Last season in the Call of Duty League, the New York Subliners put up one of the best performances in the history of COD esports. In just a few months, the Subliners squad secured two Major tournaments and then went on to win at COD Champs. No, not win – dominate. It was one of the shortest-ever COD Champs Grand Final events, with the Subliners wiping Toronto Ultra 5 – 0 to secure the trophy and the $1.2 million prize.

We’re now standing firm in the off-season, and this is the time when roster changes are made, teams get settled – or disrupted -, and everyone waits for the new Call of Duty title to launch. Recently, I had the pleasure of catching up with Matt ‘Fish’ Fisher, the Director of Performance at Adamas Esports. For the last three seasons, Matt has had the honour of being an integral part of the coaching and development team that turned the New York Subliners from underdogs into world champions.

I was eager to learn about how the team is shaping up and what the expectations are for the season ahead.

The State of Play for MWIII

Modern Warfare III will be released on November 10th, 2023. It’s a title that many thought wasn’t meant to be, but it’s arriving nonetheless, for better or worse. It has garnered a mixed response so far, as while the development of the game seems community-led and the nature of it warrants a huge burst of nostalgia, it isn’t without its issue. For the most part, players are concerned that they’re paying full price for what is a ‘glorified update’, given that it’s so similar to 2022’s Modern Warfare II.

That was one thing I wanted to touch upon with Matt Fisher – how are people feeling about the MWIII season of the CDL?

MF: ‘I think a lot of the optimism for last year’s game was because felt like Vanguard was so bad it just couldn’t have gotten any worse, but I feel like there’s another level of continued optimism. Personally, I felt like a lot of the guys really liked last year’s game until the end of the season, and then it just became terrible. Some of the maps that I loved from MW2 are what I’m excited about — but again, let’s avoid some of the weird s*** from last year, you know?

Going back to Vanguard, the season was about to start and they didn’t even know what the third game mode was going to be because Control was so bad with the maps they’d chosen. I mean, if the season doesn’t start until January, at least the guys are practising and grinding for what they’ll actually be playing versus, ‘the game is still unfinished’, and so on. I feel like already they’re in a better place than they were a couple of seasons back.’

Related: COD's Future Is Planned Until 2027

Is The Future Bright?

Recently, esports fans had to come to terms with the news that the Overwatch League may be scrapped forever. It was a relatively huge blow to the fans of that franchise, and to Activision Blizzard, which doesn’t operate all that much in the esports space anymore. There were further concerns that arose following the successful acquisition of AB by Microsoft, and eyes started turning to the Call of Duty League.

I probed into these topics with Fish.

MF: ‘On the insider side of things, knowing how many of these organisations own Overwatch teams as well, and the future of the Overwatch League — are they going to get that big payout back, are they going to say yes to that, is that going to affect how much they’re going to invest in the Call of Duty League? I think that even from an ownership standpoint, there’s a lot of uncertainty of just like, how much investment are we going to make back?

The top teams, the OpTics, the FaZes, NYSL, we know what they’re going to invest, at least in just the rosters alone. But I’m very interested to see what it looks like all the way down. There’s far more uncertainty than I’ve ever seen with the Call of Duty League, that’s for sure.’

Related: Subliners - From Underdogs to CDL Champs

But How is New York Looking?

Can NYSL run it back next season? (Image Credit: COD League)

As I’ve already outlined, the New York Subliners had a phenomenal season through 2023, and I backed them all the way. It’s a remarkable turnaround from the relatively rookie-driven, underdog squad that was floating around during Cold War’s season, and that’s when Matt Fisher got involved with the team. It was a turnaround mission the whole way, and it paid off in dividends. But with Priestahh having left the squad at the end of the season and Daunte ‘Sib’ Gray coming over from Seattle Surge to take his spot, how are things looking?

MF: ‘The sense I got from him at events and stuff is that he was kind of a quiet guy. I’m biased here, but I’m so darn impressed with just how much I think this guy wants to contribute to the team environment, and I think that’s one of the biggest things. Behind the scenes, I think this guy is really going to contribute to this team culture in a positive way. But if we do exactly what we did last season, there’s no chance we’ll have anywhere close to as successful a season, because everybody is going to be trying that much harder.

If you want to continue getting better, you need to keep on pushing. I talked to Sib before he signed to give my sense of ownership about, ‘Do I think he could be a culture fit?’ Yeah, man – I’m excited for him, I think he’s going to be fantastic, and again, we’ve been very clear with each other and everyone else – it is going to be near-impossible to replicate the kind of success we had last year.’

But honestly, something tells me that Matt ‘Fish’ Fisher, Adamas Esports, and the New York Subliners are squaring up for another fantastic season in the Call of Duty League.

Read More: Subliners Sweep Ultra in CDL Champs Final

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