The Call of Duty League is one person less than it was a week ago as one prominent player in the league has left it permanently. That player is none other than Karma, one of the most famous Call of Duty players in the world and someone who was a fan favorite during this first season.

Damon “Karma” Barlow made the decision this week to announce his formal departure from his league team, the Seattle Surge. That announcement was made through the official Seattle Surge Twitter account who revealed that he would no longer be a member of the team.

At first, you might think that this just means that Karma is likely going to head to another team in the Call of Duty League since we all know that the Seattle Surge is not exactly a good team after all. But this isn’t necessarily the case as he is not just leaving Surge, but the entire league.

That is right, this is not just his announcement of his departure from the Seattle team, but it is also his formal retirement from the entire Call of Duty League moving forward. The Seattle Surge Twitter account revealed that Karma has chosen to “retire from competitive play” in Call of Duty entirely.

The tweet also included a lengthy statement from Karma regarding this surprising move that shocked many in the community, including those who have been following him for some time now. He began the message by thanking everyone that helped him on this journey.

Karma continued his gratitude, thanking his wife, daughter, and all of the various teammates that he has had throughout the years, including his final Call of Duty team: Seattle Surge. He then turned to his followers and fans and thanked them for following him over the years.

Finally, Karma closed out the message by wishing all the best to Seattle Surge and thanking them for understanding and guidance through this “tough decision” that he made, followed by his own personal message that he would not be coming back to Call of Duty.

He will no longer participate in competitive Call of Duty games in the future, including this year’s mainline game and any other future ones. Modern Warfare looks to be the final game in the massive franchise that Karma will ever compete in, in an official capacity.

This is because he is only able to play new entries in the Call of Duty series for a month or so before he loses any reason or motivation to keep playing the game. This is likely a problem that could have led to this decision, as he played Modern Warfare far more than a month.

He followed up with his tweet about what he, specifically, didn’t like about Modern Warfare, including the fact that this was something that he should have done a while ago. According to him, this game was never really made for him and he didn’t enjoy the metagame.

A huge portion of the metagame in Modern Warfare is the MP5 SMG weapon that is far too powerful and you can’t ignore it. That is why most teams in the entire Call of Duty League follow a format of having a single assault rifle player and the other four being SMG players.

This is a massive problem and something that the community lamented since the game’s launch. And it seems to be the main problem that Barlow himself had with the gameplay, as he “didn’t enjoy running around with an MP5” and this led to zero desire for him to play.

Karma even said that he was pretty bad at the game, possibly because of his lack of desire or the metagame state, and that Seattle Surge “could do better” without him. While it is hard to say if this is the case or not, it is certain that Seattle Surge could use some help right now.

With the loss of Karma, it is uncertain if this change will help the Seattle Surge at all in the future. For now, it does seem like the replacement for him in the starting lineup will likely be one of the substitutes like Enable or Proto, but there is the chance that the Surge will sign someone new to the team as well.

Regardless of the decision made, it needs to be someone strong who can replace Karma, a three-time champion in Call of Duty. Also, likely, changing just one person on the starting roster will not fully change everything and make the situation completely better.

It might take more changes than this to get Seattle Surge out of the hole that they are currently in. While technically not in last place, they are tied for second to last place with Toronto Ultra in terms of Call of Duty League points and wins throughout the season thus far.

While some of the other teams near the bottom of the standings like New York Subliners and OpTic Gaming LA improved recently, Seattle Surge remains of the teams at the bottom in dire need of change.

The next event where Seattle Surge will participate, and the first one that they will have to play without their three-time world champion, is next weekend Friday, June 12 through Sunday, June 14. It will be the recently delayed Minnesota Rokkr Home Series Weekend tournament. Surge will need help since it is one of the most anticipated and competitive events of the season.