#5 Shotzzy: Top 20 Players of Black Ops 7

The #5 player of the Black Ops 7 season is OpTic Texas' superstar SMG & movement god, Anthony "Shotzzy" Cuevas-Castro.

Shotzzy's season built to a career-defining finish. After a year of near-misses that included four separate Grand Final losses, he closed things out with an MVP performance at the Esports World Cup, powering OpTic to the first repeat EWC title in tournament history and putting an exclamation point on one of the best individual seasons of his career.

Season Review

OpTic entered the year running it back with the same roster that had swept both Champs and the Esports World Cup in Black Ops 6, becoming the first team in league history to win consecutive Champs titles. Cuyler "Huke" Garland, Shotzzy, Brandon "Dashy" Otell, and Mason "Mercules" Ramsey returned with the roster & coaching staff unchanged, entering the season as the presumptive favorites over many of their rivals.

The preseason went about as expected. OpTic dominated the Monster Energy Launch Invitational, headlined by wins over FaZe Vegas (3-0) and a pair of victories against Paris Gentle Mates in the Winners Final (3-0) and Grand Final (4-3). Kaysan's Showdown VIII ended in a runner-up finish, but the team looked primed to carry that momentum into the regular season.

The Major I Qualifiers proved far bumpier than the preseason had suggested. OpTic closed at 4-3 with a 14-13 map count, good for the 6th seed but nowhere near the dominant form fans had come to expect. They shook it off quickly on LAN, opening with three straight 3-0 wins over Riyadh Falcons in Winners Round 1, G2 Minnesota in Winners Round 2, and Paris in the Winners Final. Many expected a rout in the Grand Final rematch with Paris, but the Gentle Mates flipped the script, beating OpTic 4-3 on Texas home soil to send them to a runner-up finish in the opening Major. Shotzzy took a major step forward at the event itself, climbing from a 0.93 K/D online to a 1.14 K/D on LAN, a jump that fueled OpTic's Grand Final run, adding a 97.5 Slayer Rating and a 1.23 Overload K/D along the way.

📸 Photo by @CODLeague

The Major II Qualifiers were where Ant's individual game truly started to separate from the pack. He carried a 1.07 K/D and a 95.5 Slayer Rating through the stretch, and his SND numbers in particular jumped a full level, up to a 1.32 K/D and 0.84 kills per round. The team around him matched that consistency, cruising to the 1st seed with a 10-1 record and a 31-10 map count, with the lone hiccup a 1-3 loss to Riyadh Falcons. At the Major itself, OpTic ran through Toronto (3-0), Minnesota (3-0), and FaZe Vegas (3-1) to reach yet another Grand Final, only for FaZe to flip the Major I script and sweep the rematch 4-1, sending OpTic home with back-to-back silver medals.

Individually, Shotzzy kept climbing. His Hardpoint numbers took center stage during the Major III Qualifiers, where he posted the league's 2nd-highest K/D at 1.25 and the 3rd-most kills per 10 minutes at 28.2, propelling OpTic to a perfect 5-0 qualifying run and the 1st seed with a 15-6 map count. That dominance didn't extend to the Minor, though, where a 2-3 loss to LA Thieves in the Semifinals kept OpTic winless in regular-season tournaments despite the Kickoff title sitting on the shelf. Atlanta told a familiar story at the Major itself: a clean sweep through Pool A over OMiT (3-0) and Minnesota (3-1), followed by three more bracket wins over Miami Heretics, Riyadh Falcons, and Toronto KOI to set up a third straight Grand Final. This time it was Jeremiah "Nium" Harrison, once an OpTic academy product himself, delivering the dagger, guiding LA Thieves to a seven-map win that left OpTic 11-0 in best-of-5s on LAN but winless in three straight Grand Finals.

