Halo Championship Series Season Preview: Shopify Rebellion is Looking to Build Off Strong 2024
In the now four years of the Halo Championship Series in Halo Infinite, there has always been a "Big 3." Shopify Rebellion has been on the outside looking in for most of that, until this year.
This is going to be an exciting season in the Halo Championship Series. Early on, two teams have the chance to dominate the rest and fight for the top spot. One is OpTic Gaming and the other is Shopify Rebellion.
Similarly to OpTic, Shopify also changed 3/4 of their roster in the offseason after a year of top four placements. The Rebellion decided to build around Preston “Cykul” Sipes after he won support player of the year in 2024. With one of the best young guns in the league, the Rebellion would build a squad worthy of being a top two squad.
The organization would bring in two players from the 2024 FaZe clan squad in Bradley “Frosty” Bergstrom and Mathew “Royal2” Fiorante. To round out the fourth spot, they would pick up the MVP of the 2024 Pure roster in Wyatt “LastShot” Gowan. Rebellion didn’t switch their coach, so Nick “Bestman” Johnson is keeping the reins on this squad.
Bringing in two of the most renowned players in the HCS in Frosty and Royal2 is great. Bringing in the other young gun who could be an MVP level player is even better. This roster has everything from slaying potential to objective efficiency and anyone of them can be an MVP.
This roster is terrifying and it has shown in the offseason Opens and in the early slate of the season. Shopify would win five of the six offseason Opens as a squad, and win one of the HCS Opens to start. As it stands right now, they are the most practiced team in the league and it shows.
From a statistics standpoint, the Rebels are putting up numbers, to say the least. After the HCS Open Series two, they have an overall season K:D (kill: death ratio) of 1.11. They have an overall damage differential (damage dealt-damage taken) of 7,446. This means that during this season Shopify has put out damage and played their lives at an elite level. Just look at their Halo Data Hive stats page and be astonished.
To continue on their strong start to the year, they are once again the best slayer squad in the HCS. According to Halo Data Hive, the Rebels were undefeated in slayers at Open series two. Outside of that tournament, this squad hasn’t lost many slayers and it doesn’t seem like they will lose many this year.
Now while they have gotten off to a great start, they are not as good at some objective game types in specific matchups. Against OpTic, at Open Series two, they are 3-6 in Assault, Oddball, Strongholds, King of the Hill, and Capture the Flag. That isn’t ideal, but they have a good objective game mode record against everyone else.
Shopify Rebellion has a potential squad that could win multiple Majors even if they aren’t great against OpTic in objective game modes. If they continue to be the best slayer team in the circuit it won’t matter much. For an organization that hasn’t been at the top, this is the year to bet on the Rebels to rebel against the opposition and win.