With the eminent release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 coming in the next few months, there is one question that needs to be answered before the competitive scene moves onto the next format. Who is the best team in Call of Duty: WWII? The 2018 COD Champs will get underway this Thursday morning and pits the best 32 teams in the world against each other for a massive $1,500,000 prize pool.
2018 Call of Duty Championships Betting Tips
Rise Nation
In my opinion, the most consistent team throughout the WWII season so far has been Rise Nation. Of the eight major tournaments this season, Rise have taken the top spot in three of them, claiming wins in Atlanta at the start of the season and in Seattle and Anaheim more recently. Mid-season adjustments to their roster didn’t even disrupt their form, as they won tournaments with both main AR players they have had this year in Methodz and Slasher.
Gunless remains the best player in the game at the moment and along with arguably the best main AR player in Slasher, Rise is built to do one thing, win. They are favourites for the Call of Duty Championships at $2.50 and while they couldn’t get the job done at the recent World League Stage 2 playoffs, they still finished second and have only finished outside the top three in two of the eight major events this year.
Team Kaliber
The value pick of many this tournament will be Team Kaliber. They had a brilliant outing at the recent World League Stage 2 playoffs, defeating Rise in the final to pick up their third win of the season. Unlike Rise, however, they have struggled for consistency throughout the WWII season, claiming wins in the first two events of the year in Dallas and New Orleans before going stretch that saw them miss the top three in all of the next four major tournaments.
Losing key players Chino and Theory at the start of the year really damaged their capacity to win however, the additions of Enable and Fero seem to finally be paying dividends after the Stage 2 win. They are great value at $5.50 to take out the tournament but I’ll be looking elsewhere this week.
Optic Gaming
The market movers and the crowd favourites leading into the 2018 Call of Duty Championships will be Optic Gaming. They are the most popular Esports organisation in the world and one of the most storied. After finally breaking a COD Champs hoodoo by winning the 2017 edition in Infinite Warfare last year, many thought that Optic would roll through the 2018 season as the best team in the world.
However, bad performances in the early parts of the season along with internal team drama in the middle parts forced them to break up the most dominant roster in Call of Duty history, trading Formal to Luminosity for Octane and dropping the only 3 x World Champion in Karma for Methodz. Since they made the changes, Optic has been a much better rounded team, and entered Stage 2 playoffs as one of the favourites, however, a horrific performance that saw them finish 7th-8th in the playoff has them out of favour heading into the biggest tournament of the year.
It’s always a bold play taking Optic to win any tournament. They are such a polarising team that has a wide margin between their best and worst. On their day, they are capable of dominating any team in the world, but when they aren’t at their best, its magnified due to the popularity and infamousness of the organisation. After a horror season that has seen Optic yet to produce any silverware, it seems only natural that they could turn it around in the big one. Already down from $14 into $8. Get on while you can.
Take Optic for some value!