Halo World Championship Finals: Day 3 Recap

It’s been a long weekend of fantastic Halo 5: Guardians action. Sixteen teams from all around the world gathered in Hollywood, Calif. for their shot at the $2.5 million prize pool. The Halo World Championship finally narrowed down to Counter Logic Gaming and Team Allegiance.

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The opening round of the grand finals began with a back-and-forth game of Capture the Flag on the map Coliseum. The first-round game finished with a tied score of 1-1, forcing both teams to replay the game. Going into the replay, Team Allegiance made the first grab but failed to make anything of it. CLG swiftly captured three flags shortly after, resulting in a 3-0 win for CLG on map one.

The second round, Team Slayer on Rig, began with well-seasoned Halo veteran Brett “Naded” Leonard grabbing a double kill off the break with the Scattershot. Even though Allegiance was able to grab all of the power weapons at the start, CLG players quickly rectified their position and obtained a ten-kill lead. With CLG gaining the power weapons, Allegiance momentum clearly died out. CLG consistently struck as a team and pushed the areas where players were weakest on the map. It really paid off for them as they held a nearly double-point lead over Allegiance. CLG held its lead, ending the second round 50-22.

The third match’s game type would be Strongholds on the map Plaza. If the last match was any precursor to what would happen in the third round, you would have expected CLG to continue their fight for the World Championship title and the first-place prize money of $1 million. CLG held the majority of points for a 40 point run right off the bat, not giving Allegiance a chance to score despite holding only one point. Allegiance giving up power weapons to CLG continuously made the fight more difficult for them. They took the chance to capture bottom mid, and, as a result, they put a meager 10 points on the board. For someone is CLG’s position, they obviously didn’t let it phase them as they recaptured bottom mid. Holding the two points, they kept their opponents at bay. CLG captured all three points and finished round three with a 100-15 victory.

Fathom CTF opened with a capture from CLG within one minute and 20 seconds. Allegiance was barely hanging onto the series to begin with. While Allegiance was making plenty of moves to defend the flag from getting captured a second time, they couldn’t prevent it from leaving their base on numerous occasions. It was clear that CLG was controlling the pace here; Allegiance could only hold off and trade kills. Naded made a sneaky grab and brought the flag back to his team’s base. On the other hand, CLG grabbed Allegiance’s flag and brought it back to their base as well. After nearly a four-minute long standstill, Naded was able to make a move with the Railgun to return the flag and tie up the score 1-1. With such a late capture it was going to be very difficult for Allegiance to tie it up again. CLG locked down the map, making it a difficult time for Allegiance, as they couldn’t gain any ground. The game went on to leave CLG as the World Champions, with a 4-0 stomp over Team Allegiance.

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It had seemed we were going to be in for a long night of some great Halo 5 action. Unfortunately, it went down with a sweep. The grand finals still had some exciting moments, but it quickly became obvious that CLG was more than prepared to take out their competition.

Naded was unable to take his major event victory, despite his long career. However, he was voted the Most Valuable Player during the event by the fans. While it may not have been the first-place finish that he and his team were looking for, Naded was able to bring home an MVP title and $100,000. While the season comes to a close, it’ll be interesting to see what is to come with the newly-announced, Electronic Sports League-run Halo Pro League.

What are your impressions of the Halo World Championship Finals? Who were you rooting for? Let us know in the comments or at our Twitter – @eSportsNation.