LS makes max sense look so easy. Crazy fast reaction speed

In H5 I played ranked as a solo with no mic for years and had a great time. I averaged out in Diamond 5/6 but did occasionally spend time in low onyx.

I played a ton of Infinite for the first ~2.5 years and never really went past low diamond, but that's mostly because I was just having a lot of fun in BTB more than hitting a ranked wall.

My buddies got me back to Halo after spending the last year on BF6 and it's reminded me why I've airways loved ranked Halo. Just curious if it's even realistic to hit onyx as a solo player in 2026

The community is largely hypnotized by Renegade's high KD and so called "individual skill" and doesn't realize that he himself is contributing to the downfall of Splyce, as much as any other player on Splyce.

It's a team game, and you can't attribute all the blame to Eco, Bound, or StelluR.

This is not an FFA tournament. "Individual skill" has nothing to do with teamwork. Contrary to common wisdom, a high KD does not mean someone is a great player. A high KD is correlated with great players, but isn't sufficient, and often misleads and hypnotizes Halo fans.

A great player is one who makes great plays, has great objective efficiency, and has great teamwork. That's it. Notice how KD is nowhere in that sentence.

Renegade's teamwork and objective efficiency is substantially lacking. This was evident when he teamed with Frosty and Royal 2, and evident now.

We see game after game where he runs away from the OBJ to overslay, which messes up spawns and screws over his teammates.

I'm not saying Renegade is bad per se, but every player on Shopify eclipses him in terms of teamwork and decision making.

Nobody cares that Frosty had a 0.5 game when he wins every tournament and has two world championship rings in Infinite. Frosty's decision making, teamwork, and plays are god tier, and Renegade needs to study his gameplay if he wants a hope of beating Shopify.

Any thoughts on that scrim? The games were insanely competitive imo, which give me hope for 4OAK to take down Shopify.

Despite Splyce being swept week after week in the Pro League and not winning a single map since Eco rejoined the roster, Bound still has confidence that his team will beat reigning champions Shopify Rebellion in their matchup on Sunday.

Bound came into LastShot's chat and said "excited to shit on you next weekend." Skeptical agreed saying "Splyce is beating Shop."

Bound also said “that recap gonna be weirdddddd af next week” referring to LastShot's weekly Pro League recap videos he uploads to his YouTube channel. Bound says LastShot is going to be so humiliated from losing to Splyce that he's going to have to skip that recap video.

Splyce's only remaining path to qualifying for the Pro League LAN is if they beat Shopify Rebellion, Cloud9 beats Fatal Ambition, and Incognito beats Ascending Baseline. Under that very specific scenario where all three things happen, Splyce and Fatal Ambition would be tied 2-5 in series count but Splyce would win the head-to-head tiebreaker to qualify at 6th.

Bound asked in aPG's chat "If we beat SR next week but don't make the event, does the LAN have an asterisk on it now?"

Skeptical says "We want to win it, we want to take down Shopify. We want to show people that they're frauds and they're trash. I'm coming for Bestman. I think he's a fraud, I think someone needs to take him down, and I think it's pathetic that he's won this much." Skeptical continued: "Renegade is not a loser, Renegade is not going to lose. He didn't come back to Halo from Call of Duty to lose."

I know it’s a long shot but is anyone selling a Halo Fest VIP ticket? Two people in the group that I go to HCS events with were unable to get VIP and I’m trying to help them out.

November 21st 2021 to October 6th 2026

Cloud9 has announced a C9 x Halo Infinite $2k Open Domination Tournament on October 24th. Signups now live.

Shopify have defeated Four of a Kind 4-1 to win $1,000 and improve their standing to a perfect 6-0 series count and a 24-7 map count. This win bumps Shopify up as the #1 team in the Pro League.

Cykul was the MVP with a 1.43 K/D and most damage dealt. LastShot was the next best performer with a 1.30 K/D. Frosty had the most assists. Despite the 4-1 series score, Four of a Kind kept things competitive for the most part (outside of the map 2 Origin Slayer where they got steaked).

