With the conclusion of the Call of Duty League’s fifth and final Major this past weekend, the stage is now set for the final event of the year: the CDL Playoffs. Everything has been building towards this moment all year long, and fans and players alike will enjoy the action soon enough. 

Later this month, the CDL Playoffs will kick off with the final tournament of the year, leading up to the conclusion of the season and the crowning of the new or returning champion of 2021. But before we can get to that, Activision has revealed the match schedule and brackets for the event. 

The full CDL Playoffs tournament bracket is now available, immediately following the conclusion of the Stage 5 Major. Though the tournament was one of the most surprising and best events in recent Call of Duty esports history, it did not shake up the championship tournament all that much. 

Or, at least, it did not shake up the CDL Playoffs brackets and match schedule all that much. On the other hand, what is surprising are the teams that have shown up at the Major and did so well, making the playoffs tournament now look like it will be much more competitive than expected. 

However, the actual match schedule for the CDL Playoffs is largely the same as it would have been had the recent Major not happened. The only main differences are cementing the teams at the bottom of the brackets and the second-place team that can have a one-round bye in the event.

The CDL Playoffs tournament schedule has been revealed on the official Call of Duty League website, noting what players can look forward to later this month as the conclusion of the 2021 season. The tournament will begin on Thursday, Aug. 19, and run for four days, finishing on Sunday, Aug. 22, when the champion team has been decided. 

Like with the Majors that have happened this year, there will be two brackets for the tournament, even though only eight of the 12 teams will participate. As we already knew, the Seattle Surge, London Royal Ravens, Paris Legion, and Los Angeles Guerrillas will not be competing there. 

That said, the seventh and eighth-place teams will be starting the event in the bottom bracket of the event, where a single elimination there will spell the end of their 2021 season. On the other hand, the top six teams will be competing in the upper bracket at first, where they have two lives, essentially, where a loss there moves them to the lower group. 

The two bottom teams that will only have one chance in the CDL Playoffs are the Los Angeles Thieves and Florida Mutineers. The other six teams will be in the top bracket for the event. For now, the match schedule goes like this, beginning with four matches on day one. 

On the first day, it will kick off in the winners bracket as Florida. The Thieves will not play each other in the bottom bracket, but, instead, the first two teams will move down there. This means that we will begin the matches in the upper bracket first. 

First off, on Thursday, we will begin with the current world champs looking to defend their title this year, Dallas Empire, battling against the Major 5 winners Minnesota Rokkr. This is sure to be a great match as Minnesota has bested Dallas multiple times, including most recently in the Major. 

Both Minnesota and Dallas will be wanting to do their best here to have the most solid chances of becoming the champion this year. Next up is a match in the winners bracket with the New York Subliners taking on the OpTic Chicago. Will we see Clayster return for this tournament, or will Diamondcon continue to fill in for him, including the final event of the year? That is unknown at this time, but we hope that this match is a great one nonetheless. 

From there, the winners of the first two matches will move to the next round of the winners bracket, where they will face off against the top two teams with a one-round bye. The winner of Rokkr and Empire will face Toronto Ultra, while OpTic and Subliners will face Atlanta FaZe. 

On the opposite end of the CDL Playoffs bracket, the loser of the Rokkr and Empire match will likely face the LA Thieves, while the loser of the OpTic and Subliners match will likely battle against Florida Mutineers. The tournament will continue like that until the winner is crowned for this year’s season. 

Given that there are only eight of the 12 teams in the event, there are fewer matches to look forward to overall. There are four each on the first two days, three on the third day, and only the championship match that will be held on the final day. 

At the least, this means that teams will not have to go through as much grueling grind to get to the grand finals and have a chance to win it all. It also means that Toronto and Atlanta will only have to go through just a few match wins in a row if they want to win the championship title easily. 

Fortunately, the CDL Playoffs will be available to the public to watch live and in-person, much like the Stage 5 Major, at the Galen Center at USC near Downtown Los Angeles. Tickets are available for all four days, so fans can watch the matches as they happen on the stage in front of them as long as they buy a ticket. We will have more coverage of the event soon.