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Call of Duty (CoD) is one of the most-watched esports in the UK, but its grassroots ecosystem is not as strong as it could be. UK esports organisation Team Coalesce are hoping to change that as parent company of a new series of Prodigy CoD tournaments designed to lift the scene.
We caught up with Coalesce CEO Michael ‘CPTMISFIT’ Owen, and newcomers to the organisation, COO Noel ‘AmmAze’ Beaver and Director of CoD Esports and Content Clayton ‘Mamba’ Girvan, about their tournament plans, as well as their own new teams in CoD, and long-term goals.
Thanks for the interview, guys. Please tell us about the thinking behind Prodigy.
Michael: So, obviously, during the last couple years in UK esports, as we all know, it’s got harder and harder. So we’ve been working on various projects.
When we started, we wanted to be all about community, engagement and building up things for the UK, and this is definitely [in line with that].
We’ve brought in AmmAze and Clayton to create Call of Duty teams, and to improve the Call of Duty infrastructure in the UK and Ireland. But then also at the same time, we’ve also created a Call of Duty tournament company Prodigy as well, that’s working on bringing new people into competitive CoD, as well as bringing a more competitive scene for the UK and Ireland as well.
Coalesce are basically in the background making sure this project really pushes well for the Call of Duty community and just competitive Call of Duty in general.
Clayton: So what we do on the esports side is make sure all our players are as stable as possible, that they’re comfortable in where they are and are feeling good about where they are. We make sure that they have everything they need to compete at their highest level they possibly can. We also cover the content side.
We want to support our players to play in their respective competitive games, but we also want to drive and motivate the players to build their own personal brand through content.
AmmAze: Like Clayton, I come from an esports background competing in Call of Duty. And, I came here to take over the esports side of Call of Duty.
The Prodigy tournaments are like a passion project for me, we’re trying to create something that will bring players from outside of the competitive scene into it. So, breach walls, break down the barriers that prevent people from thinking they can’t get into competitive CoD. We want it easier for anybody who wants to get access to playing in skill-based tournaments.
The main goal of this is to cultivate the next generation of esports talent in the UK and Ireland. Because if we roll back to when me and Clayton started competing, the Call of Duty scene and esports in general is completely different now. It’s all franchise based.
When we were starting to play, it was local lans. You showed up, you’d never even seen the people you were playing with. There were two-day events with 200 teams. All this has sort of gone, and it seems to be killing the likes of future talent that could end up in the CDL because they’re giving up, because the process [to pro play] is so difficult and long.
It’s a good point you make. I recently wrote a piece comparing how things were at IEM Katowice 2025 to when I last went to IEM 2016. Esports has changed so much.
AmmAze: Yeah. We want to support the grassroots, and make it easy access for anybody that wants to enter, even orgs. A lot of these orgs are getting killed off now because they’re not getting shown any support. [a recent example being Noctem Esports closing down]
Michael: We want to build the community and put on more things for people to play, while making it very easy to access. There’s various different types of tournament formats that we’re looking to do,
‘It’s just about trying to build the UK and Ireland scene, because America has left us behind in Call of Duty. So everyone in the EU just now looks after themselves. There are good tournament providers out there, we want to add to those and be the best.’
Michael ‘CPTMISFIT’ Owen
What are your views on the CoD esports T2 scene?
Clayton: A lot of people will tell you that, ‘oh, there is nothing [happening in] Call of Duty, you can’t get anywhere on Call of Duty, it’s washed, it’s a dead game’.
I personally think it’s only that because you’ve given up. That they think they won’t succeed. That’s why the likes of Prodigy, our tournament organisation, will thrive, simply because we are giving people the chance to prove that they are the best at their level – and then more.
I want to see Prodigy tournaments at the forefront of pushing people to get in their own heads and say, ‘you know what? I actually can do this’.
And maybe they come out of so-called retirement and have another go at it and actually find the fun that they used to have back in the day.
How will Prodigy tournaments work?
AmmAze: It’s basically a series of grassroots tournaments, and eventually, we plan on breaking into a league, designed to encourage newcomers to join the competitive scene.
Sort of putting a stepping stone for people that are new to the scene to get on board with it, while also having people that have been here for years, and giving them a platform to play against equal skill level players. So we want to offer multiple entry points into competitive Call of Duty, trying to break down the barriers and make the community more inclusive.