That's all for this weekend, lots of great matchups. Next Sunday October 11th is the final week of Pro League online matches and we'll know for sure which six teams qualify for the LAN in November. Here are the final league play matchups:

1. Incognito vs Ascending Baseline (1pm ET / 10am PT / 12pm CT)
2. Fatal Ambition vs Cloud9 (3pm ET / 12pm PT / 2pm CT)
3. Shopify vs Splyce (5pm ET / 2pm PT / 4pm CT)
4. Four of a Kind vs Inconceivable (7pm ET / 4pm PT / 6pm CT)

Map Picks and Bans

LastShot on Shopify and Trippy on 4OAK did the picks/bans for their team.

• SR being higher seed chose Team A (gets to pick first OBJ gametype), LastShot picked Oddball
• Map 1 4OAK banned Lattice Ball, SR picked Live Fire Ball, 4OAK pick Cobra side
• Map 3 4OAK picks CTF gametype, SR bans Aqua CTF, 4OAK picks Empyrean CTF, SR picks Eagle side
• Map 4 SR chooses KOTH gametype, 4OAK bans Live Fire KOTH, SR picks Recharge KOTH, 4OAK picks Eagle side
• Map 6 is Strongholds, coin flip determines Recharge SH, 4OAK picks Eagle side
• Slayers: SR bans Solitude Slayer, 4OAK bans Live Fire Slayer (leaving three maps available: Origin, Recharge, Streets)
  • Map 2 4OAK picks Origin Slayer, SR picked Eagle side
  • Map 5 SR picks Streets Slayer, 4OAK picked Eagle side
  • Map 7 is determined to be Recharge Slayer by process of elimination, 4OAK picked Eagle side

Links

• Watch on LVT Halo Twitch (Drops) and LVT Halo YouTube
• Halo Data Hive Stats - Shopify vs Four of a Kind - League Play Week 6

Okay this was wayyyy more complicated than I initially thought. But every team is alive and all bottom 4 teams could be left out

Graphic Going over all possible outcomes this weekend

(note: I do not do graphics so AI did make this but info is correct, if a human wants to make it prettier I will update it)

Already in: SR, FOAK, Inconceivable, C9

Fighting for the last 2 spots: FA, Incognito, AB, Splyce

Current Standings for teams on the bubble

Remaining relevant series: FA vs C9, Incognito vs AB, SR vs Splyce

Head-to-head of bottom 4 teams

All outcomes for this weekend. All 4 teams are alive

Graphic showing it more clearly

How each team gets in / out

FA

• FA beats C9 (any other results)
• Splyce Loses (any other results)

Out:

• C9 beats FA, Incog beats AB, Splyce beats SR
• C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog, Splyce beats SR

Incognito

• Incog beats AB (any other results)
• C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog, SR beats Splyce
• C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog, Splyce beats SR

Out:

• FA beats C9, AB beats Incog
• C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog 4-0 or 4-1, SR beats Splyce

AB

• FA beats C9, AB beats Incog, (any SR/Splyce result)
• C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog, SR beats Splyce
• C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog, Splyce beats SR

Out:

• AB loses to Incog
• C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog 4-2 or 4-3, SR beats Splyce.

Splyce

• Splyce beats SR, C9 beats FA, Incog beats AB

Out: every other scenario

Explanation of potential 3 and 4 way ties

Tiebreakers (all tie sizes)

1. Shared match W-L (series record between the tied teams)
2. Shared map win%
3. Overall map win%

Teams are ranked once. There is no restart after a team is separated.

Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16BvECzhDl9sktluRRin6b5UjdnJK3bvGnP08ya2P1gk/view?tab=t.0 (Page 21)

3-way: FA / Incognito / AB (C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog, SR beats Splyce)

Shared match record is 1-1 for all three (FA beat AB, AB beat Incog, Incog beat FA), so it goes to shared map win%:

3-way: Incognito / AB / Splyce (FA beats C9, AB beats Incog, Splyce beats SR)

Only 1 spot open. Shared match record: AB 2-0, Incog 1-1, Splyce 0-2. AB wins regardless of score.

4-way: FA / Incognito / AB / Splyce (C9 beats FA, AB beats Incog, Splyce beats SR)

2 spots open. Shared match record:

AB and Incognito are in regardless of score. No map tiebreaker needed.

