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The Seattle Surge has faced multiple challenges in their debut season of the Call of Duty League. After multiple roster changes, Damon “Karma” Barlow’s retirement, and online issues, Seattle can’t seem to catch a break. The team had little success when matches were in-person, but fans were hopeful that online would be a different story. However, online play only seemed to make Seattle Surge’s problems worse. 

In a recent game against the top team, Atlanta FaZe, Seattle started the series 2-0 before a technical delay ruined their momentum. After an amazing first two maps, production stopped the stream for nearly an hour. Atlanta FaZe went on to reverse sweep the Seattle Surge. This decision was met with public outcry who thought the nearly 50-minute delay was overkill and prevented Seattle from performing an upset. While this did force the CDL to change the rules, it doesn’t excuse the initial incident in the eyes of viewers. 

Seattle Surge’s star player Sam “Octane” Larew has openly spoken out about the Call of Duty League’s perceived lack of competitive integrity. While most of these tweets have since been deleted, his comments have not gone unnoticed. There is speculation that the CDL has fined Octane, along with multiple others, over their comments. 

Seattle Surge lose game over an internet connection

In Seattle Surge’s most recent game against the London Royal Ravens, the CDL’s lack of integrity struck again. Seattle started the series off slowly, losing both the Azir Cave Hardpoint as well as the St. Petrograd Search and Destroy. However, they managed to pull things back in game three by winning the Hackney Yard Domination. It wasn’t until game four when things got worse for the Seattle Surge. About halfway through the map, Josiah “Slacked” Berry disconnected from the lobby. This left Seattle in a 4 versus 5 situation for the majority of the map. 

Seattle Surge 4v5

Call of Duty League fans waited for the map to be restarted since it was still early when Slacked disconnected. However, the map continued and finished with the London Royal Ravens winning 250-77. When the game finished, fans still waited for some sort of explanation from the league on social media, but none came. The disconnect was ruled as “player error” and Seattle Surge was forced to forfeit the series. 

Octane took to Twitter yet again after the matches and shared his thoughts on the ruling through now-deleted tweets. 

https://twitter.com/OctaneSam/status/1284211210808893441?s=20

https://twitter.com/OctaneSam/status/1284210954696302593?s=20

[Disclosure: Enthusiast Gaming, the publisher of Daily Esports, owns and operates Seattle Surge.]

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