Growing up many of us will have a memory of ourselves going to arcades, playing on a console of some variety, playing games like Club Penguin or even going to a friend’s house to play Call of Duty or GTA because your parents wouldn’t buy it for you. 

Over the years the gaming community has grown exponentially with no signs of stopping. Some Esports tournaments have even seen more viewers globally than the NFL Super Bowl!

Same as much of our community, the team at Footpatrol has spent many of our childhoods and still today enjoying and immersing ourselves into the gaming world. To make our entry we wanted to work on a project that we felt we could connect on a more nostalgic level. 

Working alongside Esports apparel brand, Raven and the Call of Duty League. Footpatrol teamed up to produce a series of team merch within a London based 1 day only popup.  Featuring some of the biggest names in the league. The LA Thieves (extension of 100Theives), originators of competitive Call of Duty; Optic Chicago, the infamous Atlanta FaZe and the UKs very own London Royal Ravens. 

The collection features a 2 piece look for each team featuring either a tee and hoodie or Jacket inspired by the teams themselves. 

To top off this project we linked up with Call of Duty Pros and London Royal Raven teammates, Jukeyz and Angelika to find out more on what it takes to reach their level and compete against some of the best in the world. 

Footpatrol: Guys it’s great to meet you both and celebrate the launch of this CDL pop up with the London Royal Ravens. How have you been?

Angelika: Yeah great! I only had an hour and half train journey here which arrived Friday. Chilled for the rest of the day and now here we are! Really excited to be here!

Jukeyz: Me on the other hand I think you could have flown to America quicker than it took me to get here. It was only supposed to take an hour and half but I got two wrong trains. 

FP: Before I get into anything. For those Footpatrol community members who may not know who you are, could you start off with a little introduction on yourselves and what you guys do?

Angelika: Im Angelika. Full-time streamer, content creator and competitive Warzone player for the London Royal Ravens. I’m just here to try and inspire women in gaming. As well as trying to be the best female Warzone player in the world. 

Jukeyz: I’m Jukeyz. Content creator and competitive Warzone player. I’m more into the competitive side though, I want to be the best in the world more than sit there and play for fun. I enjoy both, but for the time being the best in the world is where the focus lies. 

FP: I would love to know more about how you both found yourselves where you are now as Pro Call of Duty players for the London Royal Ravens. Where did it all begin?

Jukeyz: Mine started when my mum was ill. I started playing A LOT of Call of Duty almost 24hrs a day whilst being a full-time carer for my mum. Whilst I was playing so much I started to realise that I was actually pretty good at the game and tried to start playing competitively. This was only three or four years ago. I went from playing Public games being high up on the scoreboard to playing GameBattles, which was the website for XP games where you meet a lot of really good players. I was quite a challenger. It went: high up on the scoreboard, to going up the leaderboards on the websites, becoming the best on Xbox, then Playstation to then being one of the highest ranks in the world within the top 100. Which at the time was pretty big. So it naturally progresses from that, to money, to tournaments. Everyone plays for money, you want to compete against the big streamers with loads of viewers because if you pop off and they have say 10k views at least 1000 will come check your channel out. That was how I approached it, just smoking them! I had a chance in a big tournament and ended up winning two of them 200k each back to back.   

Angelika: My process was pretty much similar. My boyfriend introduced me to Call of Duty when I was about 15, really enjoyed it and was playing loads of public games. I noticed I was pretty good at this and it was my first time so I decided to move onto GameBattles and competitive Search and Destroy and then played some wagers now and then too. By the time Warzone came out I was grinding constantly on the game. By the time tournaments started coming up I was getting invited to them and competing. 

FP: So did you guys both start out on multiplayer?

Jukeyz: That was something I forgot to include! 

Angelika: Yeah for sure and Search and Destroy was the main game for that. 

Jukeyz: Respawn games are quite big as well with the Pro League and CDL. It’s changed a lot now though and it’s much harder to make it to that level. I feel like when it was the Pro League there were more opportunities. 

FP: I remember the old MLG days on Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2. I used to love the little MLB looking logo with the controller. 

Jukeyz: How long ago was that?

FP: I think about 2012, like 9 years ago. 

Angelika: I started getting into competitives by Modern Warfare 3. 

Jukeyz: I WISH I was playing Call of Duty then. I think I would be considerably better than what I am now. 

Angelika: When did you start playing competitively then?

Jukeyz: Three or four years ago. When Modern Warfare Remastered came out. 

Angelika: Wait so you never played any of the old CODs?

FP: So when did you start getting into it Angelika?

Angelika: I started getting into competitives by Modern Warfare 3. Then literally any other COD that came out after I was addicted and playing constantly. 

FP: Competitive gaming has no doubt grown exponentially. What are your thoughts on how big of a market and industry it continues to become?

Angelika: If they worked on the game and sorted out the hackers. It would be way better for the gamers and the competitive side of things too. 

Jukeyz: Gaming itself is already huge. I think the Warzone side of it though I think is going to keep growing and growing. Hackers aren’t okay though. They’ve been on it with the updates when guys are a bit too overpowered they’ve been on point with fixing it. 

FP: Well fingers crossed they resolve that soon so that you aren’t left in that awkward situation when you bump into one in a competitive match. 

Angelika: It puts you in a bad mood when you bump into one in a competitive game. You have to give proof mid game if you have been killed by one. Sometimes you can’t clip it or you miss the kill cam so you can’t prove it, so in those instances what do you gonna do. Sometimes you tell people and they don’t believe you. 

