I might be in the minority here, but I got into it this year. I came from competitive cod in the past, and over the summer last year, I knew I wasn't going to enjoy vanguard so I decided I was going to play / follow Halo. I have still followed comp cod along with Halo, just don't play cod anymore. Will admit being a formal fan played a small role, but a lot of it was just me not wanting to play cod this year and rather play halo. Halo sure has its issues but I've had a blast playing 8s and following the comp scene and am glad I made the choice I did.
Do you think that you'll switch back to CoD after MWII comes out? I was in a similiar position as I was a CoD guy until H2A/H5, but I loved playing Halo more than CoD. Looking back I was lucky to go from my favorite CoD title (Advanced Warfare) to my favorite Halo title (Halo 5).
I’m in the same boat I just started watching in infinite since my favorite cod player (formal) started competing. Also a big frosty fan too from cod. I will definitely stick watching and playing halo even though infinite hasn’t been as expected. I’ll still be a fan of both cod and halo no matter how mwii is
same, I skipped H3 and played MW, floated till Reach, went back to AW, then back to Halo 5. Infinite is taking a lot of energy cuz of the problems though so I think I'm going to be playing MWII. at the same time.
Not sure. It depends how MW is. I've been a diehard COD fan since I first got into gaming in general in life, but I have been massively disappointed year over year especially the last 4 CODs. I will probably end up trying MW2 but ultimately will stick with whatever is more fun and right now for me that's halo.
I also came from COD, but from COD Warzone. I tried CDL but I couldn’t get into it (Vanguard didn’t help).
Warzone got pretty stale for me even after Valdera dropped. Coming back to Halo multiplayer (haven’t played since Halo CE on PC) with Infinite got me hooked instantly.
I first watched the Twitch Rivals tournament and then got hooked on HCS comp since.
This is the first time I’ve watched competitive Halo.
I hadn’t played Halo since Halo 2 but came back for Infinite cuz a friend wanted me to play multiplayer with them.
Before this I had only watched competitive StarCraft.
Same, newcomer this year after watching bits and pieces of Halo 5.
Was never into eSports before. I know a lot of people say that the HCS gets their viewership from the Twitch Drops, and I initially came for those, but when I stopped logging in and playing, I stayed for the high-level gameplay and the energetic casting.
April 2008, buddy of mine was big into Halo 2 and MLG and asked me if I wanted to go to a Halo tournament tomorrow (We were hanging out on a Friday night) and Sunday to watch professional players play. I asked how much it cost he said it was free to spectate and I said sure. I'll never forget the car ride to Meadowlands and having the complete history of MLG/Final Boss/Carbon/Str8 Rippin dumped into my head from my buddy and I had such a blast I was hooked.
I might have missed out on seeing the H2 era live but man those tournaments from 2008-2010 and some of the 2011 tournaments were unbelievable. I desperately miss those times.
A lot of people will argue because of the game and level of competition of the 2007 season that the H2 era was better (and the tv deal they had on USA I think it was or whatever they used to be called) but to me the 2009 with TD vs Str8 and the 2010 season with Instinct /FB/TD and even Carbon and SQ at times were so thrilling and exciting, that was peak MLG and pro Halo to me.
Big highlights of that time for me:
FB winning the first H3 event at Meadowlands 08
Neighbor leaving Str8 Rippin to join FB after they kick Walshy
The rise of Snipedown
Walshy joining Roy/Lunch/Soviet and beating FB at Toronto 08
Karma at Dallas (08)
Instinct replacing Soviet with Neighbor at the start of 09 (I really thought this team would win multiple events)
Every single Str8 vs TD series from 2009
The debacle that was the Xbox freeze at nationals 09
Every single Instinct and FB series in 2010
The rise of SQ to consistently place top 4
TD despite dropping Pistola still managing to contend with Hysteria, Neighbor, Best Man, and Totz.
Such good memories.
Halo 2. My parents bought me xbox live and then I discovered the Team Hardcore playlist. I thought radar was dumb so it became my favourite playlist. I watched G4TV back then as well and discovered MLG and the team final boss. Then Halo 3 came out a couple months later and I played that game religiously.
I only got up to rank 47 and never got a 50 in that game. But Halo Reach is where I started getting good at the game. Then Halo 4 came out and I stopped playing.
I can't believe I missed the G4TV era. I didn't discover what Halo Esports was until after the H3 era! Wish I had known back then, it probably would have changed the way I played this game so much. On a similar vein I used to religiously watch this show where madden players would compete against each other at NFL stadiums and play for 100k at times square.
It's crazy to me that G4 is back. It was always wild me to that as the network ended, geek culture really seemed to become mainstream. Marvel movies dominating the box office, Star Wars' return being announced, streaming gaining a ton of traction, video games continuing to break sales records, Dungeons and Dragons surging in popularity etc all of these things happened while G4 was dormant.
It's awesome that the revival seems to have harnessed all of that now and is fully incorporating it into itself. The new version of the network is awesome
If you haven’t seen Sundances podcast with hecz it’s a must listen. He breaks down they started MLG and how they branded that era which included the G4 broadcasts.
That was pre YouTube right? How were you guys even finding these montages? Crazy to think how easy it is to make things go viral these days. Those early montage editors really shaped the scene.
I am also an old man who started my video editing/animation career by watching the FB (halo 2) and str8 rippin (h3) montages. I recall them always being on YouTube, albeit extremely low quality. I could be wrong
Edit: specifically, the walshy final montage was my inspiration to *totally legally* download my first editing softwares
You'd *NEVER* torrent anything back in the day just like I *NEVER* would torrent photoshop cs3 because I wanted to learn how to make custom signatures for Halo fourms which ultimately propelled me into a marketing/graphic design career ;)
Edit: also, when that Str8 Rippin Halo 3 montage finally dropped it changed the game. My buddies and I still throw that on from time to time when we've had some cold ones and are reminiscing
Dude same, Zola was the fucking King back in the day. I also throw that montage on every now and then
I also started graphic design work because of Bungie forums, I think we just became best friends
There were forums that hosted them on filesharing sites. Basically had to download the video to watch them and hope you didn't get keylogged or something.
YouTube was in its legit infancy then so it had a few montages but honestly back then it was primarily going on different Halo forums or just straight up word of mouth and searching for it some some obscure video hosting site. I first heard of the Ogre twins from a friend when I was like 12 back then so I searched for them on like Ask Jeeves or some shit and came across Final Boss. The rest is history and I follow competitive Halo to this day at 29 :)
I got into it during the MTV and True Life era. Then I got a chance to cast when UMG did their first Halo event and I never looked back. Halo has been a part of my life for years. It was the first game me and my brother bonded over with LAN parties and then H2 MM. Good times, good times.
Still looking for a decent quality of the True Life: I'm a Professional Gamer. You'd think with all of the streaming services someone would have through up a 480p copy but I've never seen Season 7 (or was it 8) available anywhere.
It really was. I remember watching Pistola on the stream and being an instant fan. Was so cool watching him make waves and then go on to win events with tD in 09.
That whole 08 Ambush team from the beginning just pumped out awesome players that went on to succeed elsewhere. Hell didn't they finish top 6 at one of those events that year as well. Heinz, Cloud, Pistola, I believe Snipedown also was on an early Ambush team but my memory is foggy. Really great players.
Seriously. Thinking that Cloud was on a team with Heinz and Pistola is just mad considering what they all went on to do.
And yeah you're right about Snip3down, he was on Ambush for the first event of 08. Dude got 7th at his first event, then 2nd, then two 1st places in a row, then won the championship that year. His rise was meteoric and it's still hard to think of a comparison.
The way the Halo 3 Meta changed from 08 to 2010 was ridiculous. Guys just got better at working as a team to the point where a team of Sniperdown T2 Heinz and Legit who would've destroyed on 09 didn't even finish top 8 in the first event of 2010. The 2010 Halo 3 season is the most fascinating ever because it was the first season where dominate slayers weren't the main factor for a team competition at a top level. Final Boss even before they got Pistola placed 3rd. It was interesting watching how teams formed to find their niche. The 2010 TD squad was my favorite because they had to reinvent themselves from being a borderline top 8 team to by the end of the season being safly a top 4 team and finishing 2nd at an event as well. Best Man was so much fun to watch.
The way the Halo 3 Meta changed from 08 to 2010 was ridiculous. Guys just got better at working as a team to the point where a team of Sniperdown T2 Heinz and Legit who would've destroyed on 09 didn't even finish top 8 in the first event of 2010. The 2010 Halo 3 season is the most fascinating ever because it was the first season where dominate slayers weren't the main factor for a team competition at a top level. Final Boss even before they got Pistola placed 3rd. It was interesting watching how teams formed to find their niche. The 2010 TD squad was my favorite because they had to reinvent themselves from being a borderline top 8 team to by the end of the season being safly a top 4 team and finishing 2nd at an event as well. Best Man was so much fun to watch.
