Renegades announce new CoD roster ahead of second Challengers season

Esports organisation Renegades have revealed their Call of Duty roster for the second season of the CDL’s Challengers Series, including players from last year’s Paris Legion roster. 

The switch from the Call of Duty World League to the Call of Duty League represents the greatest shake-up competitive CoD has ever seen. While latter tournaments in the CWL involved an amateur tournament running parallel to the main one, the introduction of Challengers’ Series gives a greater formalisation to competition below the best of the best.

With franchised spots in the CDL costing millions, it’s no surprise that some big name esports organisations have found themselves competing in the Challengers Series. One of these orgs is Renegades, the Detroit-based esports team that has come in and out of competitive CoD in recent years.

On October 31, they announced their CoD roster for the upcoming Black Ops Cold War season, which will be the second season of the CDL and its accompanying Challenger Series.

Perhaps the biggest name in the new roster is Luke ‘Louqa’ Rigas, who represented Paris Legion in the CDL last year. It was an up-and-down year for the Paris Legion, who managed a second place finish at the online CDL Week 12 London event.

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He is also joined by ex-Paris teammate Conrad ‘Shockz’ Rymarek, who is best known for his five years with Australian organisation Mindfreak from 2014 to 2019.

Rounding off the roster are Lincoln ‘Fighta’ Ferguson and Amer ‘Pred’ Zulbeari, making a fully Australian roster. The nationalities of all players means they will likely compete in the APAC region of the Challengers Series.

While Shockz and Louqa come off the back of mixed fortunes in the CDL, Fighta and Pred both joined Renegades in January of 2020. In the somewhat weaker field of APAC competition, their Renegades roster dominated the region’s Challenger tournaments during the Modern Warfare season.

Replacing half the team with CDL standard pros means it’s likely we’ll see similar domination this year, barring any shock performances from the other APAC teams.