Snipedown got on Halo Infinite again (with Eli the Ninja) and he always seems to have the worst luck with this game whenever he plays. This time the Oddball got stuck in the ceiling three times in a row in just the first two rounds.
Funny little exchange from the Shopify vs Four of a Kind scrims today. SR won the scrim 8-7, was a really close one.
Shopify defeat Ascending Baseline in a 4-0 sweep to end Day 1 of Pro League. Ascending Baseline put up a good fight in the Live Fire Ball and managed to take a round off the champions, but it was a tough first assignment for AB. Shopify win $1,000 and tie Lucid's team for best map count so far (updated leaderboard in last screenshot).
League Play Day 2 continues Sunday August 23 with these matches (in order):
Links
LVT caught the end of Lucid's overkill to win the game, here's the full play from his POV. Was nearly a killtacular.
Inconceivable (Lucid's team) defeat Retribution (Eco's team) in a clean 4-0 sweep that absolutely nobody predicted. Everyone predicted this would be the closest series of the day but Lucid's team was on fire today. Inconceivable win $1,000 and have the best map count in the pro league so far.
Inconceivable heavily outslayed with everyone on their team going positive while only Yakzn went positive on Retribution. Kuhlect had the best K/D (1.21) and KA/D (1.84) and made some huge plays. Everyone on that team had pop-off moments and clutch plays, their teamwork looked great.
Next and final matchup is Shopify Rebellion vs Ascending Baseline to close out the day.
Links
Four of a Kind have defeated Mercenaries 4-2 and won $1,000. Taulek was the MVP of this series with a 1.68 K/D and 2.58 KA/D. Taulek dealt the most damage and took the least damage.
Map Picks/Bans:
New to this years Pro League is a map pick/ban process, here is an explanation of how it went down. The higher seeded team (Trippy's team in this case) gets to pick Team A or Team B for this process, Trippy chose Team A.
Next matchup is Inconceivable (Lucid's team) vs Retribution (Eco's team). Then Ascending Baseline (RyaNoob's team) vs Shopify after that to close out the day.
Links
Cloud9 have defeated FaZe 4-2 in a major upset, kicking off the Halo Pro League in exciting fashion. Cearion was the MVP of this series having the highest kills, most assists, and most damage.
Links
Ryan is the king of instasplodes, here's a fun one from his stream tonight (and a bonus triple kill instasplode against pros in year 1)
FaZe took on Shopify Rebellion in their first-ever scrim together, then immediately followed it up with a second scrim against RyaNoob’s Ascending Baseline, showing they’re serious about putting in the work despite a somewhat shaky start.
Here’s what FaZe’s opponents had to say about playing them:
End clip is Bound telling Cykul "that scrim didn't count today, my video settings were maxed out so it didn't count. We can run it back tomorrow." Then Yakzn trolls Bound by saying "I think he made like fifty bucks from that scrim, that’s pretty good."
LVT Halo website is updated with the full Pro League league play schedule. Each Sunday has four matches with the winning team receiving $1,000.
Sunday August 16 - League Play Day 1
Sunday August 23 - League Play Day 2
Sunday September 6 - League Play Day 3
Sunday September 13 - League Play Day 4
Sunday September 20 - League Play Day 5
Sunday October 4 - League Play Day 6
Sunday October 11 - League Play Day 7
The top six teams at the end of league play will qualify for the LAN at Shopify Rebellion Headquarters in Los Angeles.
Thanks to Shopify Rebellion for providing the prize pool. $28,000 for the online matches and $100,000 for the LAN.
The very first scrim between FaZe and Shopify Rebellion is over, and Shyway's community crowdfunded $1,500 to turn this into a money scrim providing some extra motivation to both teams (the winning team gets $100 per map win).
Renegade called out Bestman saying he wanted to create some storylines in Halo and there's a bunch of storylines now:
With the format of the Pro League, it could be several weeks until we see these teams match up again (unless they continue scrimming).
Map Count (SR win 13-2 vs FaZe):
Money Earned
Halo Data Hive stats: https://halodatahive.com/Series/Summary/28938
VOD: Shyway Twitch / Shyway YouTube / LastShot POV (Twitch) / Frosty POV (Twitch)
Renegade has returned to Halo and isn't afraid of the reigning champs. FaZe has already scheduled a scrim against Shopify for this Wednesday at 4pm ET.