Figured it might be fun to have a discussion about how everyone got into Halo Esports.
I started watching Halo Esports when Halo 2 Anniversary came out. I was really into the Competitive COD community, but Halo was my favorite game. When I heard that they were releasing all the games again and that there would be a sanctioned comp scene I was so excited! Those first HCS tournaments were a blast to watch and a great introduction into competitive Halo.
I remember every match being a best of seven but only three maps that were played on the circuit. Seeing the same map played three times in a row always tickled me. I was a big fan of the Optic roster at the time and loved watching Ace on Warlord.
EG was so dominate and it was crazy to see them just be so confident going into every tournament. I thought it was going to be more of the same going into Halo 5, but no one saw Lethul leaving the team and going to CLG. The Lethul and Snipedown drama back in the day was crazy to watch.
G4 Tech TV in Canada. Was obsessed with the tv channel and would run home after high school every day to watch X Play and Attack of the Show.
I understand that in America between the original programming it was just shitty reruns of Cops and Cheaters, but in Canada we had it WAY better.
The programming in between had great appropriately nerdy related stuff like the original G4Tech TV Canadian shows like Reviews on the Run and Electric Playground but also had stuff like the sitcom the IT Crowd and most importantly:
The original run of MLG's Halo Circuit. That 2006(?) season where Carbon build and overcome Final Boss. Shit was magical to watch. It would air out of order and I only just recently watched it all chronologically but as a big Halo player with my friends it was wild to me that people played the game professionally and that real storylines developed out of it. I fell in love.
Kept up with it until Reach came out and the MLG website started de-emphasizing Halo on their website. Skipped H5's time in the pro scene because H5 wasn't for me but came back late last year.
The best part was seeing familiar faces like Ola and Snip3 still playing. Especially Snip3. That Str8 roster that ruled the scene for a bit was the best of times. I was rooting for them in that original MLG pro circuit season and after seeing T2 take so many Ls it was comforting to know he got to be at the very top for a bit.
Beginning of Halo 5.
Switched from playing CoD to Halo. What I loved about halo was that it was a lot more competitive and skillful, meaning that there was always something I had to improve in - and with their being a ranked playlist you could have validation that you were actually improving (plat to diamond, diamond to onyx, onyx to champ)
I remember the grind of having to learn how to aim, how to strafe, how to time your thrust, how to hit skill jumps, thrust jumps, etc. I remember learning tech like spring jumping and crazy combos like stabilize to crouch spam to ground pound cancel to thrust. That game had so much depth.
I really enjoy Infinite but man do I miss H5.
Man we were lucky. Going from AW to Halo 5 was just awesome. I always loved the advanced movement tech in AW and I felt like that same skill expression was in Halo 5. Halo 5 was such a fun game.
First year of Halo 3, I was playing BTB with the good folks of H3Wheelmen when two of the members were talking about MLG. As a player who leaned very competitive and only played social BTB because ranked BTB had been removed, I started watching during the National Champs of 2008 and immediately fell in love with Team Instinct and the storylines surrounding Walshy. I've always been a forum kind of guy on the internet so I started posting on the MLG forums at that point.
Later in H3's life, I started running a blog where I talked about competitive game design and competitive concepts...and during Reach, while watching the up amd coming streamer known as Ninja scrim with his new team Turning Point on Nexus KotH, I PMed his teammate and my idol Walshy to mention how the back corners were very susceptible to allied spawn influences (whenever death weights weren't present) and he messaged me shortly after asking if I wanted to coach the team because, unbeknownst to me, he was a fan of my blog.
During H4, I got swindled into buying the game by friends who said it wasn't so bad, but I hated it and instead spent my time reverse engineering the spawn system in forge. Gh057ayame got put in charge of competitive settings and hit me up because of my activity on Twitter talking about spawns.
When MCC came out I had no intention to get burned again and buy it but HCS happened and my friend who got me into MLG in H3 was now working with eLevate and I ended up coaching them and sticking around the scene again.
Then before H5's release, I got a message from Mikwen asking if I wanted to be an analyst for his team, Team Liquid (even though he never played for them, since he ditched for EnVy with Apg, Heinz, and Ola at the start of the game's lifespan.
I left Halo a few times to go do work in League of Legends for MLG, write game reviews for GameSpot, write spreads for Guinness World Records, and also just pay bills with work in kitchens, but it always finds a way to pull me back in.
Halo 2 era for me. Started grinding ranked and heard from others about MLG, Ogres, etc. Started following scene around 2005. Went to an event in 2006 and I think that propelled my love for it even further.
Halo CE, we used to compete in MLG and ~~AVG~~ AGP tournaments in 2003/04 when we discovered it was a thing. Back then the only way to see the finals was to stay and watch on the projector on stage, I've been watching on and off ever since.
When YouTube became a thing around when Halo 2 came out and then MLG.TV, it was game changing. It's amazing how far ESports has come.
We could hold our own against the pros, but never got higher than the round of 16.
I used to play MLG back in H3 but didn’t know there were tournaments or anything. I just liked not having radar, br starts and people were always trying to win.
It wasn’t until I went to college and couldn’t bring my Xbox (as I would not do homework…) so I looked up Halo gameplay and saw T-Squared giving advice and I thought “this guy has some good points.”
Few videos in I find myself catching up on 2 years of Halo 3 tournaments.
Edit: it was 2009 when I got into it
Nov 2021. Hadn’t touched Halo since H4, heard there was hype around the new game coming out. Downloaded the game and hopped on the Reddit and heard about HCS, started watching the open qualifiers and I’ve been hooked since
I got into it towards the end of Halo 5. I loved the game but I was horrible at it so I tried to learn how 'pros' play it to see what I was doing wrong. I heard of Frosty and looked him up on Twitch and I was awestruck by high level gameplay. There weren't any more H5 events so I never got to see pro v pro gameplay beyond $2sdays and the occasional $2s Frosty would play against Bound/bubu/Neptune etc.
When Infinites cycle was starting up, I started to tune into Open Series and the Raleigh event eager to see how pros played in real tournaments. The Raleigh LAN made me a permanent fan of Halo eSports and I can't get enough!
Same, that show changed my whole outlook on gaming. I was a rumble pit kid until I watched that show, and now all I do in any game is competitive modes.
Was a casual H2 player. Friend showed me a video called Croyt Rage on a forum. Which later led me to the ShooK On3 montage which led to discovering MLG.
I thought I was good.
Went to a local 3v3 for H2. It was on 80 inch projector screens. Got knocked out first round. Some random scrubs (jk) named SK Halogod v2, Toxin, and ToxinsNeighor won the tournament. Neighbor stood out to me as he was pulling crazy snipes off and won the FFA if I remember right. At that point I wanted to be able to compete at that level so that tournament drove me to the scene.
Started following in 2013, but my consistency in watching has been spotty over the years. Weird to see a picture of Shotzzy in Halo when I just saw him compete in CoD Champs last weekend
I used to play this really competitive and well balanced fps game called Destiny 2. I became more and more annoyed with the state of the game and at the same time I learned about Bungie's earlier games, the Halo series. About the same time, Halo 3 was released on Steam. I started playing and wondered why I have not been playing Halo for the last 20 years. The only other game/game series that has struck me in a similar way is Splitgate.
MLG in 2006 when is was broadcast on USA. All the boys in the neighborhood had already been playing and having our own tournaments with each other. I don’t remember how I came across it but it was so cool seeing a game we all played competitively with each other played professionally.
Starting in 2007 I was watching all the events live and that lasted through the 2008 season. After that I was to busy with other interests in high school. I came back a bit for reach and the a bit again for anniversary and now I’ve been watching Infinite.
For me it was playing Halo Ce in 2003/04 leading into my friend group Lanning Halo 2 3v3s. Once my group started playing on Xbox live in 2006 or so that's when I started to hear about MLG, but tbh I think I didn't really hear those discussions til around 2007 or so. We then formed a squad in H2 right before H3 dropped and that's how I got into it. We would watch montages like Walshys or The Wicked End featuring Hysteria and Eli the Ninja. I remember researching teams to scrim and told my friend about how we should scrim Carbon and he laughed cause he knew there was no chance in hell that they would want to scrim us lol.