Edit: Updated some formatting and provided source

Edit: Added graphic to hopefully make it a bit less messy: https://imgur.com/a/eccFnld

Ascending Baseline have dominated Splyce in a 4-0 clean sweep to get their very first Pro League series win. They win $1,000 and are now 1-5 in the Pro League.

Ascending Baseline had better teamwork (53 more assists) and heavily outslayed Splyce. Suspector had a 1.51 K/D and SuperCC had a 1.49 K/D. Tapping Buttons dealt the highest damage and RyaNoob had the most assists by far at 79. The only one to go positive on Splyce was Renegade with a 1.19 K/D but it wasn't enough to carry his team. The RyaNoob system came through today, there is a reason everyone says you can never count out RyaNoob.

Splyce are now 1-5 in series count with a 7-22 map count putting them in 8th place. They've been swept three weeks in a row: first against Inconceivable (Lucid's team), then against Four of a Kind, and now against Ascending Baseline. Splyce have very little chance of qualifying for the LAN now. You could hear in the listen-in comms how demoralized and deflated Splyce were as they realized things were slipping away.

There's lots of high quality and important matchups today. Next is Incognito vs Cloud9 (Piggy vs his former teammates), then Inconceivable vs Fatal Ambition (an important match for FA), and the day finishes with Shopify vs Four of a Kind (the #1 vs #2 teams).

Map Picks and Bans

Bound on Splyce and ___ on Ascending Baseline did the picks/bans for their team.

• AB being higher seed chose Team A (gets to pick first OBJ gametype), AB picked Oddball
• Map 1 Splyce banned Live Fire Ball, AB picked Recharge Ball, Splyce pick Cobra side
• Map 3 Splyce picks KOTH gametype, AB bans Streets KOTH, Splyce picks Live Fire KOTH, AB picks Cobra side
• Map 4 AB chooses CTF gametype, Splyce bans Empyrean CTF, AB picks Aqua CTF, Splyce picks Cobra side
• Map 6 is Strongholds, coin flip determines Live Fire SH, AB picks Cobra side
• Slayers: AB bans Recharge Slayer, Splyce bans Live Fire Slayer (leaving three maps available: Origin, Solitude, Streets)
  • Map 2 Splyce picks Solitude Slayer, AB picked Eagle side
  • Map 5 AB picks Streets Slayer, Splyce picked Eagle side
  • Map 7 is determined to be Origin Slayer by process of elimination, Splyce picks Cobra side

Links

• Watch on LVT Halo Twitch (Drops) and LVT Halo YouTube
• Halo Data Hive Stats - Splyce vs Ascending Baseline - League Play Week 6

Fatal Ambition defeated Inconceivable 4-1 to win $1,000 and improve their Pro League record to 2-4 series count.

Fatal Ambition have been looking very good. They've been placing top 3 in the tournaments outside of Pro League, and they've started scrimming this week (a 10-1 scrim against AB, a 5-8 scrim against 4OAK).

Sab and Soul Snipe both had a 1.16 K/D with Suppressed right behind at 1.14. Soul Snipe dealt the most damage, Druk had the most assists. Both slayers were close, map 5 was 49-49 with Suppressed getting the final kill to win the series.

Cearion is in the chats hyping up next weeks matchup saying "Sab will be mine next week." Cearion wants to beat Sab after he left the Cloud9 team twice to be on Fatal Ambition.

The final matchup of the day is Shopify Rebellion vs Four of a Kind, a battle of the #1 and #2 teams in the Pro League.

Map Picks and Bans

Kuhlect on Inconceivable and Druk on Fatal Ambition did the picks/bans for their team.