FP: Angelika, the gaming world, much like sneakers. Over the years it has been seen as more of a boys club. You were the first female pro to join the Ravens roster. Have you seen much growth in that side of the community over the years?

Angelika: I am trying to help bring other female gamers into the community and I feel at times that I haven’t done that bad of a job at inspiring women to get into gaming. When I first started there weren’t that many female gamers that I knew. Now I have met so many incredibly talented female gamers who are competing in the same tournaments doing just as well as I am. As time has gone by the female gaming community has grown, not only that they are all doing the same in trying to encourage more women to join. 

I feel like gaming is for everyone!

FP: Well here is a fun fact for you. The first ever competitive gaming competition was won by a woman in 1978, Rebecca Heineman in a Space Invaders tournament. 

Angelika & Jukeyz: Really, no way!

FP: It’s amazing to see how much that side of gaming has grown.

Jukeyz: Just to add on to that. It definitely has grown. Angelika was one of the first female gamers that I started to watch and played a few times before she signed to the Ravens. Since she joined, there have been loads of women that have followed. 

Angelika: I don’t think anyone expected me to join the Ravens or anything like that. Most expected me to join a little team or something. Since that’s happened though it’s shown to everyone on how women can do the exact same thing and compete at the same standard as everyone else. 

FP: You can see how excited you guys get seeing and hearing people being inspired by you both and how nice it feels being able to bring people together through your streams, through Discord chats. You have given a lot of people a platform to feel heard and included. It’s similar to why many of us got into shoes. It’s that concept of being a part of a community of like minded individuals that love something purely for the passion. 

I have to admit I have watched both of your streams a fair few times and enjoy the content you guys put out! I have watched you compete in a few tournaments and always notice how fired up you get and the fact you play with a different team mate everytime! How do you mentally prepare for competitive matches?

Jukezy: I will start off by saying, last year compared to this year, the game is completely different. There weren’t many people who were on the same level. At the start of the game that’s kind of how I won those 2 tournaments. More than anything though I approach all games with confidence though that’s how I try to do it. Only time I doubted myself was in my first 100k tournament, I got told I couldn’t compete with the two guys that I was playing with and said they would have to pick me two new team mates. Both of which weren’t even COD players, one was known for Apex Legends and the other for PUBG. We ended up coming 2nd overall though in the grand final. 

Angelika: I have played with such a variety of different players in tournaments. I try to get some practice games in before we start just to get in the right mindset as I feel that’s so important as well. Like I said though I have played with such a mix of people and somehow we always seem to do well! I don’t know whether that’s because I am more chilled out in the game and let myself and my teammate do whatever. 

FP: One thing with Warzone I find is that it seems to be quite hard to stop some cheaters slipping through the cracks even the odd random that pop ups in your competitive games. Besides having to go through a set process in tournaments before backing out. Are you the type of person in PUB lobbies, if you come across one you stay in the game and almost prove yourself or do you back out and start fresh?

Jukezy: Hahah! Sometimes I go back for them. All it takes is a stun most of the time. 

Angelika: Same here as well! A lot of the time though with hackers they aren’t actually that good at the game. They just need the extra help to play the game. I’ve killed a few of them before though and most of the time they don’t expect you to come back and challenge them! If the person is a bit of a try hard and you can see they are dropping crazy amounts of kills then you gotta back out cos it’s not fun.

Jukezy: You get hackers these days that can do almost everything we can. Then you get the crabs running around being trash. 

FP: I feel like I have to ask you guys a couple of questions that our Warzone fans would like to know. Starting with the easy one. What is your current go to loadout?

Angelika: C58 and Cold War MP5

Jukeyz: Same. I think the C58 is the best gun the game has seen. 

FP: You see I think FFAR was the best meta the games had. 

Jukeyz: Ahh yeah! I didn’t get to play it though like everyone else. I don’t tend to play the meta. I always make my own set ups for it. Everyone was using Raider stock except for me! The last meta with the burst guns for example. I never used any of them! I was still on the AMAX doing my thing. I feel like I missed that one! 

Angelika: That was really fun to use. The funny thing with that FFAR, I don’t really know who to look at for setups so I went into Jukeyz stream and copied his build for it and for a good week or two I had no idea Raider stock was the go to attachment. I had people going at me why aren’t you using it la la la. I was just sitting there thinking I dunno, that’s what Jukeyz is using! Once I added it though I was like woooooooow!

FP: Favourite place to drop in Verdansk?

Angelika: It used to be hangers but I would say hospital now.

Jukeyz: Hospital.

FP: What’s your K/Ds?

Angelika: Mine has gone up quite a bit; it’s at like 3.03 now. 

Jukeyz: Mine has gone down! It went from like a 5.10 to a 4.7.

FP: How do you get better at aiming (asking for a mate)?

Angelika: You know what I used to do! If you set up a private match on multiplayer and put the little bots in and shoot headshots for like 1/2hrs. I used to do that before every competitive game when I played Search. Sometimes I even put the health up really high so that it takes more bullets to kill them making you have to practice your aiming more.  

Jukeyz: I used to do the same to practice. I think it really helps, especially with music blasting to get you in the zone. 

FP: Guys, honestly thank you so much for spending some time with us to chat. It’s been great to hear more of your stories. Before we let you go, is there anything you would like to share with the Footpatrol community to get them excited for what either of you are working on?

Jukeyz: Keep an eye out for the 5th August cos i’m going to win the world tourney!

Angelika: haha same for me keep an eye out and we will see who wins!