Michael: Coalesce is moving into Call of Duty to create a positive change in the ecosystem and to also create an ecosystem of teams within the brand. So we get new people in who are new to competing, give them the right tools and the right environment, with the likes of Clayton and AmmAze to learn the game, from a competitive point of view, and then bring them into teams that we already have in the org.
“On the tournament side of things, we want to host more tournaments, eventually leagues and divisions, and hopefully a LAN by the end of the year. The main goal for us is providing a new space for players, new and old, to come together in their own skillsets and compete again, and create more of a scene for each other.”
Michael ‘CPTMISFIT’ Owen
It’s a long-term investment to make sure we can bring something to Call of Duty. CoD is never gonna go away and all the orgs that formed Coalesce all started in Call of Duty.
We just wanna have fun. We just wanna do what we always did and have fun and compete and just have a really good laugh. Trying to mix the good things about the old days of Call of Duty into what needs to be done now in the new scale of it.
AmmAze: We want to collaborate with sponsors and partners so we can build this long lasting infrastructure for Call of Duty in Ireland and the UK. It’s not just gonna be about Prodigy or Coalesce.
We want to create a space for everybody, org owners, players, parent businesses, partners, all that to get involved in it.
Which games are Coelesce in right now?
Micheal: We’re in Valorant, and we’ll be going into Call of Duty as well.
There’s a lot more that’s coming down the pipeline in terms of where Coalesce are going to be too.
We’ve moved into Europe [over the years] but we really wanted to refocus on how we really started – working with the UK.
What are your expectations for this?
Clayton: Ever since joining Coalesce, it’s been non-stop. The ideas that are floating around are incredible. I haven’t been part of something like this in a very long time.
Personally, with what I know currently and with what I can see with my colleagues, AmmAze, Michael and the rest of the staff here, we’re aiming to, and I can guarantee that we will be the leading brand, when it comes to development and opportunities in esports, simply because no one has the audacity to do what we do. And I’ll actually go as far to say we’re ruthless. If we want to do something, it’s not a no. Everyone’s on the same page, no matter what ideas we have.
It’s ‘how do we do that?’ It’s not, ‘no chance’. I’m a strong believer of if someone can do it, how did they do that? What steps did they take to do that? And how can we make it better? Because that’s what we’re hoping to do. We’re hoping to do what successful esports organisations have done, plus more and better because, as Michael says, this year is gonna be only the start for what you’ll see from us.
Everyone is gonna look at what we’re gonna be doing, and they’re gonna be like, ‘this organisation is making moves’. I can promise you that this is just the start. This is just the start, and it’s gonna be terrifying.
‘I can guarantee that we will be the leading brand, when it comes to development and opportunities in esports, simply because no one has the audacity to do what we do. And I’ll actually go as far to say we’re ruthless. If we want to do something, it’s not a no. Everyone’s on the same page, no matter what ideas we have. Everyone is gonna look at what we’re gonna be doing, and they’re gonna be like, ‘this organisation is making moves’. I can promise you that this is just the start, and it’s gonna be terrifying.’
Clayton ‘Mamba’ Girvan
Tell us about the CoD teams you’ve got.
AmmAze: When we got together and started this idea, we wanted to make an impact in Call of Duty.
If we wanted to just go out, offer a Challenger’s team money to be a part of the org and get no value out of it, no impact on the community at all… that’s what we didn’t want to do.
So we want to basically have multiple teams under Coalesce at different skill levels. That will include, like, Challengers and up as well, but we want a beginner to an elite team that’ll represent Coalesce in tournaments around Europe, like Katana, like XP League, places like that.
And we’ll be investing as much in them as we would be in a Challenger’s team as well. That’s why this is like a multi project, putting the tournaments side out and going into Call of Duty as well.
The first idea was to just invest in a beginner team, an amateur team, show them a bit of professionalism, use our resources, get people to design their logos and brands or media banners, stuff like that. Like, we want to give that access to everybody, whether you picked up a Call of Duty last week or whether you’ve been playing for the last ten years competing in tournaments or whatever.
We started off with three teams at the minute, which are across different skill levels, but we’ve entered them into CoD Ireland, which is the major league in Ireland where I’m from.
AmmAze: So we have three teams in three divisions for this season, and it’s only their second season running the league, but they have a three-division league already and that’s grown as well. So the way they run it is you have to have two Irish players involved in their league, in the team, so you have to have two Irish players, and then you could have two players from across Europe. So that’s why we wanted to get involved with that, because it’ll help promote Irish players coming through as well. So it’s not just UK, it’s Ireland as well. But along with London.