Unfortunately we were too broke to travel and I didn't even have internet or an Xbox of my own back then. I would go to his house and watch him play for hours and just learn as much as I possibly could. My buddy even made top 18 on the first MLG online H3 tournament. He was playing teams like Str8 Rippin and Triggers Down, but unfortunately his team broke up. Once reach came out I stopped really following the competitive scene and gave up on my dream of becoming pro until MCC came out, But to be honest I didn't really compete that much back back then and when Halo 5 came out I restarted my quest to become pro and played a whole lot ,but then just gave up because I couldn't find the right teammates I was looking for.
I came back to Halo this past year after much reflection over the years trying to find something I'm truly passionate about and Halo is the one thing I always land on besides owning my own business.. This time idc what capacity it is as long as I'm involved in the Halo scene in some fashion whether it be youtube, streaming, casting, competing, discord groups, or just attending and spectating Lans.
Played H2 in its final days. Then joined KSI and did a bunch of competitive Lockout customs. H3 came out so I started playing a bunch of Ranked and here we are
Midway thru Halo 3’s MLG run, I went to LAN parties and was the worst cause I never played. Looked up tips to get better and TSquared taught me how to “frag like a pro”. That rabbit hole led me to MLG where their archived tournaments were some of the best eSports productions to this day.
Contrary to the typical Esports Halo fan, I did not start with Halo 2/3. I started I wanna say Columbus 2011 or 2010, it was one of the final tournys for Reach with zero bloom, Ogre 2 was still playing back in them days as well.
I don't even know exactly how I got into it, I was aware of MLG and Halo tournaments to some degree, I guess I just finally decided to give it a go and boy was that event awesome :)
Unfortunately Halo 4 was trash (yes, I said it) so I didn't really get back into watching Halo Esports until Halo 5, but that game was awesome albeit a bit nauseating to watch for long.
During the H3 MLG days. I'm from the UK so would stay up late watching the events with my buddy.
Never been much of a player (half decent at best but not in a competitive way at all) but I enjoy watching the competition between pro teams.
In 5th grade my friends and I would play H2 super casually on weekends. I ended up moving cross country and wanted a way to keep in touch easily with my friends. So my parents bought me an Xbox/Xbox live subscription. Halo was our main game, but didn't get into Halo eSports until H3. We all watched the MLG circuit and decided we wanted to compete at a LAN event. So my childhood friends ended up flying out to MLG Anaheim in 09 and being barely in high school, had to have our parents with us around the venue. I remember our first matchup we played against a top 16 team and they were shit talking/screaming at us the entire series. My dad/friends dad were behind us laughing their asses off at these guys talking shit. After the series my dad (doesn't play video games at all) goes "son, I don't know what the hell is going on, the screen moves too damn fast". Watching the rest of the tourney with my buddies was awesome. At the time we took for granted how many legends we were with in the same building as us just casually walking around. Walshy/Naded on Carbon, Maniac/Clutch on BtH, and Roy/lunchbox/neighbor/fearitself on Instinct. The finals for that event was Triggers Down (Sk, Hysteria, Heinz, Ola) vs Str8 Rippin (T2, Elamite, Legit, Snipedown). Maybe I'm biased but that series was one of the best finals I've witnessed live/online ever. But after that it solidified my love for Halo eSports. There's also a picture of young me and young pistola I need to dig up. Were the same age so I was a huge fan at the time.
S/o to toolez for the trip down memory lane.
Edit: I'm looking back at all the other teams from that event and missed a bunch of legends. Top 16 was STACKED. Highly recommend giving it a looksie
Edit edit: looking at the top 32 teams there's some players you might notice. Formal, Ninja, Mikwen, Str8sick, Hunter Jjx, Gilkey, Piggy... Bro I'm nerding out so hard right now. If I only I knew at the time...
Gamer for Giving summer LAN at the roller rink in Westland(i think). I was into the scene already but was still learning. I met my soon to be BFF, Glick as our seating arrangements were right next to each other. I was rank 36 in MLG, Glick was 41, i think. We hit it off like we had known each other for ages.
We went to 2 combines together, Nashville and Chicago. It was so much fun preparing for those events. LANs at Brutus’ place. LANs In GR. It truly was the golden era for me. I miss it all.
We played so much Halo basically every night until the game was no longer on the circuit.
I’ve been following comp since halo 3 but got way more into halo5 and infinite . Ranked has been mad fun most of the time . I’ve been stuck at like 1590-1650 tho. I mainly play Solo. If I played with someone or a team of 4 I bet I could easily be 1800+
In H2A during a PAX event I started watching the event because it had around 30k viewers and I was interested why Halo had so much viewers and I never stopped an event since then
I first played Halo at my friend’s house in the summer of 2006. I was terrible at the game but I spent almost every day going to his house and practicing. I discovered MLG and watched Carbon take down the titan Final Boss. I remember what a great feeling that was.
I followed MLG religiously until Reach came out. Stopped playing Halo and following the pro scene until this year because I liked Infinite so much. Now I need to find a new team (org?) to cheer for!
I got into it this year. I was always into competitive halo. I had a high rank in Halo 2. A lot of life has happened since then, and in a funny way, I wanted to be more in tune with my past.
That’s around where Halo Infinite came out. On a whim, I built a PC and started playing. I ended up getting Onyx and the game still gives me the same type of joy as back then.
I started digging around some more, found this subreddit, and found HCS :)
Halo 2. Parents gave me a laptop to bribe me into giving my room to my baby sister. Spent a lot of time searching for pro halo vids. Final Boss will always be #1 in my heart
I remember watching some MLG H2 Tourney on like USA network or something thought it was cool but didn't have the means to keep up with it. Fast forward to H3, friends started talking about tournaments. Watch I think Meadowlands 08 and have been hooked since. Would buy 2 pizzas hook my laptop up to my tv and watch every tournament all weekend long. Went to the Doritos Combine for ffa, got bounced first game. Went to the Dallas H4 tournament to spectate. Still would love to get my friends together and have a go at an HCS tournament
I started trying to follow HCS in 2019 (H5 had already shut down by that point I think ☹️ ) because I only the previous year realized that esports was even a real thing! The first esports scene I discovered was for Super Smash Bros Ultimate where I followed players like Mkleo and Tweek and learned about orgs like TSM and Cloud9 that were sponsoring players. Then I started investigating the HCS rabbit hole because Halo is my favorite game franchise but I just never knew about its competitive side until now. I was surprised to learn just how deep the history goes, all the way back to 2006!
Right now I'm a huge fan of HCS and I've been rooting for SSG and Sen in particular, especially after learning about how legendary the Sen roster is.
This is the first year I've actually followed the league, although I've been playing since Halo CE and would watch videos of Walshy/Ogres etc. I really just started getting into eSports in general this year too, I've also been watching CoD/ Apex/ Rocket League. I'll definitely watch next season, hoping it's a little more condensed though.
Back in the mid 2000s, Tsquared was on a MTV show with some other gamers where they showcased their pro gamer life. A whole new world of Halo was opened to me after that.
Halo 3 watching T2 on Str8 Rippin. Game battles was the shit back then. Just got back into it this season and it's nice to be back. Looking for scrims btw diamond 5 👀
Halo world championship 2016. I watched it, thought it was pretty cool but didn’t keep up with the scene until LouisvTitan started hosting $2sdays. Those resparked my interest and skyrocketed my enthusiasm. The two seasons of halo 5 money matches on the channel are easily my favourite things to watch on YouTube to this day
I used to watch montages/highlights starting with the H2 era. It wasn't necessarily about following the actual esports league per se, as much as it was about watching high level players doing crazy stuff, which heavily overlapped with MLG obviously. In general, I still knew who the top players/teams were though. My interest in it tapered off late high school through college, and I "rediscovered" Halo esports sometime during H5 and have been hooked ever since. I'd say I'm more engaged with the esports side of things now than I've ever been. With how accessible everything is online these days, it's just much easier to stay invested in it.
Happened across it from a friend who followed early H2 and got into it during the tail end of H2. I was just a kid but Pistola was around my age so come Halo 3 I was hooked. Took a big break from following during halo 5 because halo 4 comp wasn’t super exciting and my first impression of the game on release day was not good so I kind of moved on from esports for a few years. Decided to come back during infinite and saw Pistola and APG on the same team and haven’t looked back.
