#1 Simp: Top 20 Players of Black Ops 7

The #1 player of the Black Ops 7 season is FaZe Vegas superstar SMG and one of the greatest players in Call of Duty history, Chris "Simp" Lehr.

Every era of FaZe has run through Simp since 2019, and Black Ops 7 became the year that legacy paid off twice over. A third career championship ring, his first since 2021, arrived alongside a second Esports World Cup title, closing out a season in which he led the league in Slayer Rating and turned SND into his personal showcase from January through December.

Season Review

FaZe entered the year unrecognizable from the roster that came before it. McArthur "Cellium" Jovel and Tyler "aBeZy" Pharris, fixtures of the franchise since its founding as Atlanta FaZe & a tight trio with Chris, were let go, replaced by the Vancouver Surge pairing of Jordan "Abuzah" François and Jovan "O4" Rodriguez alongside holdovers Zack "Drazah" Jordan and Simp. The franchise itself changed too, relocating from Atlanta to become FaZe Vegas just before the season began. Through all the turnover, Simp remained the one constant, and the question heading into the year was simple: with him anchoring the roster, FaZe could compete with anyone on a given day, but could they raise their floor enough to compete at every single event?

Early returns were mixed. The Monster Energy Kickoff Invitational saw FaZe beat Cellium's new Riyadh Falcons 3-0 and edge Toronto KOI 3-2, before dropping consecutive matches to OpTic Texas and G2 Minnesota, an eventful if inconclusive start with Paris Gentle Mates looking like the class of the league. FaZe quieted plenty of that early noise during the Major I Qualifiers, going 5-2 with a 16-10 map count and wins over OpTic, Gentle Mates, and Toronto. Simp was locked in from the jump, a 1.15 K/D and 95.0 Slayer Rating, with a 1.12 K/D or better in every mode and a 70% non-traded kill rate.

📸 Photo by @CODLeague

The Major in Texas opened poorly with a 0-3 loss to G2 Minnesota, but FaZe answered with four straight Lower Bracket wins before falling 2-3 to Paris in a Lower Final heartbreaker. Simp was excellent throughout, a 1.12 K/D with 1.09 or better across all three modes, a 96.1 Slayer Rating, and a dominant SND showing, a 1.26 K/D while leading the team in kills per round (0.89) and opening duel win rate (68.8%).

The Major II Qualifiers were bumpier, with FaZe finishing 6-5 with a 22-19 map count for the 6th seed despite losses to Boston Breach, Minnesota, and Miami Heretics exposing real inconsistency. Simp still led the team with a 1.07 K/D and 96.7 Slayer Rating, adding a 1.11 SND K/D, setting up a Major that needed a real statement in Birmingham. FaZe delivered one. They opened by beating LA Thieves and Paris, fell to OpTic in the Upper Final, then avenged that loss in the most emphatic way possible, sweeping OpTic 4-1 in the Grand Final for a shocking title. Simp was the engine behind it, leading the team with a 1.11 K/D, a 95.8 Slayer Rating, and a 1.12 respawn K/D, saving his best for the Grand Final itself: 109 kills, a 1.22 K/D, 13,444 damage, and a 1.49 Hardpoint K/D in the biggest match of the stage.

📸 Photo by @CODLeague

Major III Qualifiers were another grind, FaZe splitting results to lock in the 4th seed at 3-2, while Minor I ended in a Quarterfinal win over Riyadh, undone by a Semifinal sweep at the hands of Miami. Simp's SND reached a new peak in the qualifying window, a 1.36 K/D, 0.95 kills per round, 120.7 ADR, and a 61.1% opening duel win rate, his best stretch in the mode to that point. At the Pro-Am Major III in Atlanta, FaZe survived Pool Play and a tough LA Thieves draw before an upset loss to Toronto KOI derailed a deeper run, ultimately finishing 4th after a bounce-back win over Paris and a rematch loss to LA. Simp still led the team with a 1.16 K/D, a 98.0 Slayer Rating, and a 1.27 KA/D, adding a monstrous Overload showing, a 1.32 K/D with 9 goals and 27.9 kills per 10 minutes, evidence that his LAN dominance was becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Stage IV opened with a manageable 3-2 Major IV Qualifiers record, and Minor II results that mirrored the rest of the season: a Quarterfinal win over Vancouver Surge followed by a Semifinal sweep at the hands of LA Thieves. Major IV sent FaZe to Paris, where they beat the hometown Gentle Mates before losing to LA Thieves, rebounding against Toronto only to fall to Paris again in the rematch for a 4th-place finish. Simp's online form had been rockier through the stretch, but he found it again on LAN, a 1.08 K/D and 94.4 Slayer Rating, flexing real objective range by leading the team with 78 hill time per 10 minutes and 1.5 goals per 10 minutes, a reminder that his game extended well beyond the SND trigger.