Along with that, we plan on putting teams across divisions in XPL as well. That’s where we’re expanding next over to the Katana side, so we can bring people across the multiple division levels in that.
And then there’s another league that’s launched, I think, just this season as well, which is ECL, which is the European Competitive League. Yeah. And they have eight divisions as well. So we want to put teams in that as well.
We wanted to start basically in Ireland, put the three teams in, give them the support they need, show the infrastructure that we have there, and then use that to expand over to the UK with XPL. Yeah. And then eventually take that over to ECL as well. But what we want to do is have teams competing at all levels, which all get the same support, all get the same funding. All we want them to do is play Call of Duty and enjoy it and compete and grow.
Clayton: The CoD teams that we have, they’re so competitive. I know that’s what they’re there for. But in terms of their mentality, they want to be better every single day.
And I think with everyone at Coalesce, we’re very supportive, and we’re a very family-oriented organisation.
The position that I’m in and AmmAze is in, we have that authority to sort of pass this passion and intense competition onto our boys that we have here. And it’s next to none. Because when you see the passion that they have, but it’s the passion that you have as well, it’s just it’s just passion everywhere. And it’s great to see, especially when everything’s going all at once at Coalesce, and we’re all working our absolute asses off to do this. We all wanna succeed, and that’s what I love the most about all of this.
Whether it’s Prodigy tournaments or whether it’s our Call of Duty teams, the drive that we have to push forward and to succeed as an org, as a tournament org, it is next to none. And I can feel every single bit of that. I think the main thing that I want to put across here is the sort of atmosphere that we thrive on. We’re always joking with each other, we’re always helping each other when we need it, and it works, especially when it’s all together, we’re all in one call, we’re all talking about it.
We could all be in a meeting talking about what we have to do, talking about all this work, and two seconds later, our CoD team is winning, and every single one of us is there supporting every single one of them throughout everything.
It sounds really positive.
AmmAze: If we succeed in this, which I think we will, if you look at Call of Duty now in the Major League, how many players have come from the European scene?
Like, it’s 90% American dominated. If we invest our time in this grassroots project and invest our time in players that are upcoming and keep doing it, maybe it won’t be this year or next year, but in three years’ time, the overall level of the competition across the region, UK, Ireland, and rest Europe, will improve. And if that improves, then the Challengers team improve. If they improve, then their players are breaking into the CoD League then.
That’s my personal goal. That’s what I want to do.
Michael: From from a Coalesce point of view, it hits our targets of wanting to build more community. That’s really what’s really important to me. But then it’s also what we’re doing and how we can look after people. So no matter what level of player you are, if it’s your first time coming in, we give you full coaching support, full social media support, full team support and you’ve got a great environment to come into. Mixing from fully experienced to new players.
You mentioned Katana, who run LANs. Will you work with them in some way?
AmmAze: We want to take part, we’ll have teams under Coalesce competing at LANs. On the Prodigy side, we want to get to running our own LANs. Online, we’ll compete too.
So we want to support other orgs and businesses that are trying to grow within the scene as well. We all have to grow as one to push everybody to push the community up. There’s no point in us just saying, ‘oh, yeah, we want to get a Challenger’s team or we want to just have one team here that is at a high level that won’t do anything for the community’.
Like, we want to create something across the whole board. And that’s where I think we’re different. We’re gonna be doing stuff that other people won’t do. We want to put investment into league-based teams. We want to put investment into people that want to play tournaments online. I’ve met some of my best friends just from playing Call of Duty. So that’s what we want. We want to create that community engagement.
Michael: Katana have done really well with their, a strong acquisition with the XPL League. And I think what we can do from a Coalesce point of view, is when we’re going into these tournaments, be as professional as possible and promote our teams who’ve been there and help them grow their professional environment.
Clayton: A wise Irishman once said, we’re not here to take part. We want to work with everyone to get everyone to the top. We don’t wanna solely just take it and be like, yeah, we’re gonna come to your LAN and make it better. We want to do that, but we want to bring everyone up with us. It’s not org vs org. It’s EU and Ireland. We want Europe to overtake.
AmmAze: We want CoD Champs to be in London in the next five years.
Clayton: We all know that UK fans or European fans in general are the best. We’ve seen that at the Madrid Major. Everyone, the casters, were saying that EU fans do it best, and it is facts.
