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.

Overview of the Season 3 Summer Promotion Series

 This weekend kicked off with the Season 3 summer Promotion series for the North American region. On the first day, the Challenger teams faced off in a best of three games.

The first match of the day was Quantic Gaming (formerly team Orbit). Quantic faced off against team Astral Poke that resulted in Quantic taking the first win with a 2-0 lead. Next, is Velocity eSports (formerly Dirt Nap Gaming) versus The Salad Bar. The Salad Bar picked up the first game but lost the next two matches to Velocity eSports, giving Velocity the chance to fight team Marn on Saturday. After the Velocity win, team Summon and Ranked 5’s winners Fidelis matched up and team Summon got the win with 2-0. The final match of the day would be between team DoubleBuff (formerly known as 1 Trick Ponies) and Azure Cats. Azure Cats bring home the win 2-0 and get to face CLG on Sunday.

After the Challenger matches were completed, the winners of those matches got to face the bottom two teams of the spring LCS and the two losing teams of the Playoffs. The matches played out to a best of five games.

Quantic Gaming got to face off against the bottom team of the spring LCS, team CompLexity. Quantic looked strong in all of the games they played and took home the next spot in the summer season, knocking CompLexity out 3-0. With their win against The Salad Bar the day before, Velocity eSports got its hands on seventh placed, team Marn. Marn played strong and definitely their best, however got the losing decision of going 2-3 against Velocity eSports. Since team Marn are now out of the LCS, word of Marn, their manager, is that the team will now disband (http://marnorz.blogspot.com/2013/05/so.html). Sunday started the final day of the Promotion series that consisted of matches of Dignitas vs team Summon and Azure Cats versus CLG. Since Dignitas lost against Good Game University on the first day of the Playoffs, Dignitas had to save themselves when brought up against team Summon. Dignitas played the best they could to take the win 3-1 against team Summon. Team Dignitas is back in the summer LCS! The final matches would become the strongest matches of the entire weekend with Counter Logic Gaming vs Azure Cats. CLG takes home the spot to remain in the LCS for the summer as they won against Azure Cats 3-0, giving Azure Cats no breathing room, much like Quantic Gaming did to team CompLexity.

With the Promotion series now over, the final teams that will be in the summer season are as followed:

Team Solomid

Good Game University

Team Curse

Team Vulcun

Quantic Gaming

Velocity eSports

Team Dignitas

Counter Logic Gaming

Week 10 EU LCS - Fnatic vs GIANTS - The Golem Secure

Picks:

GIANTS- Irelia, Jarvan IV, Diana, Caitlyn, Zyra.

Fnatic- Zed, Volibear, Ahri, Twitch, Thresh.

GIANTS as the Blue team and Fnatic as the Red team, Fnatic sends Thresh to ward Red Mid-banana bush. Twitch heads towards Red wraiths but almost gets caught out by Jarvan IV's Demacian Standard when he uses it to check the bush behind Red Buff. Fnatic's Volibear stays to guard his Blue ramp and Zed is currently staying in the Top river bush. Irelia, Caitlyn, and Zyra quickly head towards the Top tri-bush. Since Zed is in the Top river bush, he sees the three go into the tri-bush. GIANTS' Zyra puts down a pink ward in the tri-bush to check for vision. A few seconds later, Irelia recalls and Jarvan IV and Diana start to head into the tri-bush, still being seen by Zed. Fnatic quickly respond by stacking up in their bush behind Red buff. At 1:45, GIANTS start to secure Red side's golems. GIANTS head back towards the tri-bush and then towards the bush behind the Red buff, Fnatic still inside. Another Demacian Standard is used to check the bush and Fnatic are seen. GIANTS head towards the Baron-side of the river, Caitlyn and Zyra going top, Diana going mid, and Jarvan IV going to Blue buff. Fnatic's Twitch and Thresh are there to catch Diana out, dealing almost enough damage to kill her, plus using ignite. Diana survives with about ~50 HP. 

View the VOD here: http://vods.leaguepedia.com/giants-vs-fnatic-lcs-2013-eu-spring-w10d3/

Bans: 4:57:00

Game: 5:05:00