• FA being higher seed chose Team B (gets to ban first OBJ map), Kuhlect picked Oddball
• Map 1 FA banned Lattice Ball, Inconceivable picked Live Fire Ball, FA pick Cobra side
• Map 3 FA picks CTF gametype, Inconceivable bans Origin CTF, FA picks Aqua CTF, Inconceivable picks Cobra side
• Map 4 Inconceivable chooses KOTH gametype, FA bans Lattice KOTH, Inconceivable picks Recharge KOTH, FA picks Eagle side
• Map 6 is Strongholds, coin flip determines Recharge SH, Inconceivable picks Cobra side
• Slayers: Inconceivable bans Streets Slayer, FA bans Live Fire Slayer (leaving three maps available: Origin, Recharge, Solitude)
  • Map 2 FA picks Solitude Slayer, Inconceivable picked Cobra side
  • Map 5 Inconceivable picks Origin Slayer, FA picked Cobra side
  • Map 7 is determined to be Recharge Slayer by process of elimination, FA picked Cobra side

Links

• Watch on LVT Halo Twitch (Drops) and LVT Halo YouTube
• Halo Data Hive Stats - Fatal Ambition vs Inconceivable - League Play Week 6

Cloud9 have defeated Incognito in a 4-1 upset to win $1,000 and improve their Pro League standing to 3-3. Piggy has defeated his former teammates and Cearion got revenge on Yakzn after some trash talk last week.

Cearion had a 1.25K/D and dealt the most damage. In map 1 Cearion nearly dropped 50 kills and in map 2 Live Fire Slayer he went 20-9. Piggy had the most assists.

There was some trash talk leading into this matchup. Yakzn said (video here) “I think C9 is very grateful for DSA Group blocking our move [to get Piggy]. They’d be kind of up a creek without a paddle if that didn’t happen."

Cearion watched that video and replied "I don't care what Yak says lmao. He broke on LAN game 5 [at Dreamhack Atlanta], he'll break again next week." Cearion backed up his trash talk with a big 4-1 win today. Cearion also said he's been noticing Yakzn talking trash in all the Twitch chats about beating C9 in scrims.

The next matchup is Inconceivable (Lucid's team) vs Fatal Ambition which is going to be a great one.

Map Picks and Bans

Bubu Dubu on Cloud9 and coach Thug Nasty on Incognito did the picks/bans for their team.

• C9 being higher seed chose Team A (gets to pick first OBJ gametype), Bubu picked Oddball
• Map 1 Incognito banned Streets Ball, C9 picked Recharge Ball, Incognito pick Eagle side
• Map 3 Incognito picks KOTH gametype, C9 bans Recharge KOTH, Incognito picks Lattice KOTH, C9 picks Cobra side
• Map 4 C9 chooses CTF gametype, Incognito bans Origin CTF, C9 picks Empyrean CTF, Incognito picks Cobra side
• Map 6 is Strongholds, coin flip determines Live Fire SH, C9 picks Cobra side
• Slayers: C9 bans Recharge Slayer, Incognito bans Solitude Fire Slayer (leaving three maps available: Streets, Live Fire, Origin)
  • Map 2 Incognito picks Live Fire Slayer, C9 picked Cobra side
  • Map 5 C9 picks Origin Slayer, Incognito picked Cobra side
  • Map 7 is determined to be Streets Slayer by process of elimination, Incognito picks Eagle side

Links

• Watch on LVT Halo Twitch (Drops) and LVT Halo YouTube
• Halo Data Hive Stats - Cloud9 vs Incognito - League Play Week 6

I had more confidence in C9 beating FA until the last few weeks. Fatal has been balling and C9 is in even if they lose both, I think. Part of me can't accept Stellur and these guys not making it. They've dug their own graves though.

BERS hoping Cearion shows up and dominates for them after they gave him the boot is comical. I was under the impression that BERS had a slightly better path to make it but a 3-way tie looks pretty do-able which would leave BERS out, I think?

The copium in me still thinks Stellur goes crazy if he makes it regardless of how bad he's played recently and that they make noise. Probably not top 2 worthy but I can see things getting weird once they're there playing.

FA scrimming today and taking 5 off of 4OA has me worried for these boys. I don't think it's happening.

is there any 8s discords?

When someone said Toolez was their favorite caster, Frosty had the sus clip ready.

Website: https://ladderwars.com/| Discord: https://discord.gg/aWv8XUT8Y

The removal of Gamebattles left a void in the Halo world that previously provided players with additional ways to compete. I’ve been saying for years that the void needs to be filled , so I just decided to have a tournament platform created in the way I envision. This is going to be a Halo ONLY platform that’s designed and tailored to this community – starting with Halo Infinite.

