The Revival of Competitive Halo

It’s practically been a year and a half since I wrote my nostalgic article, “The E-sports Scene: Now and Then” that featured my history with the MLG Halo scene and the LoL scene at the time.  On Tuesday was the release of The Master Chief Collection, the masterful release of the four original canon Halo games; Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, and Halo 4. The Master Chief Collection comes equipped with all of the multiplayer maps of each game with the ability to change game-specific maps to another game’s maps on the fly. 

On November 5^th, 343 Industries announced the Halo Championship Series, or HCS, which is the premier Halo eSports League. The HCS will be hosted by ESL and other tournament organizers to run a circuit much like Starcraft’s WCS and League of Legends’ LCS. The circuit will run from November until March 2015 and will showcase only Halo 2: Anniversary. The HCS has already kicked up tremendous hype over the past weekend with their preseason Master Chief Collection tournament. The tournament featured legendary teams such as Halo 2’s Str8 Rippin, Halo 3’s Believe the Hype and the legendary players themselves, Heinz, Ogre2, Flamesword, Pistola, Ace, Snipedown, APG, Ninja, Hysteria, FearItSelf, Naded, Gandhi, Tsquared, Roy, and coaches Walshy and Elamite competing for $20,000. 

After the tournament, third place team Shoot to Kill (StK), was received by professional League of Legends team, Counter Logic Gaming. Now CLG Halo, the team consists of Heinz, Ogre2, Royal 2, and Snakebite. Ogre2 is said to become the coach of the team. 

Ogre2 is one of the most dominant players in the entire Halo series from the start with Halo 2 team Team 3D, which would later become Final Boss. Ogre2 has also won 40 tournament titles. Heinz played for teams such as Triggers Down and Dynasty while Royal 2 and Snakebite played Halo: Reach for Warriors (2011) and Status Quo (2012).

Halo saw increase play and viewership in North America through Major League Gaming when they first showed the original Halo in 2002 and only expanded until the end of Halo: Reach when MLG dropped the series. With the arrival of Halo: Reach, more fans tuned out of Halo for Starcraft or stopped watching because Reach changed many mechanics to the meta-game, such as reticule bloom, which made the player wait a second to shoot accurately or take the chance of missing the shot, and the sprint option that changed CTF gamemode and the pace of Team Slayer. 

One of the main concerns the Halo Championship Series might have for the future of eSports is the infrastructure of foreign teams. Like League of Legends and Starcraft 2 Championship Series, they feature tournaments within their circuit for different regions: North America, Europe, South Korea, and for League of Legends, China. Teams and players compete within their region and the highest ranking teams at the end of the season compete in the World finals brackets. If the HCS can feature a regional circuit final it can possibly regrow the competitive scene within the first few years up to peak viewership such as League of Legends, DotA2, and Counterstrike: Global Offensive.

With CLG already acquiring a team, there might be hope that big names will also get into the HCS, such as the foreign names of Ninjas in Pyjamas, SK Gaming, Fnatic, and Meet Your Makers. Local teams might consist of CompLexity Gaming, Optic Gaming, Cloud 9, and Evil Geniuses.

Patch 3.10 and Magic Resistance

            In the most recent 3.10 patch, there have been many changes to how Magic Resistance items work. The first noticeable change is that Runic Bulwark is now gone. Riot stated that: “We wanted to reposition Magic Resistance as a personal stat as opposed to an aura-focused stat (see below for our Runic Bulwark updates). With these changes we specifically wanted to create more itemization options against sustained magic damage dealers in the mid game as well as create more options for tanks versus late game poke teams.” What do you build now instead of Bulwark? There is now one new item that can be used for early-game or mid-game, and also changes to Spirit Visage, changes to Banshee’s Veil, and changes to Guardian Angel all regarding Magic Resistance.

Aegis of the Legion

• Combine cost reduced to 375 Gold from 625 (total cost reduced to 1900 Gold from 2150)
• Health reduced to 200 from 250
• No longer grants self-only Magic Resist
• UNIQUE Aura – Legion
• No longer grants Armor
• Magic Resist increased to 20 from 15
• No longer grants additional bonuses to minions

With Bulwark out of the picture, Aegis is getting a huge nerf besides the 5+ MR and gold decrease. The health is dropping 50 HP and it no longer gives the player who bought it self-MR. The aura’s nerf is huge enough. No longer granting armor means that double AD comps (Jayce or Zed) can be a larger threat. Minions are also no longer getting the aura as well, so rushing Aegis and pushing hard can be a lot harder. Also Aegis now builds into Locket of the Iron Solari.

