The midway point of the second season of Call of Duty 4 has arrived. The Expert League was made up of the top 24 teams from last season, with the remainder of possible contenders and a few new faces in the Open League. There are four teams in the front-running with several more teams looking to move up the ranks heading into the play-offs. Here is a look at the current top tier teams in the 5v5 SD Open League.
The team at the top spot with a record of 4-0 is |DPG| Dogg Pound Gangstas. |DPG| has achieved this record with a 21-3 win over 82nd ID Whiskey Squad, a 21-3 win over The DD, a 17-7 win over Xtreme Duty, and a close 13-11 victory over Team Prophet. The team has a .750 W/L ratio going into the second half of the season. |DPG| was formed in January of 2002 and got its start in MoH:AA. Since then, |DPG| has moved through the CoD series of games, from CoD through CoD:UO to CoD2. The starting line-up usually includes bojangles, remedy, vash, and peter with appearances from twig, mordecai, and tehkiler. The founder of |DPG| was Maximus, and at the time the squad was formed, rappers like Dr. Dre and Snoop were putting out a lot of hott jams. Since the start of CoD at TWL, |DPG| has been a very active voice in the community. Bojangles commented on his team's next match-up, "The competition here at TWL is great and we expect that |I95| will measure up to that bar again here in our week 5 match.
The second place team, also with a record of 4-0, is |I95| Gaming. The recent success achieved by |I95| was a 13-7 win over Fat Hairy Men, a 21-3 win over HonorBoundClan, an 18-6 win over Dogs of War USA, and a 14-10 win over Pub Stars. This gives |I95| a .719 W/L ratio. |I95| was founded about a year and a half ago and was founded by Misguided, Caim, and TheStrawman. Its previous gaming experience includes games like MoH:AA and all the previous games in the CoD series, from CoD to CoD:UO to CoD2. They do not really have a starting five because all roster members are considered match eligible. They rely on Caim to bring the guys together for the matches, and UrDead, Sonic, and TheStrawman for preparation and fluidity on a daily basis. The team members are a very tight-knit group who all get along, and everyone has a say; there is no one leader. The reason they call their team I95 gaming is because all the members live on the east coast with immediate access to Interstate 95, which runs down the eastern seaboard.
Yet another team with a record of 4-0, Tactical Knights occupies the third place position. This record has been accomplished with a 12-0 forfeit win over Pink Bunnies that Hop, a 16-4 win over Takeda Shogunate, a 19-5 win over Angels of Hell Xtreme, and an 18-6 win over Team DAWGS. This gives TK a .813 W/L ratio with half a season left to play. Tactical Knights was founded in 2006 and was a continuation of a previous squad known as International Tactical Force. When people see the TK tag in scrims and matches, some assume it stands for "team kill". During league and ladder play, some of the members go out of their way to TK each other as a joke. The current starters for TK include redknight, ronald_mcdonald, cheeetahh, ac_on_deck, and warfrat. Redknight commented on the status of TWL, "TWL is used to get in another night of play and is good for newer teams. Cheaters might not think it's worth screwing with TWL because the elite competition does not exist. The admins seem to be right on the ball and handle the issues immediately." "We didnt get so much practice this week but the players in TK are very talented and adjust very quickly, so a win against =AL= is expected," was his comment on his upcoming match.
The team rounding out the top four, also with a record of 4-0, is After Life Clan. =AL= also received a 12-0 forfeit during week 1 over nForce, as well as a 16-14 win in OT over Eminent Gaming, a 19-17 win in double OT against [DSA] Zinc, and a 20-4 win over Clan Prozac. This equated to a .656 W/L ratio for =AL= over the first half of the season. After Life Clan was formed in CoD during 2005 and moved to CoD:UO and CoD2 before coming to CoD4 and TF2. When the squad was formed, the founding members thought it would be a good idea to include "after life" in the name. The name would show its former squad that gaming would continue under the new name and not die off. The rotation of starters for league matches include Achilles, Crazy, Crunch, Godrated, Microdots, Sgt Steve, and Metal_Steed. If were on, were on and it will be very close; if were off, then we are going to lose, was the consensus from Godrated and Already Dead on the upcoming match for =AL=. They continued, "=AL= likes the leagues, they are very well run. Scheduling started off as a nightmare but it evened itself out. Initially we wanted to play hardcore but ended up in stock and just rolled with it since."
The match-ups based on the above information for Week 5 in Open League was Tactical Knights versus After Life Clan and Dogg Pound Gangstas versus |I95| Gaming. Both of these matches were very close, and both ended with scores of 13-11. |DPG| moves up to 5-0 with the win along with Tactical Knights. After Life Clan and |I95| Gaming drop to 4-1 and join a host of squads, 9 others total, that were previously 3-1 and won their Week 5 match-ups. For more of the 5v5 SD Open League standings and scores, please check out the league page here.
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