Who are the Halo favourites of HCS Regional Finals in Valencia?

Halo tournament HCS Valencia 2022 is another exciting esports tournament that starts today at the DreamHack festival in Valencia, Spain. This marks the first exclusive Halo LAN event in Europe, so let’s take a look at who are the favourites of the tournament.

HCS Valencia, Europe’s premier regional event for Halo Infinite runs from July 1-3. Shortly before the start of the tournament, DreamHack announced team pools that will make up the first day of play.

Besides HCS, Valencia is also currently hosting ESL Challenger and ESL Impact CS:GO competitions. 

Lineup is probably no big surprise for fans

Final spots in each pool will be determined in an open bracket tournament running alongside the main event, but many of the groups are expected to offer both upsets and surprises. The main competitors in the battle for the trophy, such as Natus Vincere, Quadrant, Acend and the Online Warriors managed to avoid each other and ended up in different pools for the first day of play. 

Acend have good cards

Given Acend’s track record in European tournaments, as well as the newfound interest in their newest player Brandon “Respectful” Stones, who replaced Shady “Shaady” Zer, Pool A will quite likely go in their favour. Quadrant and NAVI are hoping for a similarly smooth run in their respective pools, but recent results in scrims and online tournaments suggest the rest of Europe is catching up with the region’s former titans. For example, Online Warriors, now joined by ex-Acend player Shaady, took second place in the final week of the Pro Series Split Two.

What about the rest?

Online Warriors can be expected to put on an impressive run and fight for the top step of the podium, but for the past few days, Online Warriors have been down in scrims to fellow Pool D member JLINGZ esports, 7-6 . Whether these results translate to the tournament remains to be seen, but each team will be surely determined to finish first in their respective pools in order to secure a better placement in the championship round.

The HCS Valencia 2022 will conclude with the Championship bracket scheduled for Sunday, July 3. The event offers a starting prize pool of $100,000, which can be firther increased through crowdfunding. The top four European teams from these regional finals will also earn a guaranteed spot in pool play for the next HCS Major, which is to be held in Orlando.

Header: Halo Esports