Spectre’s Cowl:

• Recipe: Ruby Crystal + Negatron Cloak + 205 Gold = 1400 total Gold
• +200 Health
• +45 Magic Resist
• UNIQUE Passive: Grants +15 Health Regen per 5 seconds for up to 10 seconds after taking damage from an enemy champion

What this item allows you do to is negate early-game damage and allow you to heal up after taking damage. This is good against poke-comps and poke-like champions (Elise and Nidalee for example). If you know the enemy’s mid-lane will roam a lot (Kassadin or Katarina), supports can build this as it gives health and the MR. I don’t think it would be advisable to build this on an ADC, as the 1400 gold will put you behind from your big items.

Spirit Visage

• Recipe Changed: Spectre's Cowl + Kindlegem + 375 Gold = 2625 total Gold, up from 2200
• Health increased to 400 from 200
• Magic Resist increased to 55 from 45
• Now additionally grants +20 Health Regen per 5 seconds

Instead of building out of a Negatron Cloak, it now builds out of Spectre’s Cowl. With the 425 gold increase, it may be worth it for the 200 Hp increase, 10 extra MR, and 5 HP/s. Spirit Visage still keeps its old passive which gives you increased healing from all sources (lifesteal, spellvamp, etc.)

Banshee's Veil

• Recipe Changed: Spectre's Cowl + Ruby Crystal + 875 Gold = 2750 total Gold, up from 2520
• Health increased to 450 from 400
• Magic Resist increased to 55 from 45
• Mana reduced to 0 from 300
• Additional UNIQUE Passive: Grants +45 Health Regen per 5 seconds for up to 10 seconds after taking damage from an enemy champion or when the spell shield breaks

Banshee’s Veil has a new recipe. No longer building out of Catalyst, it also no longer gives mana, meaning that mana-less champions can now build it without feeling they wasted gold. Adding more MR than before and the new additional unique passive, Banshee’s Veil can be a better item for mid-game or late-game at only a 230 gold increase and better helps against poke-comps.

Guardian Angel

• Recipe Changed: Negatron Cloak + Chain Vest + 1310 Gold = 2750 total Gold, up from 2600
• Magic Resist increased to 40 from 30

Guardian Angel used to build out of Null-Magic Mantle. Now it builds out of Negatron Cloak, adding 10 more MR than before.

My opinion on Team Curse and the welcome of their new Support player.

Earlier today was the announcement of Team Curse welcoming a new Support player to their roster. If you follow the European competitive scene, you may know him as one of the best Supports in that region. However, not only is he the best support, he has several different titles, best known as the Support Carry and the Thresh Prince for his amazing Thresh skills and his aggressive Support role. Yes, Gambit Gaming’s own Edward. 

I want to commemorate Curse’s manager, Liquid112, on achieving the ability to get an all-star player from another region to join a top team in the North American region. This has only been done one other time with CLG and the addition of Korea’s Locodoco for their Support player in December. I think this is good not only for Curse, but also for the NA region. Some may argue that Cop, Curse’s ADC, can be pretty passive at times, but some also say that it’s because Cop plays with passive supports. Edward’s aggressive prowess and aggressive champion pool is going to put Curse on the top of the chart for the Summer Split and hopefully more in their future.

One thing I’m feeling iffy about is Rhux. I know from all of Rhux’s old play as a Support player for Curse that Rhux isn’t the greatest Support. Here you have an unknown player who ends up winning Curse’s 1v1 tournament and then all of sudden gets a free Support position onto Curse. Later on, Rhux would be put as a sub for Curse while Elementz got his old position back. In January, Curse Academy was formed with Pobelter, IWillDominate, Altec, YoDa, and Rhux, where Rhux played Top lane. Anyway, Rhux just gets traded in and out of the Curse roster so much that I feel bad for the guy because he finally gets the chance to be on a big team, but then gets kicked back onto an amateur team and also a sub for Curse. 

Overall, I hope Curse does well with Edward. Edward is a strong pick to add to any team. I also hope that this change inspires other team managers to look at regional players and see if they can bring them to NA and vice versa.

For Curse’s own article on acquiring Edward, look here. Remember to tune into the NA LCS on June 12th!