Two years ago, the first Halo World Championship took place and CLG was crowned as the best team in the world. Last year, those same players took home their second world title—and this year, they look to complete the three-peat.
From Friday, April 13 to Sunday, April 15, the best Halo teams in the world will battle for a $1 million prize pool at the CenturyLink Field Event Center in Seattle, Washington.
Paul “SnakeBite” Duarte, Mathew “Royal2” Fiorante, Bradley “Frosty” Bergstrom, and Tony “LethuL” Campbell, Jr. are the defending world champions, but they are not the favorites heading into this year’s world-title tournament. Splyce has usurped them as the top team with their MLG Orlando and MLG Columbus championships.
Splyce took down Tox at the last two events in the grand finals, surprising the world champions with a bracket-resetting sweep in the MLG Columbus finals and a subsequent 4-1 series victory to win the title.
Both teams will look to become the 2018 world champions, but 14 of the top Halo teams will certainly do their best to prevent either squad from hoisting the trophy on Sunday.
Teams
The 16 teams competing at the HWC Finals were determined through international LAN qualifiers. A few weeks ago, the final nine teams qualified at the $50,000 MLG Columbus event and the rest qualified throughout different events over the past several months.
Here are the groups for the 2018 HWC Finals.
Group A
Splyce
Str8 Rippin
Fable Esports
Psychotic Gaming
Group B
Tox
Renegades
Wise Gaming
Mindfreak
Group C
Team Reciprocity
Oxygen Supremacy
Team Infused
Myztro Gaming
Group D
Team Envy
Elevate
Vexed Gaming
Team Immunity
Format
Tournament play will begin with a round-robin group stage. The top two teams from each of the four groups will advance to the championship bracket while the bottom two will be eliminated. In the championship bracket, the eight teams will play in a double-elimination format to determine this year’s world champions.
How to watch
There are four platforms where you can watch the 2018 HWC Finals. The matches with be broadcast on Mixer, Twitch, MLG, and Twitter. Additionally, there will be secondary streams on Mixer, Twitch, and MLG to ensure that every match at the event will be aired live.
Twitch – Alpha | Twitch – Bravo
Schedule
An official schedule for the HWC Finals has not been released, but the broadcast times have been announced.
On Friday April 13, the broadcast will begin at 2pm CT and is scheduled to run for approximately 10 hours. The longest day of the event, Saturday April 14 is set to run from 12pm to 12am CT. Championship Sunday, which will crown the third Halo World Championship winners, begins at 1pm CT.
The 2018 Halo World Championship Finals features the best teams in the world and will likely feature some of the most exciting and intense matches in Halo history.
