Rostermania arrived far earlier than expected in the Call of Duty League 2025 season, with reigning world champions OpTic Texas looking to remove Amer ‘Pred’ Zulbeari from the starting roster and replace him with a former OpTic player.
After just one week of matches, changes are already underway, with OpTic starting their season 1-1 after beating Cloud9 New York and losing to Boston Breach.
OpTic star Anthony ‘Shotzzy’ Cuevas-Castro admitted that the team isn’t ready to win a tournament right now, which will have been disappointing to hear for the dedicated Greenwall, but that could change going forward.
The player OpTic have been scrimming with to replace Pred is Cuyler ‘Huke’ Garland, who already represented the team during the Modern Warfare II season in 2023.
🚨Sources OpTic Texas are evaluating a change in the starting roster with Huke coming in for Pred.
— CDL Scrim Intel (@CdlScrimintel) December 11, 2024
Huke has been playing incredibly well so far in Black Ops 6 with his Challengers team, and many had tipped him to be the number one pick to be brought into the league – though not many would have foreseen him joining the world champions one week into play.
Why are OpTic dropping Pred from starting team?
After rumors of the change started to appear across social media, OpTic legend Seth ‘Scump’ Abner responded to questions about it on stream.
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“I don’t know what to say guys,” he replied honestly. “I’m not really involved in any of those talks. All that I know is that it’s personal reasons and it’s not really my place to talk about it.”
Scump reacts to Pred being replaced by Huke: "I'm not involved in those talks, all I know is it's personal stuff…" pic.twitter.com/jB6nfhRsep
— SpawnUp⬆️(CDL Clips) (@SpawnUpgg) December 11, 2024
We’ve seen players in the past step back from competing, both temporarily and permanently, due to personal problems outside of the game.
However, with no statement from OpTic or Pred himself, there is no clear confirmation as to why this change has been made.
Huke and Shotzzy have been close over the years and with Huke’s current form, it will be very interesting to see how this SMG duo performs going forward. If they do particularly well, it could cause headaches for the OpTic players and coaching staff if Pred returns, as he is not the type of player you want to leave on the bench.