The 2017 Halo World Championship is officially under way, with 12 of the best teams in the world battling it for a share of the $1 million prize pool. While Day 1 wasn't packing any surprises or major upsets, there was still plenty of top-tier Halo action.
Nothing is truly set in stone after the first day in this double-elimination tournament, but one thing was incredibly clear: North America is a Halo juggernaut. NA squads went an impressive 8-0 against teams from other regions in some of the strongest performance seen in competitive Halo to date.
After a quick group stage, in which every game ended with a score of 3-0 or 3-1, Round 1 of the upper bracket witnessed closer series, with three out of four sets going the full distance.
Team Liquid started the upper bracket matches with a 4-3 win over Team EnVyUs. Liquid overcame a tough nV side despite a monster, 100-plus kill performance from nV's Austin "Mikwen" McCleary. nV, one of the favorites to win the entire tournament, will now have to wade through the lower bracket to find success, while Liquid is onto to Round 2 of the upper bracket.
Luminosity Gaming defied the odds and took down a hot-handed Splyce in a close 4-3 series in the next match of the upper bracket. Despite taking Group C over favorites nV and having leads of 2-1 and 3-2, respectively, in the previous series, Splyce just couldn't muster up enough firepower to fend off Luminosity. LG excelled at the more objective-focused modes of Stronghold and Capture the Flag, showing great synergy to narrowly edge out Splyce to move further into the upper bracket.
In one of the least surprising results of the day, OpTic Gaming easily handled Fab Games eSports in a lopsided 4-0 series sweep. At no point in the series did Fab look like it had any chance of taking a single game, as OpTic smothered its competition. OpTic simply waltzed its way to victory, picking up some montage-worthy sequences with big plays from Mathew "Royal2" Fiorante, who posted a five killstreak filled with sniper headshots in Game 3.
The final series of the day ended up being a lot closer than it looked to be from the start, as Str8 Rippin managed to hold off a ravenous TMMT Crowd Pleasers in a close 4-3 series. Str8 started off with a quick 3-0 lead, but then seemed to fall apart while Crowd Pleasers start vying for the reverse sweep. It all came down to a Game 7 Slayer that saw Str8 finally right the ship and move on further in the upper bracket.
If Day 1 was any indication, there is sure to be plenty of tightly contested battles left to play this weekend. Day 2 play kicks off Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. ET, and you certainly won't want to miss a second of the action.