‘If you look at Call of Duty now in the Major League, how many players have come from the European scene? Like, it’s 90% American dominated. If we invest our time in this grassroots project and invest our time in players that are upcoming and keep doing it, maybe it won’t be this year or next year, but in three years’ time, the overall level of the competition across the region, UK, Ireland, and rest Europe, will improve.’
Noel ‘AmmAze’ Beaver
If you have your own teams, and also your own tournaments, how will you handle this conflict of interest?
AmmAze: They won’t be entering our own leagues.
Michael: If that changes, and it comes to any Coalesce teams competing within the project tournaments, what we are creating is an admin team that has nothing to do with Coalesce.
All things Coalesce in regards to competing will go through this admin team, which will comprise of the various org owners [competing in the tournament]. They will get the final say on any rulesets around Coalesce.
This makes sure that any type of decision is not in our hands, it’s very much in these people’s hands.
How will you stop smurfs?
AmmAze: We have a player list based on rankings of all European-based leagues. And we’re also running them off of ranked ranks in actual Call of Duty.
But if someone gets a new account, you can’t stop this, can you?
AmmAze: It’s a good question. You can see it in leagues all the time, but it’s stomped out straight away. Like, you’d notice after one game, nobody’s gonna sit around and waste an afternoon trying to be bad at Call of Duty to win. Like, they’re not gonna gain anything from that.
We’re creating rules and a ruleset that’s really strict. If we have a tournament for platinum to diamond players, that’s what it is, and that’s it.
Clayton: We set out a guideline from day one. We won’t let anything slip. With Prodigy tournaments, when it comes to cheating, smurfs, boosting and anything along those lines to give a competitive edge, it’ll even come to monitor cams.
Michael: Competitive integrity is key.
AmmAze: Also, anybody that’s playing on PC has to stream during any tournament. So we have staff monitoring that at all times. We have a dedicated channel for you to post your stream link in. If you’re not streaming on your own PC, you forfeit. Simple as that. That’s the rules. The other team can also request the cam [recording] on any player at any time. So that’s another way to keep that competitive integrity.
We wanted to create these rules so that we can use them across the board of all tournaments.
Michael: A lot of these rule sets aren’t brand new. They’re in XP, in ECL. What we’ve done is we made sure we’ve combined the right set to have the best, best competitive integrity, and we do have a very good staffing team already within the organisation.
Are you going to have Prodigy tournaments in other games in the future? Or is it just CoD?
Michael: Who knows what the future will hold? We wanna do right by the CoD community first. And once we’ve done things right, why not?
‘It’s not just Call of Duty where we want the levels to be raised within Europe. It’s esports in general. So this ecosystem that we’re creating in Call of Duty can be pushed to any other game that we want to do.’
Noel ‘AmmAze’ Beaver
What is it about these tournaments that are gonna be so good then? Because you’ve talked a big game, Clayton especially!
Michael: The main thing is that we’ve done very thorough reviews of all of the tournaments. And we’ve seen how good they are. I mean, you’re also seeing where there’s gaps in the market of what we can provide. And I don’t wanna go into too much detail of what we’re going to provide, but it’s a lot more originality and a lot more making sure that the people who are competing in it, winning or losing, feel like they’ve had a really good time in these events. And especially making sure that competitive integrity is always at the forefront.
Clayton: I think what would make us stand out from other organisations that run tournaments is when we say that we are focusing on every level of competition, we really mean it.
Our tournaments will cater for the casual player, like me, a dad that comes home after an eight-hour shift to play Call of Duty. They don’t wanna go in and play a competitive Call of Duty tournament against people that are gonna smoke them.
AmmAze: We’ll have open tournaments for higher-ranked teams that’ll have higher prize pools. And then we’ll also have casual, fun tournaments.
We want to be competitive and entertaining at the same time. We want to keep people interested in it. And the tournament that we ran recently, we received nothing but good feedback from it. And we went to an extra level, like, anybody, that we asked for feedback said, ‘look, you’ve done a step further than any other tournament we’ve done’.
You have a new tournament to announce, is that right?
AmmAze: So our next two tournaments are gonna be 2v2 search and destroy £100 prize pool, free entry, winner takes all,, which is gonna be div locked again. It’s lower division only, platinum/diamond. It’ll be loaded again.
And then after that, we want to run a throwback to the classic, a 4v4 Promod.
Thanks for your time and good luck in Call of Duty, guys.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
