The details for the HCS opencircuit have finally been revealed. This circuit is the way thatplayers will be able to move up in the ranks from an amateur playerto joining the Pro League next season.
The open circuit consists of aseries of online tournaments hosted by ESL in both North Americaand Europe. These tournaments will resemble the online cups of thesecond HCS season, held during Halo 2 Anniversary.
Over the course of five weeks,teams will work to earn HCS points. On the sixth week, the eightteams with the most points, as well as the top eight teams from theprevious cup, will play in a finals tournament that will decide thefinal placings. Presumably, if there is crossover between HCSpoints and a team placing in the fifth online cup, they will pull ateam from a lower placing.
Only the top two amateur teamswill have the chance to try and make it into the pro league, whichmeans every cup will count.
The cups will take place overtwo days, as the open bracket will be played on Saturday andthen the top sixteen teams will play the following day inthe legendary bracket. The full breakdown for HCS points has yet tobe revealed.
The first cup will start onSaturday, June 4, and the circuit will run all the way to theweekend of July 2, with the finals taking place the following week.But if that is not early enough for you and your team, there willbe a preseason cup to test the format and help seed the firstonline cup on June 3.
What do you think about thisformat? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @GAMURScom.
Patrick Cowley can be contacted onTwitter, @PtrckCowley.