Renegade says he wants to make his biggest supporter verbmaker proud and delivered a message to Shopify's coach: "I'm coming bro, I'm coming for that Bestman ass."
LVT did a stream today asking their Twitch chat community to rank where they believe the eight qualified Halo Pro League teams will end up in October after league play finishes but before the LAN.
After a lot of polls, this was the community consensus rankings:
Community picks are on the left side of that screenshot, the official seeds are on the right side.
Chatters think that FaZe (60% of votes) will overtake Four of a Kind (40% of votes) as the new #2 team. Chat also predicts that Nine and Ascending Baseline won't meet the cutoff to qualify for the LAN (only the top 6 teams go to LAN).
Avucy who plays for Nine said "chat yall don't know any ball" and is ready to prove the doubters wrong. So this just-for-fun list could end up motivating some pros.
Congratulations to Mercenaries who defeated FaZe 7-5 in a hard fought Grand Finals Reset to win the LVT Halo Pro League Qualifier #2. The first series was 4-3 FaZe and the second series was 4-1 Mercenaries.
FaZe came into the Grand Finals with lots of momentum having back-to-back 4-0 sweeps against both SSG and Vitality. It looked like we might get a third sweep from FaZe as they were up 3-0 in the series, but then Mercenaries won three maps in a row before losing the game 7 for a bracket reset. In the second series Mercenaries turned it up even more and won convincingly 4-1.
Mercenaries might be a sleeper team in the Pro League. They're 3/4 of Kraken Seas who placed top 4 at Dreamhack Atlanta and with Sab they're looking extremely good. Mercenaries is the only team to not drop down to lower bracket this tournament. They beat Majin 3-1, Noobs 3-0, Vitality 3-1, and FaZe 7-5.
Links
FaZe (Stellur's team) has defeated Vitality (Eco's team) 4-0 in the Elimination Finals, so they just had back-to-back sweeps coming into the Grand Finals. FaZe's map count today is 18-1 so far.
FaZe now move on to play against Mercenaries (Suppressed, Sab, Druk, Soul Snipe) who have winner advantage, so FaZe will have to reset the bracket by winning two best of 7 series.
Links
FaZe defeated SSG in a quick 4-0 in the Elimination Semifinals. Stellur was the standout player putting up the best stats in every map, including an impressive 30-14 in Live Fire KOTH.
FaZe now move on to play Vitality in the Elimination Final so we're getting a Stellur vs Eco match next. SSG are eliminated from this tournament but have already secured their spot in the Pro League.
Links
SSG has defeated Majin 4-2 in the Elimination Quarterfinals to qualify for the LVT Halo Pro League. Lucid returned to Halo after months away and showed he's still got it. Majin are eliminated at top 6 after putting up a great fight this weekend (including a 3-1 win over FaZe yesterday).
Next up SSG will be facing FaZe in the Elimination Semifinal in a best of 7 series for seeding purposes, but both of those teams are now already qualified, so regardless of what happens they'll both be playing in the Pro League these next few months.
Links
Vitality has defeated SSG 3-2 in the Winners Semifinal to qualify for the LVT Halo Pro League. SSG drops to the lower bracket against the winner of Majin vs Legion in the Lower Quarterfinal. If SSG wins that match they will qualify as well, otherwise they are eliminated.
This was a great series with a razor tight 250-249 game 1. If not for that, SSG would've swept the series 3-0, but that one second is what allowed Eco's team to come back and eventually win the series. Lucid had an incredible game 3 going 29-15. Acid had an incredible game 4 going 30-16. Eco clutched up in the game 5 slayer going 19-11.
Links
We've got our first major upset in the Halo Pro League with Majin defeating FaZe 3-1. This series took forever with lots of disputes over servers, but in the end it was fair with two maps (1 & 4) being played on EU and two maps being played on NA (2 & 3).
Note: LVT's series result graphic has an error, it ended in game 4 (Live Fire Ball), there was no game 5 Recharge slayer.
Links
This weekend is the second and final qualifier for the LVT Halo Pro League. Many teams will compete but only four more will qualify. There was a big rostermania week so most teams are different. Here are some of the notable teams playing:
The full list of teams can be found here (not final, registration still open).
Piggy unfortunately won't be competing due to last-minute rostermania complications, but if any qualified teams decide to do a roster change or need a top-tier player as their substitute, Piggy is the best option out there.
These teams have already qualified:
How to Watch: