It is crunch time in the Call of Duty League with the end-of-season Championship in full flow at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

The Call of Duty League Championship features the best eight teams from the Call of Duty League season competing for a prize pool of just over $2,000,000 and to be crowned overall champions of the 2023 campaign.

The S-Tier event is played out in a double-elimination bracket with matches in a best-of-five format with the exception of the Grand Final which is best-of-nine.

The tournament began on Thursday with four matches and while four teams dropped into the lower bracket, the other four progressed to the second phase of the upper bracket.

Here is a look at three of the matches taking place in the tournament on Friday, including the two upper-bracket contests between Atlanta FaZe and Toronto Ultra and OpTic Texas and New York Subliners.

Minnesota ROKKR can edge Boston in lower-bracket battle

Starting with a look at one of Friday's lower-bracket contests, Minnesota ROKKR are up against Boston Breach after both sides lost their opening matches of the Championship.

Neither result was particularly surprising as Boston went down 3-1 against OpTic Texas while Minnesota were beaten 3-2 by New York Subliners.

But that was a pretty decent performance from ROKKR, who had established a 2-0 lead against the Subliners and have looked in good shape of late.

At Major Five, although not considered one of the biggest hitters in the Call of Duty League, Minnesota ROKKR reached the lower-bracket final, losing out to the Subliners 3-0 on that occasion.

But it was a much better showing than Boston, who were dumped out in the first round, and at 4/5 Minnesota are worth a bet to win this contest and knock Breach out of the Call of Duty League Championship.

Added experience should see big guns FaZe over the line

As 7/4 favourites to win the whole thing, Atlanta FaZe will command plenty of attention in this weekend's Call of Duty League Championship and they justified favouritism in their tournament opener against Seattle Surge, winning 3-1.

With 385 points accumulated, Atlanta FaZe lead the overall standings in this year's Call of Duty League and have undoubtedly been the competition's standout side.

In their next match, though, they will be up against stronger opposition in Toronto Ultra, who edged past reigning Call of Duty League champions Los Angeles Thieves 3-2 last time out.

Ultra are fourth in the overall standings and will likely be in the mix for the Championship title, having won Major Three already this season, but at 8/13 there still looks to be a bit of value in Atlanta FaZe, who have the edge in experience.

Subliners can make their mark with OpTic Texas scalp

OpTic Texas and New York Subliners were both expected to win their openers at the Call of Duty League Championship and they look tough to separate in their upper-bracket clash at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

OpTic Texas are marginal favourites at 8/11 but they could be worth taking on.

There has been a lot of buzz around OpTic Texas this year but it is worth noting they have not won a Major in 2023 and they were hopeless in their last Major before the Championship, losing both of their matches at Major Five by 3-0 scorelines.

As for the Subliners, they won Major Five and that was their second Major title in 2023, so it is fair to say they are the team in slightly better shape and at 1/1, they are worth chancing to pick up a big win. 

bet365 News Team

• • 
  •