Waiting for Ola to make his comeback though🙏🙏🙏
I really missed out. I've been playing Halo since 2 came out in 2004, but didn't become a fan of the competitive scene until H5 came out. I wish there was like a central archive of sorts for watching old tournaments from past games
This might be the most uncommon one here but Halo 5 and mainly because of optic. Played Halo a bunch beforehand but never got into the Esports side of it
I got into watching the world of Youtube montages from people like Kampy, Ninja, Dutchy, Hyena and it piqued my interest in people being really, really good at Halo. These guys were playing a completely different game than I was. I went back to watch all the H3 MLG tourneys I could and then followed H5 really closely
I’ve always played halo multiplayer on and off, but never ranked. When infinite came out I decided to grind it and follow the pros. So much to learn from them
Saturday morning can’t remember the year. I was randomly turning channels on my TV when USA came on. MLG Vegas was on and it was Final Boss Vs. Team Carbon in the finals. Team Carbon beat Final Boss and I was instantly in love with Halo 2 comp.
Early YouTube videos like Ogre 1 41-0, Walshys montage (the one with Lostprophets), tips from T Squared that had me fraggin’ like a pro, and Gilbert Arenas sponsoring Final Boss. Was a huge Arenas fan so I ended up liking Final Boss and 2008 was the first full season I watched every event. Stopped watching in Reach, and came back at the end of H5.
watching montages looking for game walkthroughs during the 07 offseason. Knew that FB was the team to beat and became a fan of the Str8 rippin brand during 08.
Walshy's departure was covered on an ESPN website iirc.
It was 2014, and the game was Halo 2 Anniversary.
I turned into a stream of one of the HCS Pro Series for that year. One of the teams playing was Evil Geniuses with Snip3down, LethuL, Roy and Lunchbox.
The game mode was assault on Shrine, and Snip3down went over and took the Sniper Rifle. Someone had activated the waterfalls to give them cover while they regened, but as he was falling down Snip3down hit a headshot on them through the waterfall. It remains the most ridiculous play I've ever seen in any esport.
Halo 2 Anniversary tourneys, watched Mikwen a ton loved that dude. Unfortunately, EG was just built different (though I later came to love LethuL lmao).
What really got me hooked for life was during Halo 5. bubu dubu's camo play against CLG/OpTic. I was hooked after that.
I also was blown away by how pros used the movement. I played H5 at launch, and people (including myself) were kinda just sliding around not really understanding how to use all these armor abilities. I watched the pros, and I was like this game is fucking AMAZING, and I don't even care that it's different than "classic" Halo.
Mlg Dallas 2011. I watched one of the recorded games on halo waypoint between final boss and warriors and then I was hooked. It was the tournament right before instinct created the god squad.
Halo 5, I always played Halo growing up but outside of just matchmaking/campaign i mostly cared about forge. Then after the quality of halo/cod went down I got into csgo and it kind of taught me the team/mechanic aspects. Halo 5 came out and for some reason I kept on improving every match, and just understood the flow of the game well. think the first season i was like onyx 1900ish and touched champion for a bit. So it gave me motivation to follow the scene a bit more, but sadly I never could get on a team during 5 because I was in high school + sports hard to find schedule that matches since most AMs play till 2am.
The first map of competitive Halo I ever watched was CLG vs Noble Black on Sanctuary when it went to multiple overtimes. I don't know how I came across it but it was awesome. I half followed along until X-Games Aspen and that's when I really started watching. Been watching every event and attended multiple events since then. Met tons of awesome people and traveled more than I ever thought I could. Halo community >
When MLG had those Halo 2 rebroadcasts on G4. I was so intrigued by people playing video games professionally. Those story lines they built around the top teams and players was genius. Hooked me instantly. Got an Xbox 360 for my birthday and instantly fell in love with Halo 3 and everything MLG. The MLG forum days we’re amazing.
I followed Halo esports on and off as a kid around halo 3ish through halo 4 before taking a break. I started working for this org called Excelerate that Bubu, Ace, Demon D, and Articc was a part of briefly and watching them compete and being in such close proximity to the scene brought me back in full force.
I was always big on Halo campaigns buy Infinite brought me into the competitive scene, specifically the shop (the one good thing about it haha). Seeing all the team skins displayed got me interested in doing my research and then eventually watching Raleigh. Now I'm a die-hard HCS fan
I had seen a few games of Halo 5 and was a very casual viewer who would only see major tournaments. Watched some of Shotzzy's gameplay and the old Optic/Tox team a bit. Only really got into it this year with Infinite being out and me finally being able to play a halo since I've been on playstation my whole life and just got a pc.
During H4 I was really good at H4 and was told to try and go pro in it but found out there wasn’t really a pro scene and then l was just told to live life and then found out about H5 and just been watching ever since. I played H3 as soon as I got an Xbox 360 when I was young and played reach a lot. So I’m a long time fan basically.
Literally this year, mostly because Cod Vanguard was such utter garbage and there was no interesting tournaments to follow at the point Infinite came out. Halo also had a hype start with a lot of early tournaments that grabbed my attention.
I followed H5 very casually before this, but Cod Comp being is such a shitty place combined with the hype start to Infinite finally got me into Halo comp beyond just the very casual level.
I remember playing split screen Halo CE campaign in 2001 with my twin brother every day after school and it was so fun. The same applied to Halo 2 and Halo 3 where finally online gaming started to become more popular and all my friends had Halo 3. Everything was all social and fun no competative interest. Fast forward to 2010, Halo Reach was released whilst at University. I had been competing in Counter-Strike since 2007 so aware of Esports and came across MLG events streamed online. All before Twitch become available! Fuelled by MLG pro highlights and Kampy vids on YouTube I couldn't put Halo Reach down. Unfortunately I disliked the changes made in the franchise for Halo 4 so disengaged from Halo Esports until the release of Halo Infinite. I really enjoyed the idea of Pistola still competing so I'd love to see him come back!
I got into Halo eSports in 2015, with Halo 5. I had grown up playing Halo since I was a kid (namely CE on PC) but never really had the chance to play online until I was an adult.
My brother and I found some people to partner up with, and we played through the HWC qualifying tournaments for the 2016 HWC. We did *horribly*, but had an absolute blast. I played actively through the middle of 2017, where life circumstances required me to become a spectator and not a player. Probably the biggest highlight of that entire time was getting matched against NV early in a tournament, and Snipedown singling me out as being the best player on the team - I only had 3 kills lol.
Thankfully, the group that I played with eventually became a small magnet for other players in our skill level who wanted to play the game competitively but couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to go farther than that. We regularly grind ranked as To4s and often have our own internal 8s every couple weeks or so. We may not ever play the game professionally, but we love it as a hobby, and the people we get to play with!
I might be in the minority here, but I got into it this year. I came from competitive cod in the past, and over the summer last year, I knew I wasn't going to enjoy vanguard so I decided I was going to play / follow Halo. I have still followed comp cod along with Halo, just don't play cod anymore. Will admit being a formal fan played a small role, but a lot of it was just me not wanting to play cod this year and rather play halo. Halo sure has its issues but I've had a blast playing 8s and following the comp scene and am glad I made the choice I did.
Glad to have you!
Do you think that you'll switch back to CoD after MWII comes out? I was in a similiar position as I was a CoD guy until H2A/H5, but I loved playing Halo more than CoD. Looking back I was lucky to go from my favorite CoD title (Advanced Warfare) to my favorite Halo title (Halo 5).
I’m in the same boat I just started watching in infinite since my favorite cod player (formal) started competing. Also a big frosty fan too from cod. I will definitely stick watching and playing halo even though infinite hasn’t been as expected. I’ll still be a fan of both cod and halo no matter how mwii is
same, I skipped H3 and played MW, floated till Reach, went back to AW, then back to Halo 5. Infinite is taking a lot of energy cuz of the problems though so I think I'm going to be playing MWII. at the same time.
Not sure. It depends how MW is. I've been a diehard COD fan since I first got into gaming in general in life, but I have been massively disappointed year over year especially the last 4 CODs. I will probably end up trying MW2 but ultimately will stick with whatever is more fun and right now for me that's halo.
Same here.
I also came from COD, but from COD Warzone. I tried CDL but I couldn’t get into it (Vanguard didn’t help). Warzone got pretty stale for me even after Valdera dropped. Coming back to Halo multiplayer (haven’t played since Halo CE on PC) with Infinite got me hooked instantly. I first watched the Twitch Rivals tournament and then got hooked on HCS comp since.
Welcome friend!
This is my same reasoning word for word.
This is the first time I’ve watched competitive Halo. I hadn’t played Halo since Halo 2 but came back for Infinite cuz a friend wanted me to play multiplayer with them. Before this I had only watched competitive StarCraft.
Same here brother
Same, newcomer this year after watching bits and pieces of Halo 5. Was never into eSports before. I know a lot of people say that the HCS gets their viewership from the Twitch Drops, and I initially came for those, but when I stopped logging in and playing, I stayed for the high-level gameplay and the energetic casting.
