OpTic destroyed Sentinels in Halo Infinite on their first offline, relegating their opponents to the lower championship bracket at the HCS Kickoff Major in Raleigh.
Both sides come into their top championship bracket series on fire, with Sentinels dominating the open bracket and OpTic dominating Group A of pool play (three 3-0 wins). The series began with a CTF on Aquarius, with both sides demonstrating their competence by playing for frags before making flag plays. OpTic’s ability to play patiently and conceal deep on the opposing side proved decisive, as they won map one with a 2-0 score.
The teams switched to Slayer on Streets, and 20 kills passed before either Pistola or FormaL scored for their squad. Sentinels, on the other hand, rode the coattails of a fantastic overall team effort, anchored by 17 kills and only four fatalities from Lucid, to a 50-36 victory on Streets.
Proceeding on to Oddball on Live Fire, both teams fought tooth and nail for possession of the lower mid. Despite FormaL’s breakout performance, in which OpTic rallied from a 30-point hole, a late Sentinels overshield-boosted garage hold clinched a 100-98 win in game one. In game two, OpTic took control of the ball and created a massive 70-point advantage. Sentinels were unable to regroup, and OpTic cruised to a 3-0 series victory.
OpTic and Sentinels had divided their first two encounters in Halo Infinite. OpTic won the first NA HCS Open Series in a best-of-three lower bracket match, and Sentinels won the NA Raleigh qualifier in the grand finals. Sentinels’ victory was snuffed out by the HCS decision that Royal 2 was employing a geofilter during the qualifier run, which resulted in Sentinels borrowing FormaL from OpTic and playing through the Raleigh open bracket.
OpTic advances to the upper bracket quarterfinals, where they will face either FaZe, XSET, or The Guard.