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Last week, we brought you information about the start of the Halo World Championship for 2016, who the heavy hitters were, and where to view their competition. After two days of competition, the landscape of the Halo World Championship has been reshaped with Counter Logic Gaming emerging as the winner of the $1 million prize pot and the crown for 2016.
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A quick recap of the weekend’s events include:
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Group Play – Day One
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In day one of the Halo World Championship 2016, teams took to the stage and began a group play series where the top two squads move on to compete in the championship bracket while the bottom two are relegated to 9th-16th place. The story of the day would be in group B, where North American squads Evil Geniuses and Renegades faced off against one another. Widely regarded as one of the top teams in competitive Halo, Evil Geniuses was shocked to discover a disciplined Renegades squad, who had a reputation of letting their emotions get the better them. Defying all expectations, Renegades played with razor-sharp focus and took Evil Geniuses to game five, eventually delivering the upset and taking the victory. One player stood above the rest – Cameron “Victory X” Thorlakson, a veteran player since “Halo 2,” debuted some of his finest Halo ever with a confident, aggressive playstyle.
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Group and Bracket Play – Day Two
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Day two of the Halo World Championship 2016 would see the top eight teams at the tournament move on from group play to bracket play and compete for a spot in the Finals. With an already guaranteed $75,000 for each team in the quarterfinals, several highly anticipated matchups ended up playing out early, including a face-off of whom many expected to see in the finals: CLG vs. Evil Geniuses. Other stand-out bracket matches included a re-match of X Games Aspen Bronze in Renegades vs. Team Allegiance and veterans Team Liquid vs. young-guns Denial eSports. Of note, Epsilon eSports would represent the first team outside of North America to ever break into a top 8 position in Halo esports history. For Team Allegiance, their path would prove to be the most difficult one as Naded and company were met with an incredibly fired-up Renegades. Led by Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Renegades would destroy Allegiance in their first match, somehow delivering a 100-0 Strongholds victory on Empire. Game two followed in similar suit, with Renegades easily outplaying Allegiance 50-35. With their dreams of winning the Halo World Championship on the line, Allegiance somehow managed to come back and captured two flags in a row for game three on Coliseum, and then proceeded to actually reverse-sweep Renegades by winning every single game afterward. Allegiance would face a similarly spirited Elevate, who pushed the squad to another game five before falling, and Allegiance made it to the finals.
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Alas, the quarterfinals match between Team Liquid and Denial eSports saw Denial eSports eking out a tiebreaker win to move on to eventually face Counter Logic Gaming (CGC) in the finals. When all was said and done, CGC took the win, but it was arguably the fans of eSports gaming that walked away with the win, as this year’s competition has further continued to shine a light on an emerging industry event.
\n\nFurther reading: eSports, Gaming, Halo World Championship 2016, Microsoft, Video Games, Xbox