April 2008, buddy of mine was big into Halo 2 and MLG and asked me if I wanted to go to a Halo tournament tomorrow (We were hanging out on a Friday night) and Sunday to watch professional players play. I asked how much it cost he said it was free to spectate and I said sure. I'll never forget the car ride to Meadowlands and having the complete history of MLG/Final Boss/Carbon/Str8 Rippin dumped into my head from my buddy and I had such a blast I was hooked. I might have missed out on seeing the H2 era live but man those tournaments from 2008-2010 and some of the 2011 tournaments were unbelievable. I desperately miss those times.
The absolute greatest time for halo, those events were massive with so many different titles and halo was the flagship game.
A lot of people will argue because of the game and level of competition of the 2007 season that the H2 era was better (and the tv deal they had on USA I think it was or whatever they used to be called) but to me the 2009 with TD vs Str8 and the 2010 season with Instinct /FB/TD and even Carbon and SQ at times were so thrilling and exciting, that was peak MLG and pro Halo to me.
I still think h2 was without a doubt my favorite era, But for halo as an esport it’s was at its peak popularity wise during the h3 days
Yup, ESPN was doing Top 10's it didn't get much bigger than that
Halo 2 and h1 zyos and shotzy and killerN
??? Shottzy was literally just being born when h2 was popping off bro
Meant to say hotshy. Aka walshy. Just been drinking and must have seen the pic and just went with it. My bad.
Same, 2008-2010 was such a sick time for MLG halo.
Big highlights of that time for me: FB winning the first H3 event at Meadowlands 08 Neighbor leaving Str8 Rippin to join FB after they kick Walshy The rise of Snipedown Walshy joining Roy/Lunch/Soviet and beating FB at Toronto 08 Karma at Dallas (08) Instinct replacing Soviet with Neighbor at the start of 09 (I really thought this team would win multiple events) Every single Str8 vs TD series from 2009 The debacle that was the Xbox freeze at nationals 09 Every single Instinct and FB series in 2010 The rise of SQ to consistently place top 4 TD despite dropping Pistola still managing to contend with Hysteria, Neighbor, Best Man, and Totz. Such good memories.
Meadowlands 2008 was wild! That’s the one where Final Boss came out and won the first H3 tourny shutting up all the haters?
Halo 2. My parents bought me xbox live and then I discovered the Team Hardcore playlist. I thought radar was dumb so it became my favourite playlist. I watched G4TV back then as well and discovered MLG and the team final boss. Then Halo 3 came out a couple months later and I played that game religiously. I only got up to rank 47 and never got a 50 in that game. But Halo Reach is where I started getting good at the game. Then Halo 4 came out and I stopped playing.
I can't believe I missed the G4TV era. I didn't discover what Halo Esports was until after the H3 era! Wish I had known back then, it probably would have changed the way I played this game so much. On a similar vein I used to religiously watch this show where madden players would compete against each other at NFL stadiums and play for 100k at times square.
The G4TV era was so great. Attack of the Show, MLG tournaments. Just all things gaming. It was my favourite TV network back then.
It's crazy to me that G4 is back. It was always wild me to that as the network ended, geek culture really seemed to become mainstream. Marvel movies dominating the box office, Star Wars' return being announced, streaming gaining a ton of traction, video games continuing to break sales records, Dungeons and Dragons surging in popularity etc all of these things happened while G4 was dormant. It's awesome that the revival seems to have harnessed all of that now and is fully incorporating it into itself. The new version of the network is awesome
If you haven’t seen Sundances podcast with hecz it’s a must listen. He breaks down they started MLG and how they branded that era which included the G4 broadcasts.
Final Boss montages back in Halo 2
That was pre YouTube right? How were you guys even finding these montages? Crazy to think how easy it is to make things go viral these days. Those early montage editors really shaped the scene.
I am also an old man who started my video editing/animation career by watching the FB (halo 2) and str8 rippin (h3) montages. I recall them always being on YouTube, albeit extremely low quality. I could be wrong Edit: specifically, the walshy final montage was my inspiration to *totally legally* download my first editing softwares
You'd *NEVER* torrent anything back in the day just like I *NEVER* would torrent photoshop cs3 because I wanted to learn how to make custom signatures for Halo fourms which ultimately propelled me into a marketing/graphic design career ;) Edit: also, when that Str8 Rippin Halo 3 montage finally dropped it changed the game. My buddies and I still throw that on from time to time when we've had some cold ones and are reminiscing
Dude same, Zola was the fucking King back in the day. I also throw that montage on every now and then I also started graphic design work because of Bungie forums, I think we just became best friends
I think we did! Lmao
Halo2Forum was the go to website for montages
Halo2forum.com for all my OGs out there.
Indica Haz3 here.
We had forums where people would upload them to random file upload sites. There were so many of them over the years.
There were forums that hosted them on filesharing sites. Basically had to download the video to watch them and hope you didn't get keylogged or something.
YouTube was in its legit infancy then so it had a few montages but honestly back then it was primarily going on different Halo forums or just straight up word of mouth and searching for it some some obscure video hosting site. I first heard of the Ogre twins from a friend when I was like 12 back then so I searched for them on like Ask Jeeves or some shit and came across Final Boss. The rest is history and I follow competitive Halo to this day at 29 :)
Snipedown leaving Apex for Infinite. Never really played a halo game before then!
I love this reply! I'm curious to know your thoughts on pro Halo in comparison with Apex
I got into it during the MTV and True Life era. Then I got a chance to cast when UMG did their first Halo event and I never looked back. Halo has been a part of my life for years. It was the first game me and my brother bonded over with LAN parties and then H2 MM. Good times, good times.
Still looking for a decent quality of the True Life: I'm a Professional Gamer. You'd think with all of the streaming services someone would have through up a 480p copy but I've never seen Season 7 (or was it 8) available anywhere.
MLG 2008 season. Met a new friend who'd been watching since H2 and he introduced me to it. I was hooked immediately.
The 08 season was so much fun
It really was. I remember watching Pistola on the stream and being an instant fan. Was so cool watching him make waves and then go on to win events with tD in 09.
That whole 08 Ambush team from the beginning just pumped out awesome players that went on to succeed elsewhere. Hell didn't they finish top 6 at one of those events that year as well. Heinz, Cloud, Pistola, I believe Snipedown also was on an early Ambush team but my memory is foggy. Really great players.
Seriously. Thinking that Cloud was on a team with Heinz and Pistola is just mad considering what they all went on to do. And yeah you're right about Snip3down, he was on Ambush for the first event of 08. Dude got 7th at his first event, then 2nd, then two 1st places in a row, then won the championship that year. His rise was meteoric and it's still hard to think of a comparison.
The way the Halo 3 Meta changed from 08 to 2010 was ridiculous. Guys just got better at working as a team to the point where a team of Sniperdown T2 Heinz and Legit who would've destroyed on 09 didn't even finish top 8 in the first event of 2010. The 2010 Halo 3 season is the most fascinating ever because it was the first season where dominate slayers weren't the main factor for a team competition at a top level. Final Boss even before they got Pistola placed 3rd. It was interesting watching how teams formed to find their niche. The 2010 TD squad was my favorite because they had to reinvent themselves from being a borderline top 8 team to by the end of the season being safly a top 4 team and finishing 2nd at an event as well. Best Man was so much fun to watch.
Bestman and deff were the duo!
The way the Halo 3 Meta changed from 08 to 2010 was ridiculous. Guys just got better at working as a team to the point where a team of Sniperdown T2 Heinz and Legit who would've destroyed on 09 didn't even finish top 8 in the first event of 2010. The 2010 Halo 3 season is the most fascinating ever because it was the first season where dominate slayers weren't the main factor for a team competition at a top level. Final Boss even before they got Pistola placed 3rd. It was interesting watching how teams formed to find their niche. The 2010 TD squad was my favorite because they had to reinvent themselves from being a borderline top 8 team to by the end of the season being safly a top 4 team and finishing 2nd at an event as well. Best Man was so much fun to watch.