📸 Photo by @CODLeague

Then came Champs, on home turf in Vegas, and the storyline wrote itself. FaZe cruised through the early rounds, beat OpTic in a five-map Winners Final thriller, and delivered the rematch of the season in the Grand Final, taking down OpTic 5-2 to claim the title. As Miles put it afterward, "Don't you know? The house always wins in Vegas." For Simp, it was his third championship ring, and his first since 2021. He closed the tournament with a 1.14 K/D, a 98.0 Slayer Rating, and a 1.22 Hardpoint K/D, but SND was where he truly separated himself: a 1.43 K/D, 0.86 kills per round, 116.6 ADR, and a 68.8% opening duel win rate, leading FaZe in every one of those categories.

The Esports World Cup brought one more chance at history. FaZe cleared Pool A cleanly, but ran into a buzzsaw in the Quarterfinals, falling 4-0 to an OpTic team looking for its own revenge from the Champs Grand Final. Even with the early exit, it was a landmark year for Simp regardless, closing the season with a title in every event that mattered most to him except the last one. In the tournament finale, he led the team with a 1.14 K/D while topping the entire league in Slayer Rating (108.4) and Damage Rating (13,655). His SND play bordered on absurd by the end: a 1.74 K/D, 1.10 kills per round, and multi-kills in 33.3% of his rounds, the exclamation point on a season that will go down as one of the best in his long career.

How Good Was Simp in 2026?

Hardpoint

Simp closed the season with a 1.10 K/D, leading FaZe and helping turn the team into a genuine Hardpoint powerhouse. He added 26.5 kills per 10 minutes, 3,344 damage per 10 minutes, and 63.7 seconds of hill time per 10 minutes. His ceiling was sky-high, setting the single-map K/D record on LAN with a 2.50 mark against ROC Esports at Major III. He was even better once the lights came on, ranking 4th in kills per 10 minutes (26.9), 2nd in K/D (1.12), and 7th in damage per 10 minutes (3,381) on LAN. Simp also ranked 2nd in the CDL with 27 maps of 4,000-plus damage, doing so in 27% of his Hardpoints, and finished 4th in the league's Cellium Index for the mode, posting a positive K/D in 67% of his maps, with FaZe going 50-16 in those games.

Search & Destroy

Search & Destroy was Simp's best mode of the season, leading FaZe in K/D (1.17), kills per round (0.82), and ADR (109.3), while adding a 51.3% opening duel win rate, 95 plants, and multi-kills in 21.2% of his rounds. He climbed even higher on LAN, with a 1.20 K/D and a 53.5% opening duel win rate. He saved some of his best play for the league's top competition, posting a 1.38 K/D, 0.91 kills per round, and a 63% opening duel win rate against Paris, and a 1.19 K/D, 0.80 kills per round, and a 61% opening duel win rate against rival OpTic. His peaks led the league outright, with 24 double-digit kill maps, good for 29% of his SNDs.

📸 Photo by @CODLeague

Overload

In the league's newest mode, Simp quickly established himself as one of its best players. He posted a 1.08 K/D on the year with 56 goals, 25.4 kills per 10 minutes, and 3,183 damage per 10 minutes, ticking up to a 1.10 K/D and 25.7 kills per 10 minutes on LAN. His ceiling showed up in a big way at EWC, where he posted two of the Top 5 single-map damage totals of the season, 4,831 against Toronto KOI (4th) and 4,805 against The Pit (5th). Across the full year, Simp led every player in the league with 7 maps of 4,000-plus damage, doing so in 11% of his Overloads.

A Look Ahead to Modern Warfare IV

There's plenty of uncertainty around FaZe's roster heading into Modern Warfare IV, with rumors connecting the org to a run at Scrap and HyDra, though LA Thieves and Gentle Mates are chasing the same pair. FaZe is reportedly firmly in that race, with a real shot at landing them.

Simp remains the franchise's anchor, having played for the organization since 2019, and FaZe has never been shy about surrounding him with talent. This offseason won't be any different. Whether that means running it back with the championship core or bringing in two new superstars, FaZe enters next season as a threat no matter which direction they choose.