OpTic Gaming recruit FaZe Clan star as their CWL Pro League substitute [UPDATED]
With just a few days left until the start of the CWL Pro League, OpTic Gaming have finally announced who their sub will be and it’s one of the biggest stars in Call of Duty.
Given the amount of talent that missed out on qualifying for the CWL Pro League this year, it’s been no surprise to see many teams pick up big-name players as their substitutes.
OpTic Gaming, however, decided to save the best announcement as one of the last by announcing Tommy ‘ZooMaa’ Paparatto as their sub for the upcoming Pro League.
The move was first talked about by ZooMaa on January 27 when he said that he “was supposed to be a sub for OpTic” before contract issues got in the way.
It seems as though whatever issues were present then have been fully worked out in the lead up to OpTic’s announcement on January 30.
OpTic Gaming deleted their Tweet shortly after it went live.
FaZe Clan failing to qualify for the CWL Pro League was one of the bigger surprises of the Qualifier as many saw the team as a lock for making it into the League.
The team struggled through the Pool Play stage with a 3-3 record before eventually falling to both Excelerate Gaming and Overtime eSport (who signed with Denial Esports on January 29) in the double-elimination playoff bracket.
While he and his teammates were surely upset about the loss, ZooMaa is now the third FaZe player to find a new home, with Preston ‘Priestahh’ Greiner and James ‘Crowder’ Crowder joining 100 Thieves as a player and coach, respectively.
OpTic Gaming won the first CWL open event of the year in Las Vegas last December.
Soon after OpTic’s initial tweet was posted, ZooMaa confirmed the move while also thanking the organization for choosing him as their sub.
Thank you @OpTicGaming :heart:️:green_heart:
— FaZe ZooMaa (@ZooMaa) January 30, 2019
The CWL Pro League kicks off on February 4 with OpTic Gaming being placed into Division A.
OpTic Gaming will also participate in the next open event, CWL Fort Worth, that takes place from March 15-17.
UPDATE
While the full details of the roster move were a bit unclear at first, ZooMaa later cleared things up via a command on his Twitch channel.
According to the command, ZooMaa is still under contract with FaZe Clan and is not actually on loan, which is the case with Priestahh and Crowder.
As such, ZooMaa will only play for OpTic if they absolutely need a replacement during an upcoming match.