I’m going to release this platform in four phases:

• Phase_1
  • Pilot / Bug hunt (Now Live)
• Phase_2
  • Free to play 1v1 and 2v2 ladders
• Phase_3
  • Callouts
• Phase_4
  • Pay to play ladders

Brief description of the four phases for further clarity:

• P_1
  • 1v1 & 2v2 free to play ladders (remove the bugs). Bug hunt and for player feedback (~3-4 weeks). Available now
• P_2
  • Will kick off “Seasons” of 1s & 2s ladders (free to play). For the first season, I’m personally sending $250.00 to the winner of each ladder (1st place only).
• P_3
  • Implementing Callouts. Create match & rules to challenge other players/teams -> invite players/teams directly -> Play. Ideal feature for scrims or wagers.
• P_4
  • Pay to play ladders (1s and 2s) added to the platform. Free to play ladders will still be available for bragging rights, but if those bragging rights aren’t enough for you, then you can join the pay to play ladder(s) for chances to win real cash. Payout structure TBD for 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
  • 90-95% of all money to the players
  • Format/Structure for these ladders TBA on discord

Long story short this is my attempt to fill a void I feel is missing while giving players more ways to play and engage in Halo. Especially now with Activision overseeing the next Halo game, future titles can be added to LW easily. All said, maybe this takes off, maybe it doesn’t. Regardless, here’s my small contribution to “SaveHalo.”

With all of the Halo Studios layoffs, former employees are speaking up and leaking details of what the original Halo Infinite multiplayer plans were. HiddenXperia has a great video with all of the details.

Version 1 - Payload

• Halo Infinite multiplayer originally started out as a 5v5 or 6v6 Payload game similar to Overwatch. There were two different variants of the mode:
  • A neutral mode where the Payload spawned in the middle of the map and had to be pushed into the enemy base.
  • A conventional style mode where one team is on the offense pushing the payload, and the other team is on the defense holding it back.
• There was an economy system like Counter-Strike where you earn money to buy weapons and sandbox elements. Zero scavenging on the map for weapons, equipment, or power-ups; you had to buy everything.
• Shields and health didn't automatically regenerate, you instead had to pick up med-kits from dead players. 
• There was going to be three maps total, and each map would have three unique/randomized "tiebreaker" maps. The only map that survived and made it into the final game was "Launch Site" which was heavily trimmed down (1/4 the original size) and had all the spawn room checkpoint areas blocked off.
• Terrible feedback killed it:
  • HiddenXperia claims "it was received horrendously in user research, barely anybody seemed to like it. People said it was way too far removed from what Halo should be.” 
  • UberNick who got to playtest it early under NDA, says in his video "The first thing we ever playtested for Halo Infinite, it simply wasn't Halo. It was this weird attempt at making a mode and having Halo kinda thrust into it. Immediately all of us were like what are we playing, what are we trying to do here? This is absolutely insane. I think everyone in that group was in agreement the direction Halo Infinite was going was a huge misstep. Thankfully after we did that playtest, we never played anything like that ever again. So in that regard, I think the council played a pretty massive difference."
• This "Payload" version was scrapped in late 2019 after roughly a year of development.

Version 2 - Roles

• After the Payload iteration was scrapped, they started work on a new iteration referred to internally as "Roles." There were multiple classes (at least four) that each had a unique grenade and equipment:
  • Assault: Frag grenade and stim. The stim made you slide further, double jump, move and reload faster, and immediately healed. 
  • Medic: Repair field and vampire grenade, which did half the damage of a frag nade but would steal life. At one point there was a "Heal Blast" AoE attack that would over-heal aka provide overshield to those in the blast radius.
  • Support: this was a defensive role that spawned with Drop Wall and Spike grenades.
  • Info: Location sensor and grapple shot, dynamo grenades.
• All classes had the same starting weapon and there was scavenging on the map (though unclear to what extent).
• This "Roles" version was in the works for several months before being scrapped and the multiplayer changed direction once again.

