Monster Energy Launch Invitational: How to Watch and Earn the Clawed Out Calling Card in Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 4

NOV 5, 2026

Everything fans need to know about the Monster Energy Launch Invitational: when it streams, where to watch, which teams are in the field, and how to unlock the exclusive Clawed Out Calling Card on Twitch.

WHAT IS THE MONSTER ENERGY LAUNCH INVITATIONAL?

It’s the tournament that opens competitive play on Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 4. It runs before the Call of Duty League regular season starts on December 4, which makes it the first time the field gets tested on a title nobody has mastered yet. Nobody has a year of reps. Everyone’s solving the same problem at the same time, in public.

This year’s edition runs November 6–8, 2026. All 12 Call of Duty League (CDL) teams are joined by four Challengers teams, making it a full Pro-Am field. Teams compete remotely, the broadcast is produced from the CDL Studio, and the prize pool is $100,000.

This isn’t the first time the Launch Invitational has opened a Call of Duty season. The inaugural event ran online across two days in November 2025 to open the 2026 season, with 16 teams, every CDL franchise plus four Challengers squads, competing in a double-elimination bracket for $75,000. OpTic Texas won it. It was also the first Call of Duty League event of that season to stream on both YouTube and Twitch.

Why does the Pro-Am format matter? Because the Launch Invitational isn’t a closed league fixture. It’s a bracket where franchised rosters and the best of the Challengers circuit end up on the same server, on a game that’s new to all of them.

WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH

The Monster Energy Launch Invitational streams live November 6–8, 2026, starting at 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT, 6:00 p.m. GMT) each day.

Where to stream it

The main broadcast is on YouTube and Twitch:

• YouTube: youtube.com/codleague and youtube.com/callofduty
• Twitch: twitch.tv/callofduty_esports and twitch.tv/callofduty

Additional streams run on twitch.tv/callofduty_bravo, twitch.tv/callofduty_charlie and twitch.tv/callofdutydelta. For clips and results between matches, follow @CODLeague on X and @callofdutyleague on TikTok.

Before you pick a screen: the Clawed Out Calling Card is a Twitch Drop, so it’s only earned on Twitch. YouTube viewers get the full broadcast but not the reward.

Schedule

Day	Date	Stream start (ET / PT / GMT)	Stage
Day 1	Friday, November 6	1:00 p.m. / 10:00 a.m. / 6:00 p.m.	Group stage
Day 2	Saturday, November 7	1:00 p.m. / 10:00 a.m. / 6:00 p.m.	Double-elimination bracket
Day 3	Sunday, November 8	1:00 p.m. / 10:00 a.m. / 6:00 p.m.	Upper final, lower final and Grand Final

The group stage splits the field into four groups of four, each with three CDL teams and one Challengers team, and the top eight move on to the bracket. Match times within each day can shift when series run long.

HOW TO EARN THE CLAWED OUT CALLING CARD

Twitch Drops are in-game rewards you earn by watching. You link your Call of Duty account to your Twitch account, watch an eligible stream for a set amount of time, and claim the reward from your Twitch inventory. It lands in your Call of Duty account from there. For the Monster Energy Launch Invitational, that reward is the exclusive Clawed Out Calling Card.

Step 1: Link your accounts

Sign in to your Call of Duty account, open your account settings, find Linked Accounts, and connect Twitch. Do it before the broadcast starts. Watch time doesn’t count retroactively, so an unlinked account watching the whole final earns nothing.

Step 2: Watch an official Call of Duty Twitch channel

All five official Call of Duty Twitch channels listed above carry the Drop. Eligible streams show a “Drops Enabled” label under the stream title.

Step 3: Claim it

Twitch doesn’t hand the reward over automatically. This is the step most people miss. Once you hit the watch-time requirement, open Drops and Rewards in your Twitch inventory and hit Claim. Skip it and the Calling Card never reaches your Call of Duty account.

How long do you have to watch?

Thirty minutes. Those 30 minutes need to come from one active stream, so watching several channels in separate tabs won’t get you there faster. Pick one official channel and stay on it.

WHY A NEW-TITLE BRACKET IS THE HARDEST ONE TO CALL

A new title scrambles the hierarchy. The rosters that dominated the last game aren’t guaranteed to stay on top, because the movement, the weapon balance and the map pool all changed underneath them. That’s what makes an opening tournament worth watching rather than worth predicting.

There’s evidence for that in the event’s own short history. The Launch Invitational was created as a preseason showcase that deliberately mixes professional and amateur teams, something the Call of Duty League had never run before its 2025 debut, and it was built to let teams pressure-test new roles and strategies without Major points on the line. The format exists precisely because the first competitive weekend on a new title is the least predictable one of the year.

