Here is the recap of the events that took place on March 18-20 in Hollywood, California.

Quarterfinals and Semifinals

Day 1

The first day of the championship had no real surprises, and we saw two of the North American giants - Team Liquid and Team Allegiance – moving forward in Group A.

The same results were seen in Group B, where teams from Europe and Australia simply couldn’t make it through. The other two NA teams – Renegades and Evil Geniuses – made it into the quarterfinals.

Group C was dominated by Team eLevate (NA), who had a real blast at the Coliseum map. The other team that made it through was Denial eSports, who left behind two other teams from Europe and Australia.

The last set, Group D, showed who was the real frontrunner for the best Halo 5 team in the world - Counter Logic Gaming. Their run in all the series was simply impeccable. Also, Epsilon eSports was the only European team that made it into the quarterfinals.

Watch all the highlights of the HWC 2016 Day 1

Day 2

The second day of the championship was marked with a quick loss of the only European team that had the potential to make it into the semifinals. But unfortunately, Epsilon Esports (UK) got smacked by Team eLevate with 0-3 loss.

Renegades and Team Allegiance match-up was tough, and many predicted the Renegades to win. However, Brett “Naded” Leonard from Allegiance gave its team that so much-needed 3-2 victory.

Unsurprisingly, Counter Logic swept Evil Geniuses with 3-0 victory, and showed once again that they are truly deserving of the champions’ title.

The last match started strong for Team Liquid that almost made it with 2-0, but then Jesse “Bubu Dubu” Moeller from Denial eSports used tactics that allowed his team to reverse sweep the match-up and take 3-2 victory over Team Liquid.

The semifinals saw eLevate, the team that had such an amazing run the whole series, lose to Team Allegiance – whose Brett “Naded” Leonard brought another victory to the teams profile.

The other match between Denial and Counter Logic seemed to go in the Denial’s favor first, but fortune was at CLG’s side. They took the win with a 2-4 result.

Watch all the highlights of the HWC 2016 Day 2

Grand Finals

The final day of the HWC had two of the best teams fighting against each other – Team Allegiance vs. Counter Logic Gaming.

The first match-up took place on the Coliseum map with Capture the Flag game. After a few uncertain moves by both teams, the CLG finally discovered a way to quickly sweep three wins in a row resulting in 0-3 victory.

The second match-up brought two teams on The Rig map with Slayer game, where the contenders had to find all the power weapons and kill as many enemies as they could. This game ended with a strong advantage of CLG’s team members over Allegiance bringing in 50-22 winning result.

The third match-up saw CLG giving no time to breathe for Allegiance on the Plaza map in Strongholds mode. In this game, the teams needed to capture and hold at least 2 out of 3 points, which CLG executed almost perfectly, taking in the 100-15 victory.

After all these games, there was no doubt that on the final Fathom map with another Capture the Flag match-up, CLG would become the Halo World Champion team, thus taking the top prize of $1,000,000.

Watch all the highlights of the HWC 2016 Day 3

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

Day 1 (Main Stage)

Day 1 (Secondary Stage)

Day 2 (Main Stage)

Day 2 (Secondary Stage) (Part 1)

Day 2 (Secondary Stage) (Part 2)

Day 2 (Secondary Stage) (Part 3)

Day 3 (Grand Finals)

What do you think about the performance of the teams at this years HWC? Share your opinions in the comments section.