CoD Vanguard ladder bug costs LA Thieves a Grand Finals map during CDL Major 4

Alec Mullins
Envoy of the Los Angeles Thieves

The Call of Duty League’s Major 4 kicked off on July 13 in New York, pitting the best players in the world against each other. When the dust settled the hometown Subliners took on the LA Thieves in the Grand Finals and disaster struck in the fifth map of the series.

CDL Major 4 was one to remember well before anything devastating happened with two scrappy underdogs, both of whom came into the weekend fighting to secure their spot at the eight-team final event, roared onto the Grand Finals.

While NYSL was in a worse position, and thus appropriately stole the show as they battled to punch their ticket, it was the much-maligned Los Angeles Thieves that ended up on the unfortunate side of the spotlight as the two teams battled in a Bocage Search & Destroy that had huge implications for the rest of the closing best-of-nine matchup.

Envoy gets ladder-stalled…sort of

It was in the 10th round of S&D with NYSL leading 5 to 4 when it happened. Dylan ‘Envoy’ Hannon and Sam ‘Octane’ Larew were in a 2v3 situation against the likes of Crimsix, PaulEhx, and Hydra.

Envoy, who has quite the reputation for being slippery and sneaking behind enemy lines, did what he does best. While NYSL’s attention was focused elsewhere, he quietly crept up the ladder into ‘grandma’s house’ and looked primed to pick up a kill on Paul.

While the first shot of his pistol landed like normal, his next few bullets were interrupted by climbing animation as if he was still climbing up the ladder and Mr. Ehx took advantage of the interruption, eviscerating him as his teammates took care of Octane and closed out the map.

Losing a round like this is surely frustrating enough when $500,000 is on the line but to add insult to injury, this ladder issue has been known for months but clearly hasn’t been fixed in that time.

Fellow pro player Peirce ‘Gunless’ Hillman pointed out that he first ran into during a game of Gavutu Control back near the start of the year and was surprised that no one had been interrupted by it so far this season.

“I tweeted about that bug back in February and it’s still not fixed,” he complained.

This isn’t the first time the LA Thieves have made unfortunate history this year, but their prospects look far better now than they did during the tragic effort that brought them into the record books back in June.

About The Author

Alec Mullins is an FPS writer focusing on Call of Duty and Apex Legends and their respective esports scenes. He worked at TheGamer before joining Dexerto. On the weekends, you'll find him watching the CDL and jamming to The Mountain Goats. You can find Alec on Twitter @LifeAsAlec