HCS Orange County: Day 1 Recap

With Saturday’s matches over at HCS Orange County (I guess… with the stream ending well before both brackets were finished, but okay), we have a (somewhat, not so much) clearer picture of not only what is to come for Championship Sunday, but for HCS Las Vegas in a month from now. That’s because the following teams, the top-four teams out of the open bracket, get an automatic spot at HCS Las Vegas:

1. 3sUp
2. Most Wanted
3. Ego Rangers
4. Solstice

As there were so many matches on this day, and a good amount of issues with the stream, as well as match recording, we’ll just boil it down into the placements for tomorrow. Each team will have their placement for today alongside their seeding. With that said, here is what Championship Sunday will look like: #1 OpTic Gaming (first place in pro bracket) vs. BYE #8 Ego Rangers (third place in open bracket) vs. #9 Solstice (fourth place in open bracket) #5 TMMT (LOL, Kind of) (fifth place in pro bracket) vs. #12 For_Wade (seventh place in open bracket) #4 Team Liquid (fourth place in pro bracket) vs. #13 Amateur Hour (eighth place in open bracket) #3 Enigma6 (third place in pro bracket) vs. BYE #6 3sUp (first place in open bracket) vs. #11 CPR Esports (sixth place in open bracket) #7 Most Wanted (second place in open bracket) vs. #10 Carnage (fifth place in open bracket) #2 Team EnVyUs (second place in pro bracket) vs. BYE

A few surprises and general notes from today:

• Nothing too out of the ordinary for the pro bracket, with teams qualifying basically in order of the current pro league standings in terms of ELO.
• Just saying, the top three teams out of the open bracket were all teams I predicted, in order, that would make a difference at this tournament. So I may or may not be “the oracle” of the Halo Championship Series.
• Unfortunately, there were a lot of stream issues, which led to this event being extremely difficult to follow for the casual fan. Hopefully, Sunday is figured out before it pushes away too many eyeballs.

With the placements set, do you already see a few upsets in order on Sunday? Let us know in the comments below and for all your Halo and general esports updates, make sure you are following us on Twitter, @GAMURScom. James Mattone is a journalist for GAMURS and can be contacted by email at jamestmattone@gmail.com or on Twitter –@TheJamesMattone.