Halo Championship Series Season Preview: OpTic Gaming is Coming For Multiple Crowns
The Halo Championship Series is underway as two Open Series have been played. OpTic Gaming is one of the teams to start the year with a win, but they are looking for more than that this season.
Year four of the Halo Championship Series (HCS) has started, and this might be the most competitive season yet. On a good day, any of the top eight squads has a shot at taking home a trophy, but one squad, OpTic Gaming, is looking to right the wrongs of last year.
OpTic didn’t have a bad 2024 season, but since the 2023 Worlds match against FaZe Clan the Greenwall has placed second in six straight events. Heading into the last offseason it was rumored that Matt “Formal” Piper would be looking to build a “God Squad,” meaning that the squad of Tommy “Lucid” Wilson, Joey “Trippy” Taylor, and Zane “Penguin” Hearon would be dropped.
The core trio that won the 2021 World Championship is no more, and this move caused a lot of movement. With the old team out, OpTic brought in some former foes to the Greenwall. The team brought in the duo that stumped OpTic all of last year in Adam “Bound” Gray and Kaci “Lqgend (Legend)” Sabri.
To round out the team, OpTic would pick up “The Demon” in Jon “Renegade” Willette. On paper, this squad can slay with any team in the league and will be one of the more aggressive rosters displayed this season. The last move OpTic would make is replacing long-time coach Jason “Lunchbox” Brown and replacing him with Daniel “Tusk” Ruiz.
So far with two HCS Open Series tournaments over, OpTic has won one and finished in second. It is a great start for a team that this writer believes hasn’t quite gotten the cohesion yet. Statistically, the squad hasn’t been as great with a team K:D (kill/death ratio) of 0.99. That isn’t terrible, but a squad with this much slaying potential it should be a bit higher.
K:D isn’t the end all be all, however, as OpTic is lethal in objective modes, specifically Capture the Flag, Oddball, and Strongholds. They are 4-0 in CTF, 3-0 in Oddball and 3-2 in Strongholds. This squad is efficient with the objective and that makes up for the slower start to the year in slays.
With said slow start in slaying ability, OpTic have struggled in slayer to start the year. With a small sample size OpTic has a record of 2-5 in slayer with both of their wins on Origin. They have lost on every other map, although they have had some nail-biting games not go their way. Credit to Halo Data Hive, great stat site for Halo.
The slow starts in Slayer can be summed up as a lack of cohesion at times and a slower start to the year from Lqgend. He currently has an overall K:D of 0.90 while being the least accurate and putting out the least damage on the squad. With it being the second week of the year, no fans should be worried about this start, but once Lqgend comes online this squad might be unstoppable.
This OpTic roster also seems to slay with some teams, specifically Shopify Rebellion (SR). In both grand finals of the Open Series OpTic has faced SR and has a negative K:D in all three matches. Now, OpTic has played better in the objective modes against them, but that could be a concern going forward for them, but the slayers need more work currently.
With one of the crazier off-seasons in HCS history OpTic Gaming looks to have one of the better rosters in the league and look to fix the issues that plagued them last year. This roster has a chance to give OpTic their third World Championship in the HCS and once they work out some of their kinks, the league better watch out.