CoD:UO in Fall/Winter 2022 and biggest What Ifs
It’s been two years since the restart of Call of Duty: United Offensive competitive scene and 7 Big cups (plus few mini and fun cups) later, here we are again. It’s almost end of summer and that means we are about to get competitive games going, watch live twitch streams, witness crazy plays… and fails … and hopefully enjoy doing it.
Here are the teams we expect to see signing up for the Fall Cup, but also one and another juicy rumor.
1. Regular teams return
Not hard to imagine we will again see the standard teams / players that have more or less played in most of our competitions so far. These are:
TcfC, FRS, Dreamteam, unique, eGz, Fraggedby, vrb, lOwzZ, f’evo
2. New teams formed in Mini cup stay
Limiting number of players and shorter schedule in the Mini cup helped form some old/new teams. In a perfect world, they are staying together: lOwzZ2, greencats, BiA
3. The return of the abearth
Winners of the first restart cup, abearth, went missing in action after our third Cup. Although its players have found some game time in other teams (TcfC, eGz), they never played as a team again since then. It’s unthinkable to imagine norberto leaving TcfC, since he won last two major cups with them, but rat would certainly deserve to get the squad together again. Add back marchello, mateo and metio and you have a 4-man squad that would give every team a headache. The question then becomes who will round out the team? Since they will most likely want to keep it Hungarian, options become limited. But my vote would go to BURN28 and trixiko.
4. But is RAT really leaving? How about MESSY, isn’t he quitting?
While we certainly hope to see abearth’s rebirth, it’s a valid question of who subs in for Messy if he is indeed to miss the next cup. They still have Cobra, but they would certainly need 1 more sub. While I hope Messy stays, the rumor has it that non other than megla offered his services to stvno and TcfC. Another rumor also has it that King tried to bribe stvno to take him in. Is it true? We will know soon.
5. What are KarmA, rapidzjeh and majkiiEh doing?
Both KarmA and rapidzjeh started UO in e9 and one could argue that was the last UO team that had the real “uo stability” for them. But they found (better) success elsewhere, mainly in the form of joining forces with their fellow COD1 teammates from fatality/LEMAGIC. The question then becomes – Are they returning to e9/unique, or are they doing one last dance with the best team they played for? My guess and wish is the latter. If Dreamteam runs it back in Dutch style, that means their old teammate majkiiEh is free, and probably more than willing to give it another go. With his fridge under the gaming table filled up and ready, it’s up to KarmA to use his charms and calls his fellow German COD1 teammates opf1iile and prm back. KarmA has been improving every Cup so far and as he gets more and more used to UO, one wonders if this team could finally make a real run at the Grand Finals. Convince steve and you get a Bus of at least 6 men going deep into the Playoffs.
6. Who else is coming?
We counted 14 teams so far. But to finally realize the pipe dream of two leagues, we need more teams. Looking at the past teams and players who either already played or are on our Discord, this shouldn’t be unrealistic. So let’s see some more what ifs.
Fast Evolution finally creates a B squad
One of the teams constantly improving in our cups is Czech team Fast Evolution. But they are constantly playing the cup with 5 or 6 same guys, while the bench doesn’t see any playing time. If we are to create similar skilled groups, this should encourage f’evo to make two teams. So here it is: f’evo2
Return of the Italians
While the Italian team Compagni Di Merengue showed quite some activity last year, they went missing somewhere along the way. On one hand, it was certainly very unfavorable for them to jump in the middle of the COD:UO competitive restart when all regular teams had few cups under them already, something Scandinavian team Brothers in Arms discovered past Mini cup. But the CDM, led by zeenaw and jolla, should find more success in our next cup and in a group with BiA and f’evo2, we would certainly find equally sided opponents.
Public team
Not to call it the Imp3rio team, but some guys playing public servers or mixing in our weekly pcws would surely be able to create one team. At least I know that is Hope’s wish as he tried many times to create one team for our cups. Hopefully this article gives his ambitions another boost and finally makes it.
Does wij ownen hard still have it?
At the start of the year the COD:UO admin team made big efforts to track down old players and invite them back to the community. One of the UO iconic teams, w0h, answered the call and joined the Discord server. Eager to get back into the game, we could see them on the public servers daily for some time. Just to vanish as fast as they came. Hopefully the approaching summer and good weather made them put gaming to a pause and they will rejoin the game they loved for so long once again.
TMO does the unthinkable
For some time now we’ve been hearing rumors about arguably the best COD1 team TMO wanting to give it a go in UO. Low activity in their main game and always well managed UO cups, along with the best community in gaming, might be enough to finally convince them to try out the COD1 expansion pack. If they join with their main team, there isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t find much success, as OVERIDE showed us time and again. The French squad finished second, fourth and fifth in our Major cups and were the finalists in the Christmas cup.
U.S. brings its own team
Quite some players on our Discord server are Americans and most of them would be willing to try it out. Maybe it’s time for them to form a team and really give it a go. Why not.
Are h2o and #KH coming back?
We were able to track down some old players from both teams and invite them back to our community. Some were active (mAAmu, rebenneh, …), while some remain passive observers on our server. Will they come back? Will they form a team together? One can dream.
7. What other options are out there?
While we covered some solid ideas and also some pipe dreams, we haven’t touched on the players that were left out of the whatif teams. If you want to be on this list and part of the game you can always tag us on Discord or in #team-finder channel.
There are certainly some skilled guys out there who could form at least 2 more mid-tier teams. Looking at the Discord server I see:
jonEs, im a star, reazon, FLAAAASH, Void, pandowicz, razzah, camel, diverse, dAxika, rubn1to, Jiggins, DRIV3R, skoppz, sebZ, Shady, dAno, Wasted, Puma, … The list goes on.