The Minnesota RØKKR have made a change on their starting lineup, subbing out Adam "GodRx" Brown for Kaden "Exceed" Stockdale.
The move comes two days after the final home series event of the Call of Duty League regular season, where the RØKKR failed to make it out of groups. Minnesota finished eighth out of 12 teams in the standings this season.
The announcement was made in a Twitter video on the official RØKKR account by head coach Brian "Saintt" Baroska and assistant coach/lead analyst Jake "REPPIN" Trobaugh.
"[GodRX was a] lights-out performer throughout the first half of the year, top three player contention for MVP. I honestly thought he was the best player in the game when we had him on LAN," REPPIN said in the video. "That being said, he was the slowest person on our team and we really needed to throw someone into the mix that could play much quicker."
Read more: One sentence for every map in the Toronto home series
Saintt echoed those sentiments in the video, noting that the team tried hard to keep the same five starting players from start to finish, but things were not working, particularly after the Toronto home series where the RØKKR only took one map the entire tournament.
GodRx said via Twitter that he would turn his attention to streaming and wished the team well.
This whole year started off so good then gradually went downhill, I'm just going to be focusing on streaming for now and just wait until the next season. I wish nothing but the best for the team. Gotta come back stronger next season, love y'all. ❤️
- Røkkr Jerome (@GODRX) July 29, 2020
Saintt noted that Exceed will bring new life, pace, energy and youth to the team, and his playstyle will open up the game for his teammates.
Going into the Toronto home series this past weekend, Minnesota had the second biggest win-percentage drop (-17.5%) after the league was forced to shift midseason from offline LAN play to online play due to the coronavirus.
The Call of Duty League 2020 Championship begins Aug. 19. The RØKKR will face the New York Subliners in the first round of the playoffs.
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