CDL: Toronto Ultra releases Standy before Major IV Qualifiers
| Tags: Call of Duty
| Author Bence Loksa
The Canadian team decided to part ways with their young player after only two Majors.
Yesterday, Toronto Ultra have released a tweet stating that they decided to part ways with their young SMG-player, Eli “Standy” Bentz. Standy spent a little more than 5 months with the team, and only played with them for two Call of Duty League Majors.
Standy has played in the CWL Miami Open back in 2019, but his career only properly began in 2020 March, when he joined the Challenger team Triump. He played with up-and-coming talent such as Tyler “FeLo” Jonhson, Matteo “Royalty” Faithfull, Conor “Diamondcon” Johst and David “Davpadie” Maslowski, all of whom played for CDL teams down the line (but only FeLo is remains standing as a member of the Florida Mutineers). Standy and his teammates played in countless CDL Challenger events during the pandemic, winning 3 Call of Duty Challenger Cups, while getting some second and third place finishes as well. After the 2020 CDL Challengers season, Standy and co. managed to win the Call of Duty League Challengers Finals, beating Carnage Gaming 3-1 in the last match of the season.
Effective today, we have decided to part ways with @Staaandy. We wish Eli the best in his career moving forward pic.twitter.com/defz577XEa
— Toronto Ultra (@TorontoUltra) March 21, 2023
While this certainly grabbed the attention of some CDL teams, Standy didn’t get an offer until winning the Call of Duty Challengers 2021 Cup 9 against Subliners Academy. After his 5th first place in Challenger, Minnesota Roekkr decided to sign the young player. Standy had a great start with Roekkr, as they managed to finish 4th in the 2021 Stage 2 Major. They finished the season with one of the greatest finals: during the Black Ops Cold War-era Stage 5 Major, they managed to fight their way into the last match of the tournament, where Toronto Ultra had them in the corner, leading the series 4-0 – but Standy and his team didn’t falter, and they managed to reverse sweep the Canadians, beating them 5-4, blowing of the roof from Esports Stadium Arlington! After the Major, Roekkr went on to finish 4th in the 2021 CDL Playoffs, and while Standy didn’t win Rookie of the Year, he got very close to it.
They 21-year-old spent all of the Call of Duty Vanguard season with Minnesota, but they failed to replicate the success of the previous year. Roekkr mostly finished at the bottom of the charts, and while they won the 2022 Stage 3 Major Qualifiers, they only got to top 8 in the main event. While they had some highlights, the team finished 11th out of the 12 CDL-squads, so it was time for a change.
While Standy didn’t have the hottest of years, Toronto Ultra saw the potential in the SMG-player, so they signed him before the start of the Modern Warfare 2 Season. With his new team, Standy managed to come in 2nd place during the Stage 1 Major Qualifiers, and finished in the top 4 at the Stage 1 Major. While Ultra continued to play well during the Stage 2 Major Qualifiers, they failed to live up to the expectations once the real Major started. While Standy played for the first round of the Major III Qualifiers, Toronto Ultra decided to bench him, as they were not satisfied with his performance.
According to stats site Breakingpoint.gg, Standy was the weakest link the four-man squad: while he was the second-best player during Stage 1 Qualifiers, his numbers fall hard at Major I, putting him last in Search and Destroy. He somewhat bounced back in the first half of Stage 2, but come Major, he became worse, which meant that Toronto couldn’t secure wins that they needed to advance. Ultra then decided to bring Charlie “Hicksy” Hicks on the squad, which proved to be the right call, as the team went on to win the Stage 3 Major, beating host team OpTic Texas 4-2 in the finals.
Before the start of Stage 4, the Canadian team decided that they should set Standy free, so that the young player can find a new team to compete with. They said goodbye to the 21-year-old on Twitter, who changed his status to Unrestricted Free Agent in response.
While Standy has not found a new team yet, it’s unlikely that we saw the last of him. The young player showed great potential on multiple occasions, and some teams should be happy to have him on board.