Last season showed how quickly expectations can change in the opening weeks. Paris Gentle Mates won the first Major of the 2026 season in their debut year, beating OpTic Texas 4–3 in the Grand Final.

Two things are different about this edition. The prize pool is up from $75,000 to $100,000, and the event now runs across three days, with a group stage ahead of the bracket. Both point in the same direction: more matches, more reps and more chances to see who adapts fastest to Modern Warfare 4.

TEAMS TO WATCH

Sixteen teams, four groups. Here’s how the field breaks down.

Group	Call of Duty League teams	Challengers team
Group A	OpTic Texas, Carolina Royal Ravens, G2 Minnesota	Stallions
Group B	FaZe Vegas, Toronto KOI, M80 Boston	Huntsmen
Group C	Miami Heretics, Riyadh Falcons, Vancouver Surge	Telluride Bush Gaming
Group D	Paris Gentle Mates, Los Angeles Thieves, Cloud9 New York	OMiT Brooklyn

OpTic Texas

The defending champion. OpTic Texas won the inaugural Launch Invitational and won the 2026 season’s final Major in Paris. A Monster Energy partner team, OpTic opens in Group A.

FaZe Vegas and Toronto KOI

Two Monster Energy partner teams share Group B. FaZe Vegas won Major 2 of the 2026 season at DreamHack Birmingham, and 04 and coach Crowder told us how they did it. Toronto KOI hosts Major III in Toronto later this season.

Paris Gentle Mates

Major 1 winners Paris Gentle Mates headline Group D, which also includes Los Angeles Thieves, winners of Major 3 in 2026. With two recent Major champions in the same group, Day 1 could produce some of the most anticipated matchups of the tournament.

The Challengers four

Huntsmen, OMiT Brooklyn, Stallions and Telluride Bush Gaming fill the Pro-Am side of the field. OMiT Brooklyn, Stallions and Telluride Bush Gaming are all back from last year’s edition. Huntsmen is the new entry.

WHERE TO FIND MONSTER ENERGY AND CALL OF DUTY ALL SEASON

The Invitational is one weekend, but it’s only one part of the broader Monster Energy x Call of Duty campaign. Here’s what comes next.

Tab code rewards, running now

Buy participating co-branded 16 oz cans of Monster Energy Original, Monster Energy Zero Sugar or Monster Energy Zero Ultra, upload the tab codes at callofduty.monsterenergy.com, and unlock a progression of Modern Warfare 4 in-game content with 15 minutes of Double XP at every level. The program runs through March 31, 2027. It’s the easiest thing on this list to start today.

Launch night at Cosm Los Angeles

Monster Energy marked the Modern Warfare 4 launch on October 23 with Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 4 Launch Day Fueled by Monster Energy at Cosm Los Angeles, playing the game live on the venue’s 87-foot Shared Reality dome. The night also set up this tournament: ZooMaa and Ben Nissim ran a live edition of The Flank from the venue, interviewed Infinity Ward developer Jacky Reynolds, and revealed the Launch Invitational groups.

Creators, athletes and developers on launch night

Infinity Ward game designer Roman Spazafumo led a DMZ showcase alongside actor Trevor Jackson and streamer MrDapperSam. Monster Energy skateboarders Ishod Wair, Filipe Mota and Elliot Sloan went head-to-head in Modern Warfare 4, and the guest list included actor O’Shea Jackson Jr., rapper Symba and Monster Energy UFC fighters Johnny Walker and Jalin Turner.

What’s still ahead

The rewards program isn’t finished. There’s a Mystery Item still to come, and callofduty.monsterenergy.com is the home of the program, where you can track every reward you’ve already unlocked. After the Invitational, the Call of Duty League’s 2027 season opens December 4, and Monster Energy will be at CDL events throughout it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS: MONSTER ENERGY LAUNCH INVITATIONAL

• The Monster Energy Launch Invitational opens the competitive Modern Warfare 4 season on a game nobody has mastered yet.
• It streams November 6–8, 2026, from 1:00 p.m. ET each day.
• All 12 Call of Duty League teams face four Challengers teams in a Pro-Am field, competing online for a $100,000 prize pool, up from $75,000 last year.
• OpTic Texas is the defending champion.
• Watch on YouTube (codleague, callofduty) or Twitch (callofduty_esports, callofduty and three more official channels).
• Watch 30 minutes on an official Call of Duty Twitch channel to earn the exclusive Clawed Out Calling Card, then claim it in your Twitch inventory. YouTube viewing doesn’t count.
• Separately, tab codes uploaded at callofduty.monsterenergy.com unlock in-game rewards and Double XP through March 31, 2027, with a Mystery Item still to come.