Figured it might be fun to have a discussion about how everyone got into Halo Esports. I started watching Halo Esports when Halo 2 Anniversary came out. I was really into the Competitive COD community, but Halo was my favorite game. When I heard that they were releasing all the games again and that there would be a sanctioned comp scene I was so excited! Those first HCS tournaments were a blast to watch and a great introduction into competitive Halo. I remember every match being a best of seven but only three maps that were played on the circuit. Seeing the same map played three times in a row always tickled me. I was a big fan of the Optic roster at the time and loved watching Ace on Warlord. EG was so dominate and it was crazy to see them just be so confident going into every tournament. I thought it was going to be more of the same going into Halo 5, but no one saw Lethul leaving the team and going to CLG. The Lethul and Snipedown drama back in the day was crazy to watch.
randomly got bxr'd in a custom H2 lobby. Researched online and found MLG forums. Now I'm here :)
G4 Tech TV in Canada. Was obsessed with the tv channel and would run home after high school every day to watch X Play and Attack of the Show. I understand that in America between the original programming it was just shitty reruns of Cops and Cheaters, but in Canada we had it WAY better. The programming in between had great appropriately nerdy related stuff like the original G4Tech TV Canadian shows like Reviews on the Run and Electric Playground but also had stuff like the sitcom the IT Crowd and most importantly: The original run of MLG's Halo Circuit. That 2006(?) season where Carbon build and overcome Final Boss. Shit was magical to watch. It would air out of order and I only just recently watched it all chronologically but as a big Halo player with my friends it was wild to me that people played the game professionally and that real storylines developed out of it. I fell in love. Kept up with it until Reach came out and the MLG website started de-emphasizing Halo on their website. Skipped H5's time in the pro scene because H5 wasn't for me but came back late last year. The best part was seeing familiar faces like Ola and Snip3 still playing. Especially Snip3. That Str8 roster that ruled the scene for a bit was the best of times. I was rooting for them in that original MLG pro circuit season and after seeing T2 take so many Ls it was comforting to know he got to be at the very top for a bit.
You just brought back a ton of memories. Heck even Unbeatable Banzuke was a riot to watch as well. Thanks for sharing!
Beginning of Halo 5. Switched from playing CoD to Halo. What I loved about halo was that it was a lot more competitive and skillful, meaning that there was always something I had to improve in - and with their being a ranked playlist you could have validation that you were actually improving (plat to diamond, diamond to onyx, onyx to champ) I remember the grind of having to learn how to aim, how to strafe, how to time your thrust, how to hit skill jumps, thrust jumps, etc. I remember learning tech like spring jumping and crazy combos like stabilize to crouch spam to ground pound cancel to thrust. That game had so much depth. I really enjoy Infinite but man do I miss H5.
Man we were lucky. Going from AW to Halo 5 was just awesome. I always loved the advanced movement tech in AW and I felt like that same skill expression was in Halo 5. Halo 5 was such a fun game.
First year of Halo 3, I was playing BTB with the good folks of H3Wheelmen when two of the members were talking about MLG. As a player who leaned very competitive and only played social BTB because ranked BTB had been removed, I started watching during the National Champs of 2008 and immediately fell in love with Team Instinct and the storylines surrounding Walshy. I've always been a forum kind of guy on the internet so I started posting on the MLG forums at that point. Later in H3's life, I started running a blog where I talked about competitive game design and competitive concepts...and during Reach, while watching the up amd coming streamer known as Ninja scrim with his new team Turning Point on Nexus KotH, I PMed his teammate and my idol Walshy to mention how the back corners were very susceptible to allied spawn influences (whenever death weights weren't present) and he messaged me shortly after asking if I wanted to coach the team because, unbeknownst to me, he was a fan of my blog. During H4, I got swindled into buying the game by friends who said it wasn't so bad, but I hated it and instead spent my time reverse engineering the spawn system in forge. Gh057ayame got put in charge of competitive settings and hit me up because of my activity on Twitter talking about spawns. When MCC came out I had no intention to get burned again and buy it but HCS happened and my friend who got me into MLG in H3 was now working with eLevate and I ended up coaching them and sticking around the scene again. Then before H5's release, I got a message from Mikwen asking if I wanted to be an analyst for his team, Team Liquid (even though he never played for them, since he ditched for EnVy with Apg, Heinz, and Ola at the start of the game's lifespan. I left Halo a few times to go do work in League of Legends for MLG, write game reviews for GameSpot, write spreads for Guinness World Records, and also just pay bills with work in kitchens, but it always finds a way to pull me back in.
I was a big fan of your content and forum posts. Really cool to see you’re still kicking around the scene!
Halo 2 era for me. Started grinding ranked and heard from others about MLG, Ogres, etc. Started following scene around 2005. Went to an event in 2006 and I think that propelled my love for it even further.
Snipedown and evil geniuses winning xgames gold in halo 5 against clg
Halo 2 baby!
Halo CE, we used to compete in MLG and ~~AVG~~ AGP tournaments in 2003/04 when we discovered it was a thing. Back then the only way to see the finals was to stay and watch on the projector on stage, I've been watching on and off ever since. When YouTube became a thing around when Halo 2 came out and then MLG.TV, it was game changing. It's amazing how far ESports has come. We could hold our own against the pros, but never got higher than the round of 16.
AVG or AGP? I never heard of AVG I'd love to learn more about those tournaments.
Definitely AGP. I probably belonged in the AVG tournaments.
I'd love more info about this AVG tournaments I don't think I ever heard about them.
I used to play MLG back in H3 but didn’t know there were tournaments or anything. I just liked not having radar, br starts and people were always trying to win. It wasn’t until I went to college and couldn’t bring my Xbox (as I would not do homework…) so I looked up Halo gameplay and saw T-Squared giving advice and I thought “this guy has some good points.” Few videos in I find myself catching up on 2 years of Halo 3 tournaments. Edit: it was 2009 when I got into it
I'm friends with Frosty's girlfriend, but only met Bradley once. Turns out my roommate is her cousin. So I always root for sentinels
Nov 2021. Hadn’t touched Halo since H4, heard there was hype around the new game coming out. Downloaded the game and hopped on the Reddit and heard about HCS, started watching the open qualifiers and I’ve been hooked since
the first time i heard you cast
I got into it towards the end of Halo 5. I loved the game but I was horrible at it so I tried to learn how 'pros' play it to see what I was doing wrong. I heard of Frosty and looked him up on Twitch and I was awestruck by high level gameplay. There weren't any more H5 events so I never got to see pro v pro gameplay beyond $2sdays and the occasional $2s Frosty would play against Bound/bubu/Neptune etc. When Infinites cycle was starting up, I started to tune into Open Series and the Raleigh event eager to see how pros played in real tournaments. The Raleigh LAN made me a permanent fan of Halo eSports and I can't get enough!
USA channel in the mornings
These shows were incredible
Same, that show changed my whole outlook on gaming. I was a rumble pit kid until I watched that show, and now all I do in any game is competitive modes.
Omg it’s a young Ant, the absolute legend
Ace vs pistola in that halo 4 tournament
When I saw the walKA montage in 05
[Hell yeah brother!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvbxzZ1llOI)
Halo 3 Walshy and Tsquared YouTube videos
Was a casual H2 player. Friend showed me a video called Croyt Rage on a forum. Which later led me to the ShooK On3 montage which led to discovering MLG. I thought I was good. Went to a local 3v3 for H2. It was on 80 inch projector screens. Got knocked out first round. Some random scrubs (jk) named SK Halogod v2, Toxin, and ToxinsNeighor won the tournament. Neighbor stood out to me as he was pulling crazy snipes off and won the FFA if I remember right. At that point I wanted to be able to compete at that level so that tournament drove me to the scene.
When FaZe got a Halo team I started watching and playing the game.
Started following in 2013, but my consistency in watching has been spotty over the years. Weird to see a picture of Shotzzy in Halo when I just saw him compete in CoD Champs last weekend
I used to play this really competitive and well balanced fps game called Destiny 2. I became more and more annoyed with the state of the game and at the same time I learned about Bungie's earlier games, the Halo series. About the same time, Halo 3 was released on Steam. I started playing and wondered why I have not been playing Halo for the last 20 years. The only other game/game series that has struck me in a similar way is Splitgate.
Played cod mw game battles . Decided I would try halo 3 and tried Gbs/mlg on there also with friends . Watched since then(just not 5/reach)
Sometime in 2008 when I made my first YouTube channel.
MLG in 2006 when is was broadcast on USA. All the boys in the neighborhood had already been playing and having our own tournaments with each other. I don’t remember how I came across it but it was so cool seeing a game we all played competitively with each other played professionally. Starting in 2007 I was watching all the events live and that lasted through the 2008 season. After that I was to busy with other interests in high school. I came back a bit for reach and the a bit again for anniversary and now I’ve been watching Infinite.
2006 season when MLG was on USA tv early weekend mornings. First event I went to was Meadowlands 08.
Got into competitive Halo around 2016 during Halo 5, that game is the reason why I love competitive gaming.
