OpTic Texas and FaZe Vegas advanced into the winner’s final while Toronto KOI and the Los Angeles Thieves were the first teams eliminated in the second day of competition at the 2026 Call of Duty League Championship in Las Vegas on Friday.

This is the final event and the world championship of the Black Ops 7 competitive season.

Eight of 12 teams qualified for the CDL Championship in the regular season from Dec. 5, 2025 to June 28, led by first-place OpTic Texas (40-12, +69).

The format is a double-elimination bracket, with all matches best-of-five except for Sunday’s grand final, which is best-of-nine. There is a $2 million prize pool, with the winning team taking home $800,000.

In the matchups of teams who won their opening matches on Thursday, FaZe Vegas swept the Riyadh Falcons 3-0 and OpTic Texas beat the Paris Gentle Mates 3-1.

FaZe completed its sweep with a 250-192 Scar Hardpoint win, a 6-5 Sake Search and Destroy victory and a 5-3 Scar Overload clinching win. Chris “Simp” Lehr of FaZe led all players with 75 kills and a plus-17 kill-death differential in the runaway victory.

OpTic and Paris split the first two games of their match, with OpTic winning 250-183 on Scar Hardpoint before the Gentle Mates responded with a 6-4 Den Search and Destroy triumph. OpTic put the match away from there, though, pulling out a 5-4 Scar Overload win followed by a 250-127 Colossus Hardpoint clincher. Cuyler “Huke” Garland led OpTic with 90 kills and a plus-24 K-D differential.

In Friday’s elimination matches, the Miami Heretics ousted the Toronto KOI with a 3-2 win while G2 Minnesota outlasted the Los Angeles Thieves 3-2.

Toronto opened a 2-1 lead with a 6-3 Gridlock Search and Destroy win followed by a 6-0 Den Overload shutout after Miami won the opening game 250-167 on Colossus Hardpoint. Miami rallied from 2-1 behind a 250-210 Gridlock Hardpoint triumph followed by a 6-4 Den Search and Destroy win in the winner-take-all fifth game. Adrian “MettalZ” Serrano of Spain had a match-high 109 kills for Miami, finishing as the only member of the team with a positive K-D differential (plus-14).

Minnesota pulled off an even more impressive comeback against Los Angeles. After the Thieves jumped ahead 2-0 on a 250-249 Sake Hardpoint nail-biter and a 6-2 Gridlock Search and Destroy triumph, Minnesota rallied with a 6-1 Den Overload win, a 250-149 Hacienda Hardpoint victory and a 6-4 Sake Search and Destroy win in the final game. All four Minnesota players had a K-D differential of minus-one or better, but Kyle “Kremp” Haworth led the charge with 109 kills and a plus-20 K-D.

The stage will be set for Sunday’s grand final on Saturday with five more matches which will lock in the finalists.

Saturday’s schedule:

Elimination Round 2

Riyadh Falcons vs. Miami Heretics

Paris Gentle Mates vs. G2 Minnesota

Winners Final

OpTic Texas vs. FaZe Vegas

Elimination Round 3

Elimination round 2 winners face off

Elimination finals

Elimination Round 3 winner vs. Winners final loser

Call of Duty League Championship prize pool

1. $800,000, TBD

2. $480,000, TBD

3. $320,000, TBD

4. $160,000, TBD

5-6. $80,000, TBD

7-8. $40,000, Los Angeles Thieves, Toronto KOI

–Field Level Media

Ryan Jeffers knows he cannot control the trade rumors swirling around him.

Jeffers also knows he can control his approach at the plate. Lately, the sound of his bat smacking against the ball has seemed at least as loud as any trade speculation.

Jeffers and the Minnesota Twins will try to keep up their recent success when they face off against the Chicago Cubs on Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field. The Twins will go for their fourth straight win after taking Friday’s series opener 5-2.

In the win, Jeffers clubbed a three-run homer. His successful return from the injured list after missing time with a broken hamate bone in his left hand has reignited discussions that the Twins could move him before the trade deadline.

Jeffers will be a free agent this offseason, and the Twins are deep at catcher.

“I’m really happy,” Jeffers said. “I feel like I picked up not missing a beat from where I was early in the year. It’s always in the back of your head when you go down with an injury when you’re playing well: Are you able to find that quickly? I felt like I found it pretty quickly on my rehab assignment.”

