2024 was a huge year for Call of Duty, with Modern Warfare 3 bringing back some of the most iconic maps in COD history, the launch of Black Ops 6, and OpTic Texas winning the World Championships for the first time in seven years. Here, we go through our top five best COD players of 2024.
The 2024 Call of Duty League season saw multiple winners across six different events (if we include the postseason Esports World Cup), with various players shining at different times of the season.
However, these players hit the highest peaks and were consistently at the top throughout the entire year. Here is our full list, celebrating the best talents in the league right now, ahead of the CDL 2025 season kicking off.
5. Brandon ‘Dashy’ Otell
Dashy has been one of the most elite slayers in the Call of Duty League each season, and MW3 was no different, winning his first world championship after years of missing out.
He was also arguably (and to much debate among COD fans) the most clutch player in the league, with multiple 1vX situations won. This includes perhaps the most memorable clip of the season, as he pulled off an impressive 1v3 against Atlanta FaZe on their way to Major 3 victory.
There were a number of contenders to get this top 5 spot – Cellium, in particular, had a clear shot of working his way in after this season’s performances, but Dashy’s Champs win and insane clutches meant he had to feature.
4. Anthony ‘Shotzzy’ Cuevas-Castro
Dashy’s OpTic Texas teammate Shotzzy is the movement king in COD esports and has the ability to get the crowd on their feet like no other.
As the reigning Champs Finals MVP, Shotzzy only seemed to improve over the course of the year (barring an embarrassing Major 4 run that OpTic fans would prefer to forget), but he certainly put to bed any notion that he isn’t a superstar.
Only two SMG players had a better Search & Destroy KD than Shotzzy did this season, with this being the mode where he really stood out, and – spoiler alert – they both feature in this list.
3. Thomas ‘Scrap’ Ernst
Now, a few months out of the 2024 season and with 2025 just about to kick off with Black Ops 6, it’s easy to just remember the big winners – OpTic and FaZe – and forget that for much of the year, Scrap had a serious shot at the MVP award.
He was the best Assault Rifle player in the league, and, despite Dashy’s success and Cellium’s slaying, Scrap has set himself such a high bar in the league that every time he’s not fighting for a championship, he’s letting himself down.
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His play in respawn modes was just levels above the rest of the pack, and if he managed to win a couple more trophies, we’d likely be looking at one of the most complete seasons for a player in COD history.
2. Paco ‘HyDra’ Rusiewiez
For much of the 2024 season, the community argued between two top submachine gun stars for the MVP nod, and HyDra just missed out on the top spot as he failed to convert his insane gameplay into wins at either the CDL Championship or Esports World Cup.
However, it’s impossible to ignore that the Frenchman has perhaps the highest ceiling in the league, even more so than the world champions and veterans that have run the scene for years. He challenges every gunfight like he’s got a Ray Gun in his hand and is able to win even when the odds are stacked against him, making other pros look like BillybobSniper123.
He was without question the greatest slayer in the league in 2024, with insane streaks and several high-kill series, but there’s one player that just edged him out of the top spot thanks to a pretty big tournament victory.
1. Chris ‘Simp’ Lehr
Simp is on the fast track to becoming the best Call of Duty player of all time. That much is almost unanimously agreed upon, and he did an excellent job proving that in 2024.
There was basically never a point throughout the MW3 season that Simp wasn’t looked at as an MVP standout. Even in the pre-season tournaments, he was already putting in MVP-level performances, and that really never died down.
He is the blueprint for what players expect to see from HyDra in the coming years and, despite being five years deep into his pro career, refuses to slow down at all.
He was the regular season MVP, Major 2 winner, and a true beast in all game modes. That was all before he won the Esports World Cup, too, which helped nudge him above HyDra in our overall rankings.
As mentioned earlier, there are some names that just missed out on the top 5 for various reasons, be it Cellium, Drazah, or even Ghosty, who really started to become a more well-rounded player in 2024.
With the 2025 season now fast approaching, it will be interesting to see how different or similar this list looks this time next year. It’s hard to imagine any players outperforming the five listed here, but as we know from the past, every new season brings a few surprises to keep things exciting.