‘Huke’, Dallas Empire defeat London 3-2 despite ‘sloppy’ hardpoint maps

The London Royal Ravens were playing their best Call of Duty and the defending world champions, the Dallas Empire, weren’t quite on the same page.

Dallas still edged out London in a prolonged 3-2 victory Wednesday afternoon to start its Call of Duty league Super Week. The Empire entered the match against the still-winless Royal Ravens trying to shake off a loss to the Minnesota Rokkr on Feb. 14. A win, even if it was hardly up to par with the Empire’s expectations of themselves, was welcomed.

“As you can tell, we obviously weren’t playing our best Call of Duty that series,” the Empire’s 19-year-old Indervir “iLLeY” Dhaliwal told The Dallas Morning News in a phone interview. “It just shows how good we are because when we start playing our best Call of Duty people will really see how good we can be.”

The first thing the Empire players talked about after the win was their “sloppy” mistakes, Dhaliwal added.

It’s been a bumpy start to the 2021 campaign. Dallas lost two search and destroy maps, but were dominant in hardpoint against Minnesota.

Wednesday was the complete opposite. Dallas was tied with London after two maps and engaged in a tight control map on Garrison. The Empire needed a big lift, and the reigning league MVP, Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro had the answer.

Before that moment, the Empire were hardly themselves. Shotzzy’s play was a spark.

“Whenever somebody makes a big play, we feed off the energy and all of us heat up to start making plays,” Dhaliwal said. “That’s how it usually goes.”

Cuevas-Castro said he knew he needed to make a big play in that moment. It secured a map win before hardpoint on a day the Empire struggled in their respawn game. The Empire’s in-game leader, Cuyler “Huke” Garland, shared the sentiment.

“Every time I see Shotzzy play it fires me up,” Hardland said. “He does some crazy stuff all the time. I love it.”

Garland is the most consistent cog of the Empire right now. He entered Wednesday with the best kill-death ratio in the league at 1.39 and recorded a 1.21 k/d against London.

He was particularly positive about the Empire’s recent experiences after the match. Garland was adamant that there’s always something to learn. He liked that his Dallas squad improved drastically in search and destroy, even though the hardpoint game regressed.

His role has changed since the departure of James “Clayster” Eubanks in the offseason. That move shook the Empire, a championship team that didn’t want to transition from 5-vs-5 to 4-vs-4. Eubanks was a staple and leadership voice for the Empire, necessary in defeating the Atlanta FaZe twice in the 2020 playoffs.

Garland absorbed much of Eubanks’ role, and he’s been insightful to his teammates about steady improvement.

“I think we might be overthinking things a bit,” Garland said. “Last year we had moments and we went through them pretty quickly. Overall as a team we feel more pressure because we won champs, but we will be ok. It’s all a lesson to make us stronger as a team.”

Nothing serious can change between now and the Empire’s next match. Their meeting with Clayster and the Subliners is on Friday at 5 p.m.

The Subliners played their best Call of Duty yet in a 3-0 win over the same London team the Empire had their hands full with. The Empire had little room for error with the Los Angeles Thieves leading their pool for the first major in March, still undefeated after a map-five win over Seattle Wednesday evening.

The Dallas players know the mistakes that were made. Correcting those in an unpredictable CDL season will be the hard part.

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