OpTic Gaming earned the honor of being the HCS’s first tournament win following the franchise’s return to esports.
Halo Infinite has marked the legacy franchise's return to esports, beginning with the HCS Open Series held this past weekend. The opening tournament of the newly minted HCS circuit exceeded expectations, as 406 teams competed in the first bracket of the competitive season. OpTic Gaming and Cloud9 both withstood the marathon of games, meeting in the Grand Finals. In a dramatic bracket reset, OpTic Gaming emerged as the first champion in the HCS.
Though only the start of HCS, OpTic Gaming and Halo Infinite fans came out in full force. The stream peaked at 56,000 viewers in the final duel of the tournament. There will be countless more open series in qualifiers in the road to the Raleigh and the two following Majors. OpTic Gaming fans can feel confident after this first showing, and the future of Halo esports seems equally optimistic.
OpTic Gaming's path in the HCS Open Series
The Green Wall did not initially fair well against its eventual grand finals opponent. Cloud9 easily dropped OpTic to the lower bracket in a clean 2-0 series. OpTic Gaming showed incredible resilience in the lower bracket, recovering as the squad subsequently sweeping some of the biggest names in the HCS. The storied esports franchise defeated Space Station Gaming, G2 Esports, EUnited, Kansas City Pioneers, and Sentinels in its war path to the finals.
Eliminating many of their fellow HCS partnered teams, OpTic Gaming made a convincing case for the status as the strongest roster in Halo Infinite. The Envy-owned organization tore through the lower bracket of the HCS Open Series largely through the efforts of Joey "Trippy" Taylor and Tommy "Lucid" Wilson.
The final clash in the HCS Open Series
Cloud9 and OpTic's final clash proved far more contentious than the initial sweep. In a back-and-forth five game series, OpTic took control after a 250-149 Strongholds on Recharge. OpTic did not hold this initial lead for long, as a narrow 50-45 victory for C9 on Slayer quickly snowballed into a dominant CTF on Aquarius.
On the brink of elimination, OpTic Gaming took the final two games on Oddball (2-1) and Slayer (50-21). Once again, Trippy and Lucid propelled their team to a winning result in this climatic match-up. In potentially the best possible Grand Finals imaginable for Halo's re-entry into the esports space, OpTic walked away with the first title.
Where does the HCS go from here?
The HCS Open Series was the first many future tournaments in the grand spanning circuit. Though the tournament hosted a relatively low prize pool of only $2,000, the primary prize on the line were HCS Points. These points will help teams in qualifying and placing teams in the larger tournaments such as the Raleigh Major.
After this tournament, the first HCS Points were distributed. OpTic leads the pack with 3,000 points, while Cloud9 (1,800), Sentinels (1,320), KCP (1,080), EUnited (960), and G2 Esports (840) follow behind. There will be one more HCS Open Series on November 28th before the start of the Raleigh Major.
The first Major of the HCS will feature 32 teams from both the Groups Stage and the Open Bracket. The Major will start on December 17th and will run through the 19th. While the HCS has only just begin and no teams are qualified for the event yet, the favorite rosters are already beginning to shape up.