📸 Photo by @CODLeague

Stage IV opened with real motivation to finally close one out. OpTic secured the 3rd seed in the Major IV Qualifiers at 3-2 with a 13-8 map count, a stretch where Shotzzy's SND (1.23 K/D, 0.89 kills per round) and Overload (a league-best 1.16 K/D) numbers both stood out. Minor II ended in another near-miss, a Finals loss to LA Thieves at 2-4 that did little to settle nerves heading into the last LAN of the regular season. Major IV shifted the setting entirely, hosted overseas by Paris Gentle Mates, and for the first time all year OpTic had to fight through the Lower Bracket, dropping the Winners Final 0-3 to LA Thieves before storming back to eliminate the hometown Gentle Mates 3-0 and setting up a decisive rematch. Seven maps later, OpTic finally had their Major, edging LA Thieves 4-3. Shotzzy's own stat line was modest by his standards, a 0.99 K/D and 0.95 adjusted K/D, but the box score undersold his contribution to finally breaking the Grand Final curse right before the tournament that mattered most.

📸 Photo by @CODLeague

That tournament, of course, was Champs, where OpTic entered chasing a three-peat no team in league history had ever come close to completing. A 1st-seed regular season, a first for the CDL, set up a clean path through Miami (3-0) and Paris (3-1) before another eClassico date with FaZe in the Winners Final. History didn't favor OpTic this time, falling 2-3 there and 2-5 in the rematch Grand Final, a crushing end that left Shotzzy and company with a 1-4 record in Grand Finals for the entire season.

There was still one shot at redemption left on the calendar. Representing OpTic Gaming at the Esports World Cup, the team stumbled early in Pool Play, dropping a 2-3 decision to 100 Thieves, but recovered to sweep past Team WaR (3-1) and Project Notorious (3-0) into the playoffs. From there, OpTic looked like a completely different team, blowing out FaZe Esports 4-0 and grinding out a seven-map win over 100 Thieves 4-3 to reach the Grand Final, where they closed the door on Team Heretics 5-3 to claim the $600,000 top prize. It was Shotzzy's tournament to remember most of all. After a quiet Champs (0.92 K/D, 88.2 Slayer Rating), he flipped a switch in Paris, posting a team-high 1.16 K/D, a 100.7 Slayer Rating, and a 1.26 SND K/D on his way to tournament MVP honors, capping the year by helping OpTic become the first team ever to repeat as Esports World Cup champions.

How Good Was Shotzzy in 2026?

Hardpoint

Hardpoint ranked as Ant's third-best mode of the year, closing with a 1.02 K/D, 25.7 kills per 10 minutes, 3,140 damage per 10 minutes, and 56.8 seconds of hill time per 10 minutes. That level stayed remarkably consistent on LAN, finishing with a 1.02 K/D and 25.8 kills per 10 minutes there as well. His ceiling was sky-high, setting the 3rd-highest single-match K/D of the season with a 2.67 mark against Toronto during Minor I. Whenever Shotzzy finished a Hardpoint map with a positive K/D, OpTic went 53-5 (91.4%), the best mark of any player in the league.

Search & Destroy

SND was Shotzzy's best mode of the season, closing with a 1.07 K/D, 0.77 kills per round, 100.8 ADR, and a 51.1% opening duel win rate. He was especially dominant against rival Paris all year, posting a 1.28 K/D in those matchups. His volume backed it up too, with 15 double-digit kill games and 6 maps featuring four or more opening duel wins.

📸 Photo by @CODLeague

Overload

The league's newest mode was another strong one for Shotzzy, producing several highlight-reel plays over the course of the season with the individual numbers to match. Ant closed with a 1.07 K/D, 25.8 kills per 10 minutes (3rd-best in the CDL), 3,136 damage per 10 minutes, and 61 goals. Those numbers held steady on LAN, sitting at a 1.08 K/D with 25.7 kills per 10 minutes.

A Look Ahead to Modern Warfare IV

Despite rumors that Paco "HyDra" Rusiewiez had interest in joining OpTic this offseason, the organization has confirmed there will be no changes to the roster heading into Modern Warfare IV. As always, new challengers will emerge, and superteams will form around the league, but as it stands, every one of them will still have to get through OpTic to win it all. Shotzzy should enter next season as one of the early MVP favorites, having established himself as one of the best players in the league across both Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3.