With the start of the 2021 Call of Duty League season just around the corner, there are rumblings of a radical solution to Gentleman’s Agreements being adopted by the league: the use of premade classes.
Following a now-deleted tweet from Call of Duty pro Lewis ‘LewTee’ Todd and further insight from the COD Gamepedia team, it appears that the CDL is currently in the process of creating a set of premade classes for competitive play. Last season, while there was a competitive ruleset in place banning dozens of weapons, attachments, and equipment, CDL pros also went about GAing aspects of the game they deemed overpowered or unfair. This occasionally created (ironically) disagreement among players and ambiguity for fans.
To combat the GA process, the league now appears to think that premade classes could be the answer. While the news has been met with concern from some fans who believe it will stifle creativity and lead to a boring meta, it’s worth noting that even with the freedom to create classes last season, there were almost always the same two or three guns being used with pretty much the same sets of attachments.
While there were some flashes of innovation from players, such as Dallas Empire’s Anthony ‘Shotzzy’ Cuevas-Castro whipping out the Grau for certain hills on Azhir Cave Hardpoint, the M4 and the MP5 were omnipresent for the entire 2020 season.
COD Gamepedia predicts that there will be over ten classes “covering multiple weapons and styles [and] tailored per mode.”
EU amateur @LewTeeCoD has leaked that CDL will be introducing pre-set classes in order to remove the need for GAs.
We were told something similar a while back but were waiting for official announcement. https://t.co/kxVwDEhSBP
— COD Gamepedia • CDL Updates (@COD_Gamepedia) January 18, 2021
Seeing some people complaining this change will “limit creativity”.
What creativity?
The pro scene all use the same classes anyway, and this won’t be limited to 1 or 2 guns. There will be 10+ classes covering multiple weapons and styles, tailored per mode.
— COD Gamepedia • CDL Updates (@COD_Gamepedia) January 18, 2021
While this sounds like another intriguing twist for 2021 – and one that can eliminate a contentious aspect of Call of Duty esports – there’s technically nothing stopping pros still GAing one of the premade classes should they all deem it too strong or not suitable for competitive modes.
It also puts a lot of pressure on the CDL and Black Ops Cold War developer Treyarch to produce balanced and effective classes.
It looks like this decision will not be rolled out in time for the Kickoff Classic – the pre-season exhibition tournament that will take place January 23-24 – but it could potentially be in place for the official start of the 2021 season on February 11.