Four teams have already clinched their spot at the 2017 Halo World Championship. Although their journey throughout this tournament is far from over, accomplishing the crucial goal of earning a chance to compete at the most prestigious event of the year lifts a great weight off their shoulders, as they are now able to focus directly on winning this event. Here are the four teams that have qualified so far.
There should be no surprise that the defending HWC champions, OpTic Gaming, have entered this event with a thirst to destroy everyone in their path. The Green Wall made easy work out of Imperium in their first match of the championship bracket with a 4-0 win, followed by another sweep of Splyce soon after. OpTic Gaming hopes to maintain their momentum as they get ready to face a hyped Str8 Rippin lineup in their semifinals match.
Str8 Rippin came into this event with a strong desire to prove many of the naysayers wrong by qualifying for Worlds. With such a talented lineup, confident they will only get stronger as time goes by, Str8 competed with a fire that proved to greatly help them throughout their championship bracket run. Str8 defeated Wise Gaming 3-1 in their first series and beat Luminosity in a close 4-3 win that could have gone either way, in order to secure their spot in the world championship.
Team Liquid has been on fire throughout this championship run. After TL’s sweeps of Set to Destroy and a hungry Pnda squad, many, including myself, are curious to see just how far Liquid can go at this event. Either way, they have clinched a spot at the world championship.
Hoping to prove their worth as one of the top teams in the world, qualifying for worlds was vital for this club. The boys in blue dominated Second Nature 3-0 in their first series and defeated a strong Team Cryptik lineup that would prove to be a bit of a challenge for EnVyUs, however they came out on top 4-2, earning a spot at champs.
This has been a great event so far. With so much attention being brought to this event, including news coverage, these are the moments that make me proud to be a committed member of this community. Hopefully, the rest of Vegas will continue to be fantastic as there are still two HWC spots up for grabs and a champion that needs to be crowned for this event.
What have you thought about Vegas so far?
Zachery Chevere can be contacted on Twitter @EsportsZach and emailed at zachchevere@gmail.com