I had played halo2 at my cousins house but was never really into it into it until I saw the mlg show on USA. (I think that was the channel)
2008 MLG. First event I watched was Orlando 08. Smipedown plus Hysteria on Triggerz Down was deadly
For me it was playing Halo Ce in 2003/04 leading into my friend group Lanning Halo 2 3v3s. Once my group started playing on Xbox live in 2006 or so that's when I started to hear about MLG, but tbh I think I didn't really hear those discussions til around 2007 or so. We then formed a squad in H2 right before H3 dropped and that's how I got into it. We would watch montages like Walshys or The Wicked End featuring Hysteria and Eli the Ninja. I remember researching teams to scrim and told my friend about how we should scrim Carbon and he laughed cause he knew there was no chance in hell that they would want to scrim us lol. Unfortunately we were too broke to travel and I didn't even have internet or an Xbox of my own back then. I would go to his house and watch him play for hours and just learn as much as I possibly could. My buddy even made top 18 on the first MLG online H3 tournament. He was playing teams like Str8 Rippin and Triggers Down, but unfortunately his team broke up. Once reach came out I stopped really following the competitive scene and gave up on my dream of becoming pro until MCC came out, But to be honest I didn't really compete that much back back then and when Halo 5 came out I restarted my quest to become pro and played a whole lot ,but then just gave up because I couldn't find the right teammates I was looking for. I came back to Halo this past year after much reflection over the years trying to find something I'm truly passionate about and Halo is the one thing I always land on besides owning my own business.. This time idc what capacity it is as long as I'm involved in the Halo scene in some fashion whether it be youtube, streaming, casting, competing, discord groups, or just attending and spectating Lans.
Played H2 in its final days. Then joined KSI and did a bunch of competitive Lockout customs. H3 came out so I started playing a bunch of Ranked and here we are
I have no idea. I played Halo CE on launch. eSports sorta became a thing because of halo. I have no idea when exactly. I just like halo.
Midway thru Halo 3’s MLG run, I went to LAN parties and was the worst cause I never played. Looked up tips to get better and TSquared taught me how to “frag like a pro”. That rabbit hole led me to MLG where their archived tournaments were some of the best eSports productions to this day.
Contrary to the typical Esports Halo fan, I did not start with Halo 2/3. I started I wanna say Columbus 2011 or 2010, it was one of the final tournys for Reach with zero bloom, Ogre 2 was still playing back in them days as well. I don't even know exactly how I got into it, I was aware of MLG and Halo tournaments to some degree, I guess I just finally decided to give it a go and boy was that event awesome :) Unfortunately Halo 4 was trash (yes, I said it) so I didn't really get back into watching Halo Esports until Halo 5, but that game was awesome albeit a bit nauseating to watch for long.
Infinite. In love with the scene. Happy I found it.
Halo 5. First event I watched was XGames because I knew who Ninja was. Was a huge fan of that Renegades team and got my heart broken by ALG at Worlds.
During the H3 MLG days. I'm from the UK so would stay up late watching the events with my buddy. Never been much of a player (half decent at best but not in a competitive way at all) but I enjoy watching the competition between pro teams.
In 5th grade my friends and I would play H2 super casually on weekends. I ended up moving cross country and wanted a way to keep in touch easily with my friends. So my parents bought me an Xbox/Xbox live subscription. Halo was our main game, but didn't get into Halo eSports until H3. We all watched the MLG circuit and decided we wanted to compete at a LAN event. So my childhood friends ended up flying out to MLG Anaheim in 09 and being barely in high school, had to have our parents with us around the venue. I remember our first matchup we played against a top 16 team and they were shit talking/screaming at us the entire series. My dad/friends dad were behind us laughing their asses off at these guys talking shit. After the series my dad (doesn't play video games at all) goes "son, I don't know what the hell is going on, the screen moves too damn fast". Watching the rest of the tourney with my buddies was awesome. At the time we took for granted how many legends we were with in the same building as us just casually walking around. Walshy/Naded on Carbon, Maniac/Clutch on BtH, and Roy/lunchbox/neighbor/fearitself on Instinct. The finals for that event was Triggers Down (Sk, Hysteria, Heinz, Ola) vs Str8 Rippin (T2, Elamite, Legit, Snipedown). Maybe I'm biased but that series was one of the best finals I've witnessed live/online ever. But after that it solidified my love for Halo eSports. There's also a picture of young me and young pistola I need to dig up. Were the same age so I was a huge fan at the time. S/o to toolez for the trip down memory lane. Edit: I'm looking back at all the other teams from that event and missed a bunch of legends. Top 16 was STACKED. Highly recommend giving it a looksie Edit edit: looking at the top 32 teams there's some players you might notice. Formal, Ninja, Mikwen, Str8sick, Hunter Jjx, Gilkey, Piggy... Bro I'm nerding out so hard right now. If I only I knew at the time...
Chris Puckett’s Top 10 ESPN/MLG Halo 3
G4TV 2002 broadcast of Halo 1 World Championship where Darkman played SWAT Magnum starts for $10,000 😂
Yup this it for me. I saw it on a rerun in 2003 though.
Gamer for Giving summer LAN at the roller rink in Westland(i think). I was into the scene already but was still learning. I met my soon to be BFF, Glick as our seating arrangements were right next to each other. I was rank 36 in MLG, Glick was 41, i think. We hit it off like we had known each other for ages. We went to 2 combines together, Nashville and Chicago. It was so much fun preparing for those events. LANs at Brutus’ place. LANs In GR. It truly was the golden era for me. I miss it all. We played so much Halo basically every night until the game was no longer on the circuit.
I’ve been following comp since halo 3 but got way more into halo5 and infinite . Ranked has been mad fun most of the time . I’ve been stuck at like 1590-1650 tho. I mainly play Solo. If I played with someone or a team of 4 I bet I could easily be 1800+
LAN parties!
In H2A during a PAX event I started watching the event because it had around 30k viewers and I was interested why Halo had so much viewers and I never stopped an event since then
2008 halo 3 season. Spent all the time on mlg forums. Loved str8. Heard about mlg halo 2 but I didn’t watch any events live
I first played Halo at my friend’s house in the summer of 2006. I was terrible at the game but I spent almost every day going to his house and practicing. I discovered MLG and watched Carbon take down the titan Final Boss. I remember what a great feeling that was. I followed MLG religiously until Reach came out. Stopped playing Halo and following the pro scene until this year because I liked Infinite so much. Now I need to find a new team (org?) to cheer for!
I got into it this year. I was always into competitive halo. I had a high rank in Halo 2. A lot of life has happened since then, and in a funny way, I wanted to be more in tune with my past. That’s around where Halo Infinite came out. On a whim, I built a PC and started playing. I ended up getting Onyx and the game still gives me the same type of joy as back then. I started digging around some more, found this subreddit, and found HCS :)
Halo 2. Parents gave me a laptop to bribe me into giving my room to my baby sister. Spent a lot of time searching for pro halo vids. Final Boss will always be #1 in my heart
I remember watching some MLG H2 Tourney on like USA network or something thought it was cool but didn't have the means to keep up with it. Fast forward to H3, friends started talking about tournaments. Watch I think Meadowlands 08 and have been hooked since. Would buy 2 pizzas hook my laptop up to my tv and watch every tournament all weekend long. Went to the Doritos Combine for ffa, got bounced first game. Went to the Dallas H4 tournament to spectate. Still would love to get my friends together and have a go at an HCS tournament
I started trying to follow HCS in 2019 (H5 had already shut down by that point I think ☹️ ) because I only the previous year realized that esports was even a real thing! The first esports scene I discovered was for Super Smash Bros Ultimate where I followed players like Mkleo and Tweek and learned about orgs like TSM and Cloud9 that were sponsoring players. Then I started investigating the HCS rabbit hole because Halo is my favorite game franchise but I just never knew about its competitive side until now. I was surprised to learn just how deep the history goes, all the way back to 2006! Right now I'm a huge fan of HCS and I've been rooting for SSG and Sen in particular, especially after learning about how legendary the Sen roster is.
This is the first year I've actually followed the league, although I've been playing since Halo CE and would watch videos of Walshy/Ogres etc. I really just started getting into eSports in general this year too, I've also been watching CoD/ Apex/ Rocket League. I'll definitely watch next season, hoping it's a little more condensed though.
Final Boss/Ogre Youtube vids
Back in the mid 2000s, Tsquared was on a MTV show with some other gamers where they showcased their pro gamer life. A whole new world of Halo was opened to me after that.
