Treyarch officially launched the League Play mode for Black Ops: Cold War on Monday, Feb. 8. The new mode comes just in time for the return of the Call of Duty League later this week.

League Play is a competitive mode that uses the same rules, modes, and maps as the Call of Duty League. League Play was first introduced in Black Ops 4 and is Call of Duty’s most popular competitive mode ever.

How Cold War League Play works

The Cold War League Play mode will be organized by distinct League Play events that will occur twice a week for a few days at a time. The weekday events will run from Monday to Friday, while the weekend events will run from Friday to Monday. During these events, players will be able to improve their rank by winning more games than they lose.

Unranked players will play five placement matches during their first League Play event to receive their initial ranking. After that, they will climb or descend the competitive ladder based on their performance during individual League Play events. 

The mode features a full skill-based matchmaking system that takes place across five skill divisions: Competitor, Advanced, Expert, Elite, and Master.  The Competitors rank will host the bottom 50% of players, the Advanced rank will host the top 50% percentile, the Expert rank will be the top 30%, the Elite rank will be the top 15% of players, and finally, the Master rank will be the top 2% of players.

The League Play mode uses the official CDL 2021 ruleset. That means that this mode is played in a 4v4 format and there are a number of restricted attachments and items that can’t be used. The League Play rules do diverge from the official CDL 2021 ruleset in two areas: the mode allows players to have custom classes and the mode offers a wider selection of killstreaks than the CDL does.

Players of all skill levels can earn various ranks and rewards by participating in the League Play system. For a full list of those rewards, check out Treyarch’s full announcement.

The release of the Cold War League Play mode comes only a few days before the launch of the Call of Duty League’s second season on Thursday. The new CDL season will kick off with an Atlanta FaZe Home Series starting at 3 PM on February 11th.  You can watch that event on the CDL Youtube Channel.