The Cubs will try to bounce back after losing their first game after the All-Star break. Chicago won 20 of 28 games heading into the break and wants to regain its winning ways as it eyes a possible postseason run 10 years after its last World Series title.

Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson should be good to stay in the lineup after avoiding serious injury Friday. Swanson covered second base and waited to catch a throw, but the ball deflected off a Twins baserunner and hit Swanson squarely in the face.

The Cubs’ medical staff attended to Swanson, who eventually got back to his feet and stayed in the game.

“He’s not a dramatic person at all, so I know when he’s going down, there’s something going on,” Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “Obviously, a baseball to the face never feels good. He’s a tough guy, but that still doesn’t feel good.”

Twins right-hander Taj Bradley (9-3, 3.59 ERA) will make his 19th start of the season. He ranks second on the team with 118 strikeouts in 102 2/3 innings this season.

This will be Bradley’s third career start against the Cubs. He has been terrific in his first two appearances, limiting Chicago to three unearned runs on six hits in 12 2/3 innings.

Despite boasting a 0.00 ERA against the Cubs, Bradley is 1-1 in those two outings because of the unearned runs.

The Cubs will counter with veteran left-hander Matthew Boyd (5-1, 4.50), who will make his 10th start of 2026.

Boyd will try to earn a victory for the fourth start in a row. Before the All-Star break, he reeled off wins against the San Diego Padres, Baltimore Orioles and Cincinnati Reds.

In 24 career starts against the Twins, Boyd is 9-8 with a 4.67 ERA. He has 43 walks and 139 strikeouts in 135 innings.

–Field Level Media

The Chicago White Sox will look to continue their domination of the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon when the teams meet in the second game of a three-game series in Toronto.

The White Sox took the opener 12-4 Friday night as play resumed after the All-Star break and have won all four games between the teams this season. The White Sox swept the Blue Jays in a three-game set at Chicago from April 3-5.

With poor air quality due to wildfire smoke, the roof at Rogers Centre was closed on Friday.

The teams are going in different directions. The Blue Jays have lost three straight games, are seven games under .500, and are last in the American League East.

The White Sox have won four games in a row, are six games above .500, and sit atop the AL Central.

“We joke about being just dumb enough to not know, and just being dumb enough to just go play hard, and let it take care of itself,” White Sox outfielder Randal Grichuk, a former Blue Jay, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “This room is really talented, and I think it’s honestly more talented than the baseball world knows and would give us credit for, because we are so young and the teams out there, people out there, just don’t really know.

“It’s been fun to be a part of it, helping them grow if I can.”

The Blue Jays have yet to look like the team of last year, when they won the AL East and took the Los Angeles Dodgers to Game 7 in the World Series.

“We’ve just got to get the big hit,” Toronto manager John Schneider said. “You’ve got to get the big hit or hit homers with guys on. That’s been the ‘thing’ all year.”

The Blue Jays are scheduled to start right-hander Shane Bieber (0-1, 7.64 ERA) on Saturday. He is 8-5 with a 2.93 ERA in 18 career starts against the White Sox but has not faced them since 2023.

Right-hander Davis Martin (9-4, 3.41 ERA) will start for Chicago. He is 1-0 with a 4.26 ERA in two career games (one start) against Toronto. The win came April 5, when he pitched six scoreless innings.

The Blue Jays had a slightly different look on Friday. George Springer played left field after making all of his previous starts this season as the designated hitter. It allowed the Blue Jays to use both catchers — Brandon Valenzuela and Alejandro Kirk — in the lineup against left-handed starter Anthony Kay.

Springer had a solo home run and two RBIs, and Valenzuela homered as the DH. Luis Urias also homered.

“This won’t be every day,” Schneider said. “(Springer) is at the point where he’s comfortable at DH, and he’s not that young (36), so we don’t want to run him out there and kill him. But to use our whole roster a bit differently, we can put him out there a couple of times every couple of weeks and rotate the DH spot.”

The White Sox on Friday got a two-run homer from Sam Antonacci, four RBIs from Braden Montgomery — whose first career triple came with the bases loaded — and a three-run double by Colson Montgomery.

Tyler Schweitzer pitched the final three scoreless innings and was awarded his first career major league win.

The White Sox had 12 hits, with each starter contributing at least one.

“That just kind of stokes the flames,” Braden Montgomery said. “We’ve always got this fire in us, but add a little bit of oxygen to the fire every now and again, where we get more excited to keep going, keep the foot on the pedal.”

–Field Level Media