Call of Duty League Champs 2025 day one recap: Upsets galore

The first day of Call of Duty League Champs 2025 has officially concluded, and it was one of the most action-packed days of COD we've had all season long. The first four winners' round bracket matches were played, and we saw two major upsets that resulted in the only Major winners of the season dropping to the losers' bracket. This has set up the rest of the event to be even more drama-filled than it was already going to be.

With Call of Duty Champs now flipped upside down, let's recap the first day of the event, starting with the first winner's round bracket matchup between the Vancouver Surge and the Miami Heretics.

Also, if you want to get in on some betting action before day two starts, make sure to check out our full guide on how to bet on COD Champs 2025.

The day began with a strong matchup between the Surge and Heretics. While the Heretics were certainly the favorites heading into the match, featuring better odds to win at -110 and -1.5 spread, the Surge have proven this year that they have what it takes to play some great COD. And after map one, it looked like the Surge had returned to form after a shaky Major 4 performance.

Vancouver stormed out to an immediate 1-0 lead after shredding Miami in the map one Hardpoint. The Surge even started out the map Search and Destroy strong on Dealership, but it all went downhill from there. The Heretics stormed back in the S&D to tie the series up and then demolished Vancouver in both Control and the second Hardpoint to take the series 3-1.

RenkoR and Super were the two MVPs of the match for the Heretics, each posting above 1.10 KDs while Reeal and Mettalz finished with negative KDs. Vancouver now drops to the loser's bracket, where they have to face a surprising opponent, while Miami moves on to the second winner's bracket round.

Next up, we had a seemingly boring matchup between the Boston Breach and the LA Thieves. The LA Thieves have won back-to-back Majors and were easily the favorites to win COD Champs heading into day one. They were also -2000 to beat the Breach, so no one expected Boston to put up much of a fight.

However, that didn't stop Snoopy and company from dismantling the Thieves in five maps to pull off the biggest upset of the day. It was a true "Neslo," as Boston won both Search and Destroys and the Control while losing both Hardpoints to take the match in 3-2 fashion. It just wasn't a good day for HyDra and Scrap specifically, as the two first-team All Stars for the Thieves couldn't manage to put together a solid performance throughout the match. This peaked when HyDra went 0-7 in the map two S&D.

On the side of Boston, Snoopy and Purj were the saviors time and time again, helping drop LA to the loser's bracket. This is the first time in the Call of Duty League era where the number one seed at Champs has failed to win their first match of the event. Now, the Thieves are fighting for their lives against Vancouver while Boston advances to play the Heretics.

The hometown Toronto Ultra took on the Carolina Royal Ravens in the third match of the day, and there's not much to talk about with this one. Toronto looked great against a weaker Carolina team that didn't match up well with the Ultra's faster style of play. Specifically, the ARs of the Ravens couldn't keep up with Insight and Beans of Toronto, both in pace of play and slaying.

The Ultra eventually beat the Ravens 3-1 and moved on to the second round of the winner's bracket. Carolina drops to the loser's bracket to face off against a criminally tough opponent.

Finally, we got the most anticipated matchup of the day to close out day one of COD Champs. Atlanta FaZe and OpTic Texas once again face off at a Champs event, and last year, OpTic got the better of FaZe. No one really predicted that history would repeat itself, as FaZe has been by far the better team this season and entered the match with -350 odds to win. However, at Champs time, you can never count out the boys of OpTic.

This match wasn't even close, with OpTic absolutely scrubbing the floor with FaZe in a quick 3-0 fashion. Atlanta looked completely lost in all three game modes, with none of the three maps being particularly close in the end. OpTic played perfect COD in every facet, and FaZe simply looked lost at times trying to combat what their opponents were doing on the map.

It appears that Drazah is losing his OpTic "CEO" status for the time being, as FaZe have been dropped to the loser's bracket on day one and will face the Royal Ravens. On the flip side, OpTic suddenly becomes arguably the scariest team in the winner's bracket and advances to play Toronto on day two.

With day one in the books, let's look ahead to day two, which begins at 3 pm ET/12 pm PT with the first of the loser's bracket matchups between the LA Thieves and Vancouver Surge. Day two will also feature four matches, the same as day one, and two teams will be eliminated from COD Champs in the process. You can find the full schedule for day two and the entire event in our previous guide.

The matchups should be especially spicy on day two, as we could potentially have either LA Thieves or Atlanta FaZe going home in 7th/8th place. While it's a long shot that Vancouver or Carolina could pull off another upset, who knows what will happen after a wild day two?

Make sure to keep checking back here at EsportsGG for more COD Champs news and recaps.