Teams Prepare for Call of Duty XP

The past few months in the realm of Call of Duty eSports have been innovative to say the least, with the latest installment in the storied franchise, Black Ops 3, transitioning it's exclusivity rights from Microsoft to Sony, bringing early downloadable content as well as the best professional players in the world to PlayStation 4. With this monumental change, Activison Blizzard inherited the rights to host the official league of Call of Duty in place of Major League Gaming, effectively creating the Call of Duty World League, or CWL. With this change came some of the biggest innovations in COD eSports to date, integrating international competition to the premier eSports stage, hosting more organized LAN events, and bigger prize pools for events, like this year's Call of Duty XP.

Call of Duty XP will be this year's version of the annual Call of Duty Championships, but with bigger stakes and bigger events. This year's tournament boasts the largest prize pool ever awarded at a Call of Duty eSports event, $3,000,000 will be on the line as the 32 best teams in the world compete. But the fun doesn't stop there; in addition to the event, spectators will have the opportunity to play the last DLC for Black Ops 3, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, and Modern Warfare Remastered. At the venue there will also be zombies laser tag as well as paintball matches hosted on a real-life reimagination of the fan favorite Nuketown map from the Black Ops series. All this intense, fun competition will be held from September 1-4 in Los Angeles, California. 

Now here's a look at the groups for Call of Duty XP:

Group A:

Millenium, one of the premier EU CWL teams

Splyce, a surprise underdog turned superstar EU franchise

Livin The Dream, NA qualifier team composed of former pros

Revoltables, NA underdog qualifier team

Group B:

Rise Nation, winner of Totinos Invitational and UMG South Carolina 2016

HyperGames, EU phenom franchise

Apotheon eSports, failed to qualify for CWL but poised to do damage at CODXP

Supremacy, One of the top EU contenders

Group C:
Luminosity, consistently good NA team who has upset top teams
Mindfreak, top team in ANZ Division
FAB Games eSports, failed to qualify for EU Division but hungry for competition
Chiefs eSports, consistently good ANZ team with potential

Group D:
Ground Zero, NA qualifier team composed of former pros
Allegiance, NA qualifier team
Epsilon, one of the all-time great EU teams
Pulse Gaming, EU qualifier team

Group E (Group of Death):
FaZe Clan, One of the top three NA teams, also one of the most popular
eLevate, Composed of three players who placed 2nd at last year's Champs
Corn, NA qualifier team
Giants Gaming, one of the top EU teams

Group F:
Infused, has some of the greatest EU players of all-time
Team Kaliber, good NA team with longtime players
Most Wanted, NA qualifier team
Tainted MInds, one of the top ANZ teams

Group G:
Team EnVyUs, one of the all-time great teams, winner of CWL Stage 2 Finals
Orbit, top ANZ team coming into CODXP
Cloud9, good NA team with potential to win
Vitality, one of the all-time great EU teams

Group H:
OpTic Gaming, greatest team of all time, has three COD champions
compLexity, winner of 2014 Call of Duty Championship
PNDA Gaming, NA qualifier team
Team LDLC, great Counter Strike team looking to take over Call of Duty

So that was a look at all the competing teams for CODXP 2016, check out next week's blog for more!