Envoy of OpTic Chicago is an unrestricted free agent for the Call of Duty League’s 2022 season, he revealed today on Twitter. The veteran player’s contract expired on July 31st, bringing an end to his career with the organization.
Envoy has been part of the OpTic franchise since its first season in CWL Pro League 2016 and has competed in 23 events for them, including a third-place finish at CWL Anaheim Open 2019. After winning Game 2 of their vice-finals match against Team Kaliber on Friday against Karma, Envoy was overcome by emotion saying “I’ve been playing pro esports for 14 years and I don’t know what else to do after this.”
The next day he found out his limited contact had expired and left OpTic Chicago. He said he still felt “loyalty to the organization and want to be a part of it, but I’m also looking towards the future, what is next on my career path.”
OpTic Gaming was built from the ground up in 2017 after Team Kaliber was purchased by OpTic in February of that year for $6.3 million. They were sold less than five months later to professional gamers Hector “H3CZ” Rodriguez and Brandon “Dashy” Otello, who had sent a proposal that would simplify the transition between esports teams.
OpTic Gaming’s investors include NBA team the Houston Rockets, ‘Transformers’ actor Peter Cullen, and YouTube star Felix Kjellberg (better known to gamers as PewDiePie).
Envoy was one of four players who were at the core of OpTic Gaming’s roster from its founding in 2017 to this year. His departure leaves Dashy and H3CZ as the only remaining players from that season.
This announcement is just one in a series of moves that will affect competitive Call of Duty over this off-season. New rosters will begin to take shape starting August 1st when teams are able to start negotiating and signing with free agents. OpTic Gaming’s player contracts for this season expired June 1st. On July 1st, H3CZ posted on Twitter announcing the roster he intended to keep together through the 2020 season: Jake “Virgil” LaMotta, Billy “Hawqeh” Harris, and Matthew “Formal” Piper.
H3CZ said all three were under contract to the team for the next two years. The players tweeted that they would be competing as OpTic Gaming moving forward and that their contracts were not ending on June 1st as they had previously thought.