While most of the HCS Global Invitational opening day at DreamHack Dallas played out with few surprises, its penultimate match saw one of the biggest upset results in Halo history as reigning world champions OpTic Gaming were swept by France’s Quadrant.
OpTic Gaming had been on an unbelievably dominant run in Halo Infinite having won the last four LAN events in a row including the 2022 World Championship without losing a single series. While they have had a few blips online, the last time OpTic lost a LAN game was well over a year ago in May 2022 at the Kansas City Major.
Furthermore, OpTic hadn’t lost a pool play match on LAN in the organization’s entire history, and thus, many predicted clean sailing through Friday’s pool play opponents JLINGZ Esports, Gamers First, and Quadrant. While OpTic beat JLINGZ without dropping a map, the other two teams wouldn’t go down so easily.
Gamers First initially led their series 2-1 and were winning map four before OpTic completely ran away with the match, winning Capture the Flag 4-1 and Slayer 50-44. The same couldn’t be said against Quadrant as, after narrow Stronghold (197-250) and Slayer (46-50) losses, OpTic squandered a 3-0 lead on Capture the Flag with just 150 seconds remaining to lose 3-4—a complete sweep by the European top seed.
Quadrant—the esports organization owned by Formula 1 driver Lando Norris—is a fully French lineup that cemented itself as the top team in Europe after signing Acend’s Renan “Sica” Grall and Kaci “Lqgend” Sabri in Jan. 2023. Since then, they finished just outside of the top eight at the most recent LAN, the Kick-Off Major in Charlotte in February, where they notably lost 2-3 to OpTic during pool play.
While any team beating OpTic is a massive achievement, to do so in such a one-sided fashion is unheard of outside of the very top teams in Halo. For a European team to do this is even more impressive considering the North American dominance of the Halo franchise.
Thanks to this win, Quadrant is now set to face Native Gaming Red in the quarter-finals which, considering the American squad is playing with their coach subbed in, sets Quadrant up to possibly have Europe’s best-ever performance at an international Halo event.
Currently, Team Infused holds this record having finished in the top six at the 2017 Pro League Fall Finals. Beating Native Gaming Red guarantees at least a top-six finish while still possessing an upper-bracket spot in the tournament.
OpTic, on the other hand, is in a much more difficult position, as in their quarter-final they’re set to face fellow Dallas-based Complexity Gaming—a team that has consistently caused OpTic problems online.
Related: Halo champs OpTic may have found their kryptonite with another upset loss at HCS Dallas Qualifier
In the past six weeks alone Complexity has beaten OpTic in two different tournaments and has been OpTic’s only real weak spot prior to this weekend. Now they get to face once again in a much more important setting.
This history-making upset comes just a week after OpTic’s Call of Duty roster failed to win a map at the Stage Five Major as the Green Wall looks to be having a rough month of results.
