rotation to the final two hills as FaZe’s stellar map position ensured that a comeback simply wasn’t possible.
Back into Search and Destroy, the titan teams went toe-to-toe in arguably the best map of the season. With ninja defuses from Shotzzy, fantastic team retakes from OpTic, and clutch wins from FaZe, it was a masterclass from all angles. Yet it was a disastrous moment for OpTic and heroism from Drazah and 04 to pull off a 2v4 in round 11 to secure another map win for FaZe with just 0.4 seconds left on the clock.
OpTic fought back in map six on Overload to ice up with a 4-3 win, bringing the tie back into contention, as the entire series was only separated by 26 points throughout six rounds of gameplay.
But it was another Search and Destroy that proved pivotal as FaZe pulled out the nerd strats to spark a comeback on Hacienda to force another round 11. All coming down to a 1v1 between Abuzah and Mason “Mercules” Ramsey – the hero here last year – the crowd proved to be OpTic’s own downfall as shouts erupted as the FaZe man started to defuse the bomb, prompting a Mercules response, only for Abuzah to have stepped off and caught the rushing OpTic player off guard.