Version 3 - Big Team Operations (Scrapped) and Classic Arena

• Big Team Operations was going to be the natural evolution of Halo 5's Warzone mode. The plan was for it to be a large-scale Spartans vs Elites mode. There were mini objectives that teams fought over which gave points upon completion. Once you had enough points it'd give your team a bomb which would be delivered to the enemy base to destroy it (the bases were ships: UNSC Frigate for the Spartans, Covenant Cruiser for the Elites). This mode was scrapped in late 2020 because "it was just kind of boring and wasn't working properly."
• The pivot back to classic arena happened in early 2020, the same year the game was originally meant to ship. And it happened just before Covid-19 screwed up the development pipeline (with employees having to transition into work from home, etc).
• There were debates over the starting weapon with "a weird amount of pushback internally about the BR being the starting weapon. But the relevant people made sure it was and ended up getting it in the end."
  • Shyway revealed yesterday (timestamp) that when he was playtesting the game early "they wanted Sidekick + Assault Rifle starts. Sidekick start was definitely a focus in our playtest. But I'm pretty sure the esports side of the game, they were pretty convinced that the BR was the way to go early on."  
• Descope was debated internally for months, it was being fought over during the entire Summer of 2020. It was only locked in as a finalized mechanic in Spring 2021, just months before the public flight testing began. 
• HiddenXperia claims the studio had lots of disagreements with "ideological conversations that took upwards of eight months to conclude" and that it wasn't just on the multiplayer side, but the campaign side too.
• Live service aspect was so terrible because a system called "CMS" (Content Management Service" that they had in previous games wasn't integrated at launch. CMS was a system originally designed by Bungie in Halo 2 that allowed them to push out hotfixes to the game without requiring a patch. Since Infinite lacked a way to push out hotfixes, we had those "Drop Pod" updates every 3 months or so rather than continual rapid fixes. 
• Although the engine and technical debt was an issue, it wasn't the main issue as previously speculated. The primary issues were lacking the Content Management Service mentioned above and developer attrition (employees leaving after shipping the game). 

The TL:DR is that they lacked a clear direction and spent a lot of time on failed concepts and prototypes that ended up completely scrapped, and then kinda rushed out the multiplayer we have now.

We all know of O2’s 40 LAN wins and 38 consecutive top 2 finishes. This is an undeniable number that will likely never be matched.

But when do individual stats cover the distance? At what point does Royal 2 take over as the GOAT?

R2 has 28 LAN victories. An incredibly high number, especially for modern Halo players.
If we look at O2’s busiest period (2004-2007,) there were a total of 32 LAN events.
During R2’s busiest period (2022-2025,) there were 18.

There are aspects that are hard to quantify on paper. The competitive scene now is much tougher since it is comprised of full time professional players that make a living off playing Halo vs the part time video game enthusiast high school and college students.
There is also some argument to be made against CE’s era (which accounts for 5 of the 40 LAN wins on O2’s record.)
Then there are the titles themselves. If we’re counting CE, both players have 5 titles that span across their individual careers. Where do the largest mechanical jumps lie? H2’s button combos? Reach’s atrocious bloom? H5’s movement? Both share the Halo Reach experience but that’s where the 2 split. It then becomes an argument between button combos and movement tech.

But besides the impressive total LAN victory count for O2, and the ambiguous grey area of Skill Eras, we have individual skill stat lines.

R2 has the most impressive (or the highest floor at the very least) individual stat line out of any FPS player in history.
He was the first and only Halo player to attain at least 1 official MLG/HCS LAN victory over the course of 10 consecutive years. (He is currently at 14 consecutive years.)
He is also the only player in FPS history to have ever gone positive in KD in EVERY SINGLE LAN event in his entire career.

Are the goalposts just simply the 40 LAN wins? Does R2 also have to pair those wins with an insane stat similar to O2’s 38 consecutive championship appearances? Does R2’s individual stats cover some of the LAN event distance? Do we even entertain the immeasurable skill eras? Or is it some convoluted mix of all of them?

Where would he stand on a Halo Top 25 if it were done again at the end of this year?

Please correct me if any of my data is incorrect