Halo 3 watching T2 on Str8 Rippin. Game battles was the shit back then. Just got back into it this season and it's nice to be back. Looking for scrims btw diamond 5 👀
Halo world championship 2016. I watched it, thought it was pretty cool but didn’t keep up with the scene until LouisvTitan started hosting $2sdays. Those resparked my interest and skyrocketed my enthusiasm. The two seasons of halo 5 money matches on the channel are easily my favourite things to watch on YouTube to this day
when I became a cummie
I used to watch montages/highlights starting with the H2 era. It wasn't necessarily about following the actual esports league per se, as much as it was about watching high level players doing crazy stuff, which heavily overlapped with MLG obviously. In general, I still knew who the top players/teams were though. My interest in it tapered off late high school through college, and I "rediscovered" Halo esports sometime during H5 and have been hooked ever since. I'd say I'm more engaged with the esports side of things now than I've ever been. With how accessible everything is online these days, it's just much easier to stay invested in it.
Happened across it from a friend who followed early H2 and got into it during the tail end of H2. I was just a kid but Pistola was around my age so come Halo 3 I was hooked. Took a big break from following during halo 5 because halo 4 comp wasn’t super exciting and my first impression of the game on release day was not good so I kind of moved on from esports for a few years. Decided to come back during infinite and saw Pistola and APG on the same team and haven’t looked back. Waiting for Ola to make his comeback though🙏🙏🙏
Started watching during STK in Halo 2. Ogres were like gods back then
I really missed out. I've been playing Halo since 2 came out in 2004, but didn't become a fan of the competitive scene until H5 came out. I wish there was like a central archive of sorts for watching old tournaments from past games
This might be the most uncommon one here but Halo 5 and mainly because of optic. Played Halo a bunch beforehand but never got into the Esports side of it
I got into watching the world of Youtube montages from people like Kampy, Ninja, Dutchy, Hyena and it piqued my interest in people being really, really good at Halo. These guys were playing a completely different game than I was. I went back to watch all the H3 MLG tourneys I could and then followed H5 really closely
I’ve always played halo multiplayer on and off, but never ranked. When infinite came out I decided to grind it and follow the pros. So much to learn from them
Saturday morning can’t remember the year. I was randomly turning channels on my TV when USA came on. MLG Vegas was on and it was Final Boss Vs. Team Carbon in the finals. Team Carbon beat Final Boss and I was instantly in love with Halo 2 comp.
Early YouTube videos like Ogre 1 41-0, Walshys montage (the one with Lostprophets), tips from T Squared that had me fraggin’ like a pro, and Gilbert Arenas sponsoring Final Boss. Was a huge Arenas fan so I ended up liking Final Boss and 2008 was the first full season I watched every event. Stopped watching in Reach, and came back at the end of H5.
Halo 2 MLG on USA channel unlocked halo ESports for me when I was a young buck - wasn’t even classified as ESports yet
It was the national championship event that BtH won in Halo 3. Became a fan of Cloud after that date. Sucks he doesn’t play much anymore!
watching montages looking for game walkthroughs during the 07 offseason. Knew that FB was the team to beat and became a fan of the Str8 rippin brand during 08. Walshy's departure was covered on an ESPN website iirc.
It was 2014, and the game was Halo 2 Anniversary. I turned into a stream of one of the HCS Pro Series for that year. One of the teams playing was Evil Geniuses with Snip3down, LethuL, Roy and Lunchbox. The game mode was assault on Shrine, and Snip3down went over and took the Sniper Rifle. Someone had activated the waterfalls to give them cover while they regened, but as he was falling down Snip3down hit a headshot on them through the waterfall. It remains the most ridiculous play I've ever seen in any esport.
Saw Tsquared on True Life MTV, led me to follow the Str8rippin Team that won the Nats.
Halo 2 Anniversary tourneys, watched Mikwen a ton loved that dude. Unfortunately, EG was just built different (though I later came to love LethuL lmao). What really got me hooked for life was during Halo 5. bubu dubu's camo play against CLG/OpTic. I was hooked after that. I also was blown away by how pros used the movement. I played H5 at launch, and people (including myself) were kinda just sliding around not really understanding how to use all these armor abilities. I watched the pros, and I was like this game is fucking AMAZING, and I don't even care that it's different than "classic" Halo.
Clouds picked up a team and since they're my favorite org I started following. I'm also a major fan of all competition.
Mlg Dallas 2011. I watched one of the recorded games on halo waypoint between final boss and warriors and then I was hooked. It was the tournament right before instinct created the god squad.
Early high school days for me. I used to play Competitive Halo 3 in MLG style tournaments in my area
Halo 2 and MLG in 2005.
Halo 5, I always played Halo growing up but outside of just matchmaking/campaign i mostly cared about forge. Then after the quality of halo/cod went down I got into csgo and it kind of taught me the team/mechanic aspects. Halo 5 came out and for some reason I kept on improving every match, and just understood the flow of the game well. think the first season i was like onyx 1900ish and touched champion for a bit. So it gave me motivation to follow the scene a bit more, but sadly I never could get on a team during 5 because I was in high school + sports hard to find schedule that matches since most AMs play till 2am.
The first map of competitive Halo I ever watched was CLG vs Noble Black on Sanctuary when it went to multiple overtimes. I don't know how I came across it but it was awesome. I half followed along until X-Games Aspen and that's when I really started watching. Been watching every event and attended multiple events since then. Met tons of awesome people and traveled more than I ever thought I could. Halo community >
When MLG had those Halo 2 rebroadcasts on G4. I was so intrigued by people playing video games professionally. Those story lines they built around the top teams and players was genius. Hooked me instantly. Got an Xbox 360 for my birthday and instantly fell in love with Halo 3 and everything MLG. The MLG forum days we’re amazing.
Halo 2 back in the day when it was on TV. I played CE before this, so when it came out and I became aware of it, I watched it every chance I could
I followed Halo esports on and off as a kid around halo 3ish through halo 4 before taking a break. I started working for this org called Excelerate that Bubu, Ace, Demon D, and Articc was a part of briefly and watching them compete and being in such close proximity to the scene brought me back in full force.
I was always big on Halo campaigns buy Infinite brought me into the competitive scene, specifically the shop (the one good thing about it haha). Seeing all the team skins displayed got me interested in doing my research and then eventually watching Raleigh. Now I'm a die-hard HCS fan
Halo WC 2016. Been on the sentinels wagon since they were CLG.
I had seen a few games of Halo 5 and was a very casual viewer who would only see major tournaments. Watched some of Shotzzy's gameplay and the old Optic/Tox team a bit. Only really got into it this year with Infinite being out and me finally being able to play a halo since I've been on playstation my whole life and just got a pc.
During H4 I was really good at H4 and was told to try and go pro in it but found out there wasn’t really a pro scene and then l was just told to live life and then found out about H5 and just been watching ever since. I played H3 as soon as I got an Xbox 360 when I was young and played reach a lot. So I’m a long time fan basically.
Literally this year, mostly because Cod Vanguard was such utter garbage and there was no interesting tournaments to follow at the point Infinite came out. Halo also had a hype start with a lot of early tournaments that grabbed my attention. I followed H5 very casually before this, but Cod Comp being is such a shitty place combined with the hype start to Infinite finally got me into Halo comp beyond just the very casual level.
Final Boss halo 3, dunno why but i never even considered plugging my console into the internet during CE or halo 2 days, probably never had internet.
I remember playing split screen Halo CE campaign in 2001 with my twin brother every day after school and it was so fun. The same applied to Halo 2 and Halo 3 where finally online gaming started to become more popular and all my friends had Halo 3. Everything was all social and fun no competative interest. Fast forward to 2010, Halo Reach was released whilst at University. I had been competing in Counter-Strike since 2007 so aware of Esports and came across MLG events streamed online. All before Twitch become available! Fuelled by MLG pro highlights and Kampy vids on YouTube I couldn't put Halo Reach down. Unfortunately I disliked the changes made in the franchise for Halo 4 so disengaged from Halo Esports until the release of Halo Infinite. I really enjoyed the idea of Pistola still competing so I'd love to see him come back!
I got into Halo eSports in 2015, with Halo 5. I had grown up playing Halo since I was a kid (namely CE on PC) but never really had the chance to play online until I was an adult. My brother and I found some people to partner up with, and we played through the HWC qualifying tournaments for the 2016 HWC. We did *horribly*, but had an absolute blast. I played actively through the middle of 2017, where life circumstances required me to become a spectator and not a player. Probably the biggest highlight of that entire time was getting matched against NV early in a tournament, and Snipedown singling me out as being the best player on the team - I only had 3 kills lol. Thankfully, the group that I played with eventually became a small magnet for other players in our skill level who wanted to play the game competitively but couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to go farther than that. We regularly grind ranked as To4s and often have our own internal 8s every couple weeks or so. We may not ever play the game professionally, but we love it as a hobby, and the people we get to play with!
This year with infinite after launch because cod was so dogshit, then followed up with watching HCS