HCS Major Kansas City 2022 Event Recap: Sentinels Clinches Its First Halo Infinite Major

Kanishka Thakur

May 19, 2022 • 2 min read

The Halo Championship Series is underway with the HCS Kansas City being the latest major in the circuit. Sentinels took home the Championship after dominating some of the biggest teams in the circuit to win its first Halo Infinite Major which featured a prize pool of $250,000.

HCS Major Kansas City Recap

The Kansas City Major featured an open bracket where teams fought through a double-elimination bracket. The top four teams made it to the group stage while the next four teams made it to the Championship bracket.

16 teams from North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Mexico fought against the top four Open Bracket teams to earn seeds. The last four slots were filled by teams that advanced via the open bracket. The matchups were decided in a best of five format featuring Capture the Flag, Stronghold, Slayer, and Oddball.

Placement	Team	Prize Money	HCS Points
1	Sentinels	$140,000	25,000
2	Cloud9	$84,000	15,000
3	OpTic Gaming	$42,000	11,000
4	eUnited	$21,000	9,000
5-6	FaZe Clan	$11,200	8,000
5-6	Pioneers	$11,200	8,000
7-8	Acend	$7,000	7,000
7-8	Quadrant	$7,000	7,000
9-12	G2 Esports	$3,150	5,500
	Fnatic
	XSET
	Gamers First
13-16	EasternMediaGG	$2,100	4,500
	Complexity Gaming
	Spacestation
	PIT Knights
17-24	Built By Gamers	$1,400	3,000
	JLINGZ esports
	BLVKHVND.EU
	LOU Red Wolves
	Chiefs Esports Club
	Luminosity Gaming
	Team Cruelty
	Natus Vincere

Sentinels vs Cloud9 was the highlight of the entire event with the champions handing C9 its first LAN loss at the event in a 3-1 victory in the winner's semifinal. Cloud9 made a comeback from the lower bracket for a rematch but Sentinels simply refused to budge and secured a clean 4-0 victory.

Cloud9 simply could not keep up with the brilliance of the Sentinels roster. Despite being one of the most dominant teams in the circuit, the team could not match up to Sentinels’ aggressive playstyle. Renegade, who is one of the top players for C9 and he simply did not pull off enough of his signature clutches. After averaging an impressive 1.32 K/D throughout the event, he was shut down by Sentinels who kept him at a paltry 0.97 K/D.

The last time Sentinels was this dominant in Halo esports was during its winning streak during Halo 5: Guardians days. The current roster has earned the 2016 and 2017 world championships and it will be looking to leave a mark in Halo Infinite as well. Sentinels coach Royal1 has played an important role in shaping the success of the current roster and it will be interesting to see how his team performs in the next Major.

Sentinels will want to retain its position as the top Halo team in the scene at the next major which will take place in Orlando. Fans will have to wait four months before they see their favorite teams in action once again. Cloud9 and OpTic have been dominant teams in Halo Infinite esports but they need to iron out issues if they want to match up to Sentinels’ caliber.