Seattle Surge vs Atlanta FaZe Preview and Predictions: Call of Duty League 2023 Stage 4 Major

Even though Atlanta FaZe is the most successful organization in Call of Duty Esports historically, they are playing against Seattle Surge as underdogs.

Time to get hyped, because the Stage 4 Major of the 2023 Call of Duty League is starting today! On the Upper Bracket, we can root for teams such as Major 2 Champions OpTic Texas, 2022 CDL Champs Winners Los Angeles Thieves, and crowd-favourites Atlanta FaZe – who are not coming in as hot into this competition as one would expect them.

Seattle Surge vs Atlanta FaZe Preview

Seattle Surge

The Surge had an interesting road so far this year: they haven’t swapped anyone since the start of the 2022 season, meaning that Lamar “Accuracy” Abedi, Makenzie “Mack” Kelley, Amer “Pred” Zulbeari and Daunte “Sib” Gray are one of the most synergistic teams in the League. While the squad tanked the Stage 3 Major with an instantaneous blowout, they finished second in the Stage 1 Major, were the best team in the Stage 3 Major Qualifiers and has a pretty good showing in the first half of Stage 4 as well.

Seattle Surge has beat all of their opponents bar one in the Qualifiers: they got the best of Toronto Ultra, smashed Florida Mutineers and 3-0 Atlanta FaZe and Los Angeles Guerrillas as well. The only team which they couldn’t defeat was Los Angeles Thieves, against whom they lost both Hardpoints by a large margin.

Atlanta FaZe

Atlanta FaZe are still one of the strongest teams in the League, as they barely finish outside the Top 4 in and part of any event. They got 2 3^rd places in Stage 1, won the Stage 2 Major by beating Los Angeles Thieves in the finals 4-2, then came in as bronze medallists in the Stage 3 Major. But now, they only finished 6^th with a 3-2 standing, as they lost against New York Subliners as well as Seattle Surge.

Chris “Simp” Lehr and co. still beat Florida Mutineers, Toronto Ultra and Minnesota RØKKR, they had a far weaker performance than in the Stage 3 Major. The main culprit is Austin “SlasheR” Liddicoat, who had a 3-point decrease in Kills Per 10 Minutes in both Hardpoint and Search and Destroy (but improved his game on Control, which is nice), but the Tiny Terrors and McArthur “Cellium” Jovel could be better as well.

Seattle Surge vs Atlanta FaZe Predictions

That being said, Atlanta FaZe is still a monster of a team who could take on anyone in their top form – but in the Qualifiers, the multiple-time Call of Duty Worlds and 2020 CDL Champs Winners have lost to Surge 0-3. And not just in any sweep, they were down almost a 100 points in Hardpoint, lost SnD 4-6, and failed to secure a round in Control, a gamemode which FaZe had an incredible winrate back in the Vanguard era. If Surge can play the same way they did the first time around, they shouldn’t have problems against FaZe in the rematch.

Root for Atlanta FaZe and Seattle Surge by watching the official broadcast of the CDL, and check out our other Previews and Predictions!