One of the newest players in the Call of Duty League slayed his way into the spotlight in 2023. JoeDeceives entered the league at just 18 years old and has shown flashes of potentially being one of the best young SMG players in the game.

Starting the year in Challengers with LAG Academy, JoeDeceives was quickly called up after Major 1, being a bright spot in what's been a disappointing year for the Los Angeles Guerrillas. All this considered, the future is bright for the rookie.

We sat down with JoeDeceives to talk about what it was like playing in Challengers, Hardpoint game strategy, and who his dream duo would be.

You have guys on your team that have been around a little bit longer - Arcitys, Assault - What have you learned from those veterans?

Yeah, they definitely taught me stuff. I've teamed with Assault, that was my team in Challengers. We won the first cup I played, qualified for their ProAm and then won the Major 1 Open Bracket. He's definitely taught me a lot, even from just basic fundamentals. When I first came in, I never played with the team before. I would play online tournaments for fun with friends and not really take it seriously. So that's my first actual team, teaming with Assault, who's competed in the league forever and Exceed, who just won Challenger Champs the year before. They definitely taught me a lot, like basic fundamentals and how to work as a team. They're definitely one of the reasons why I improved so fast.

There are a ton of very talented players in Challengers. Talk about that journey you had going from Challengers to the league.

My first-ever team was LAG Academy with Assault Exceed and Diamondcon. Even like our first scrim, I saw clips of it. Watching that back now, it's crazy how much I've improved. I thank them for that. The experience in Challengers is like this. I scrimmed at 2, 4:30, and 7, and then we would VOD on top of that in between the scrims. We were on our grind. We wanted to win the Cups, and qualify for ProAm, win the Major, which we did, thankfully. But that experience was crazy. I put literally so much time into it, and by Major 1,  I could see it all unfolding, and it showed.

Tell me what you are doing to work on your game as a whole. What's something maybe you have struggled with but you're consistently working on to improve?

In practice, this is gonna sound kind of counterintuitive, but I'm just trying to make as many mistakes as I can. Like I'll put myself in these different situations to the point where I make those mistakes and learn from it instead of having a random situation pop up in the match. I'm just trying to make as many mistakes as I can in practice so that when it comes to match time, I know what to do when that situation pops up. But on top of that, learning to wait for my teammates, get us all on the same page because, right now, we're not in the best spot to qualify for Champs, but there's always that little bit of hope and no matter what, you always gotta fight.

What Call of Duty League player, past or present, that you haven't teamed with that you would like to be your duo?

I'm going to say, Crim, just because he called me a cheater when I played him in ranked once. I also feel like he'd be a fun teammate to have. Obviously, he's the greatest player of all time. Everyone knows the accolades, and I'd like to ask why he called me a cheater.