Before the Orlando Major last month, Lucid and Trippy hadn’t lifted a trophy at a major Halo LAN tournament. Now both players, alongside esports legends FormaL and aPG, can call themselves world champions after what was an explosive grand finals for Halo Infinite‘s first competitive season.
A bracket reset from a resurgent Cloud9 threatened to spell disaster on an otherwise magical weekend for a dominant OpTic roster.
Yet with their backs against the wall, OpTic pulled out a stunning string of performances to take the second best-of-seven series in a 4-0 sweep and claim the title and trophy in front of an electric Greenwall crowd.
Prior to the grand finals, OpTic’s Halo World Championship weekend was looking almost flawless. While C9 had been forced into a lower bracket gauntlet run in round one by Native Red, OpTic Gaming had only lost a single map throughout the entire tournament. With comfortable sweeps against the likes of Sentinels and Native Red, the trophy looked primed to leave the venue in the hands of FormaL and the team.
Despite a promising start to the first best-of-seven with a Capture The Flag game won in overtime for OpTic, C9 looked completely in control for the proceeding four maps to take a 4-1 series win that reset the bracket.
Bound was a man on a mission, sitting in the spotlight game after game for his outstanding individual plays that kept him constantly at the top of the leaderboards.
While in-game leader Eco guided C9’s strategy, Bound grabbed the opening kills needed for the boys in blue to execute the necessary pushes. From a triple kill in the closing stages of game two to back-to-back double kills with the Heatwave in hand for the game three win, it was the young rookie that shone brightest.
He finished the first series with a 1.46 K/D ratio and 99 kills to top the lobby, no easy feat against a team that had been as dominant as OpTic all weekend long.
Another significant element to C9’s success was the effective shutdown on Lucid. Already named season MVP earlier in the weekend, Lucid’s most important series of the year was a subdued one that hit its lowest point in King of the Hill on Live Fire with a 9-16 performance to forget.
He only mustered 62 overall kills by the series’ conclusion—the lowest on OpTic—despite having the second-highest total damage. It was a glaring statistic that pointed to a breakdown in the team coordination for a Greenwall lineup that is so often touted as being the most well-oiled machine in the league.
Yet that well-oiled machine roared back to life after the grand finals was reset and both teams faced down their second best-of-seven series for the night.
Lucid and Trippy looked absent before their tournament lives were truly on the line, but both players turned up and slayed out to ensure OpTic’s victory in all four of the next games.
C9’s fate seemed sealed by the 50-30 conclusion of Slayer on Catalyst for game two. They had already dropped the map to Native Red on Saturday, a defeat that had cost them the series and sent them down to the elimination bracket. OpTic wasn’t any more merciful, with a strong opening strategy leaving Pznguin 0-5 at the start, a stat screen that only worsened to a 6-16 performance by the end.
Bound, who had been so instrumental in C9’s earlier victories, also looked leashed by OpTic’s newfound teamfighting, similarly floundering with a 6-13 K/D tally.
With Trippy and Lucid now performing at their best, OpTic made better use of power weapons and sandbox opportunities presented to them, converting map control into objective control.
In game two alone, Lucid, aPG and FormaL all had over 10 assists while Trippy secured a leaderboard-topping 16 kills.
In game one’s final two rounds of Oddball, Lucid dominated with the Shock Rifle to achieve 27 kills in those two rounds alone. Flawless rotations from FormaL with the Heatwave and Sniper Rifle in game three converted into a Killing Spree and a 50-point lead for OpTic despite an initial C9 lead. Every player was firing on all cylinders.
Lucid’s voice was almost gone by the time OpTic finished the 4-0 sweep and hoisted the trophy, but he was still all-smiles looking at his team.
“I feel amazing right now. I feel absolutely amazing,” he said in the post-game interview. “That grit that we showed… I don’t think we’ve been put through that just yet. I’m so proud of the team right now and what we were able to do there. We just pulled it off boys. We did it.”
There were just as many smiles for FormaL, now a world champion in both Call of Duty and Halo, who saw his switch back with the release of Infinite pay off in the best way possible.
“These past couple of years have been pretty tough in Call of Duty, so this was just like a dream come true. I’m just really proud of us. I’m happy we took it home.”
