Everything you need to know about Halo World Championship Finals

After a long and exciting period of qualifier tournaments that have spanned four continents since December 20, 2015, the Halo World Championship series will come to an epic conclusion on March 18-20, 2016 with the HWC Finals. The grandiose Halo 5 competition will be held in Hollywood, California.

This is going to be the first Halo event of this scale, gathering 16 of best teams from all over the world for the ultimate prize of $1,000,000, and an overall prize pool of $2,500,000.

The teams in competition

The winners of regional tournaments are selected for the championship finals with the following line-ups:

Eight teams representing North America:

• Team Allegiance (Naded, Suspector, Cratos, eL TowN)
• Team Liquid (Ace, APG, Heinz, UnLegit)
• Evil Geniuses (Snipedown, Commonly, Lunchbox, Roy)
• Renegades (Ninja, Spartan, StelluR, Victory X)
• Denial eSports (ContrA, Huke, PreDevoNatoR, bubu dubu)
• Team eLevate (Rayne, Penguin, Calm, Swift Kill)
• Counter Logic Gaming (SnakeBite, Lethul, Frosty, Royal2)
• Cloud9 (Hysteria, Assault, Cloud, Danoxide)

Four teams representing Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA):

• exceL eSports (CreepeazY, Lunny, Snakey, Riotz)
• Team Infused (Chalkie, TuFoxy, BlackJack, Ramirez)
• FAB Games eSports (Kimbo, MonKey, Speed, Doodle)
• Epsilon eSports (BUK 20, BUK 57, Jimbo, Snipedrone)

Two teams representing Australia and New Zealand (ANZ):

• Team Exile5 (Adz, Bald, Colt, Zerkil)
• Team Immunity (Benno, Junior, Voltage, Seduce)

One team representing Asia:

• Team Skyfire (Axis, BLaQkRoW, Avenger, Mobius)

One team representing Latin America (LATAM):

• Chosen Squad (Rinnegan, Dualitat, S3lioh, Dragoniak)

Brackets

Click to enlarge

All teams will compete against each other in 4 groups in the single-elimination bracket – 4 teams per group in a Red vs Blue (4v4) format in the following game types and respective maps:

• Team Slayer: Coliseum, The Rig, Plaza, Eden, Regret, Truth
• Capture the Flag: Coliseum, Truth, Fathom
• Strongholds: The Rig, Eden, Empire, Plaza

Prize pool

When the Halo World Championship was announced on August 4, 2015, the initial prize pool was $1,000,000. However, players around the world got the chance to support the competing teams by purchasing REQ packs in Halo 5: Guardians.

During the fall of 2015, the prize pool had increased up to $2,000,000 just through the crowdfunding. And on February 19, 2016 it reached its peak of $2,500,000.

The distribution of the prize pool will be following:

• 1st place – $1,000,000 (40%)
• 2nd place – $500,000 (20%)
• 3rd-4th places – $250,000 (10%)
• 5th-8th places – $75,000 (3%)
• 9th-16th places – $25,000 (1%)

Schedule and where to watch

On March 18th two stages will hold 8 matches each at the same time slots (PST).

You can watch all matches on the official Halo and ESL Twitch channels:

• Main Stage stream
• Secondary stage stream

The following casters have been confirmed: Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez, Dave “Walshy” Walsh, Michael “StrongSide” Cavanaugh, Mark “Onset” Hatcher, Andy “Bravo” Dudynsky, Richard “TheSimms” Simms and Miles “Wra7h” Ross.

Follow the event on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram as well.

Which team do you think will win the HWC 2016? Share your predictions in the comments section below.